Return-to-office policies, even four years after the pandemic, remain in flux, indicating a high failure rate for employers, says Nick Bloom, Stanford professor and work-from-home expert who has been studying the future of work extensively since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

According to a recent LinkedIn post, Bloom considers a second attempt or other revisions of an RTO policy to indicate "a failed RTO." His research shows many employers are still struggling to find a return-to-office policy that works well, he says.

In a new study titled RTO 2.0: Return to "In-Person," Bloom and his co-authors report that 38% of employees surveyed have faced two or more return-to-office distinct policy changes since 2020. The report surveyed 8,000 workers living in the U.S. between the ages of 20 and 64. In addition, 6% of survey respondents said their employer flip-flopped on RTO policies five or more times during this period, according to the report, which was sponsored by online hybrid and remote teams platform company Gable.