The latest Flex Index is one of the clearest signals yet that we are stuck in a cycle of illusion. Executives continue to tighten their grip on office mandates, but the data shows employee behavior barely moves. Policies rise, attendance flatlines.
This was the focus of a conversation hosted by Work Forward and Kadence with Brian Elliott, Prithwiraj Choudhury, Lauren Falkner, and Dave Cairns. What stood out in the discussion was not only the data itself, but the pattern it revealed: leaders doubling down on control while the evidence piles up that it does not deliver results.
Mandates Without Impact
Brian Elliott broke it down with the Flex Index data. Office requirements have gone up 12 percent in the past two years, yet attendance has barely nudged upward. The message is unmistakable. Mandates do not change behavior in any meaningful way.
Elliott’s challenge to leaders was pointed. The problem is not simply that attendance has stalled. It is that executives have failed to ask the harder question: what is really driving this disconnect? Without that understanding, every new mandate is just another layer of wishful thinking. Leaders cannot govern by rules alone. They need to connect workplace presence to outcomes that matter.
Evidence Over Assumptions
Prithwiraj Choudhury reminded us that the stakes are higher than attendance figures. His research shows that return to office mandates do not just fail to improve performance. They often backfire.
This is more than a critique of mandates. It is a warning. Leaders who use return to office as a blunt tool for cost-cutting are trading short-term savings for long-term stagnation. The evidence is clear: financial performance does not improve when mandates rise. What does improve performance is intentional flexibility, backed by data, designed for the way people actually work.
Hybrid in Practice
From the ground, the story sounds different again. Lauren Falkner spoke about how ZoomInfo has approached hybrid with structure. Yes, there are expectations for those within commuting distance. But it is not about forcing compliance. It is about making the office matter.
Falkner’s perspective was practical and unambiguous. A mandate, she argued, only makes sense if it creates clear value for both the individual and the business. At ZoomInfo, the office is not a default. It is a tool. It is where culture is reinforced, where collaboration has a purpose, and where company expectations are aligned with employee gains. That is what it looks like when workplace operations connect directly to performance.
From Data to Operations
As Dave Cairns steered the discussion, the takeaway became clear. Hybrid only works when leaders move beyond policy and make it operational.
Brian Elliott stressed that mandates and badge swipes are surface-level metrics. What matters is whether time in the office creates measurable business value. Prithwiraj Choudhury’s research showed that short-term return to office policies may cut costs but do not improve performance. And Lauren Falkner explained how ZoomInfo aligns office use with real work needs, ensuring attendance is tied to purpose rather than compliance.
Together, their perspectives point in the same direction. The companies that win are not those enforcing rules but those using data, research, and workplace design to turn hybrid from an abstract policy into a functioning system.
Where Leaders Go From Here
The Q3 2025 Flex Index leaves little room for doubt. Mandates might shift policy, but they do not shift performance. Data is the only way to prove whether office time creates real value. And hybrid is no longer a debate about perks or compliance. It is an operations challenge. The leaders who succeed will be the ones who treat hybrid as a system to be designed and run with the same discipline as any other part of the business.
At Kadence, this is exactly where we focus. Helping organizations connect data with policy, scheduling, and space so workplace strategy becomes workplace operations. Because the future of work will not be won through rules. It will be won through systems that make work better for people and performance alike.
If you would like to explore how Kadence can help you build workplace operations that drive performance, book a demo with our workplace operations experts today.
