When the Office Calls Again

Why the “Return to Work” Feels Like a Step Backward - And What You Can Do Instead

The best thing many of us thought we could keep from Covid appears to be coming to an end: hybrid work. Without much consideration for workers, employers are ending the work-from-home privileges and mandating a return to the office, often even five days a week.

How did we do this before? Will this actually make things better, or worse again?

The September “Return”

Leading up to the Labour Day long weekend, a wave of companies pushed for a full return to the office. Toronto’s big banks are some of the latest to mandate it, and they’re not alone. The timing feels symbolic: as if summer is over, playtime is over, and it’s back to business as usual.

“Get back in line: Summer’s over, playtime’s over, back to business as usual.”

But for many workers, this isn’t a return at all. It’s a loss. A loss of flexibility, a sense of autonomy, and the ability to shape work around life instead of the other way around. Hybrid schedules weren’t perfect, but they were at least a middle ground. Now, for a lot of people, the pendulum is swinging fully back in the employer’s favour.

Employers justify their decision with ideas of increased productivity and collaboration. And of course, the “culture” will improve by gathering everyone back around the water cooler. But from the worker’s point of view, it’s not so simple. The commute is back. The rigid schedule is back. The small but meaningful freedoms, like throwing in a load of laundry between calls, picking up kids from school, eating a home cooked lunch at home, are all gone. Back to paying for coffees and office lunches, which are now more expensive than ever. This is not just inconvenience, but a change in lifestyle.

And for some, it’s the beginning of burnout all over again.

Everything Popular Is Wrong

I’ve said it before: I don’t believe in work-life balance. That phrase always sounded like a secret code for being unhappy on at least one side of the equation. Balance is the wrong word. It’s more about integration than keeping two competing forces from tipping the scale. Balance isn’t the goal, living is. Getting work and life to flow together. Sometimes work demands more, sometimes life does. Freedom is when there’s room for both.

A full return to the office chips away at that integration. Suddenly, it’s no longer about flexibility; it’s about presence. Not presence in the meaningful sense of being engaged, but in the physical sense of filling a chair in a building. Being present for 40 hours a week has very little to do with productivity. That kind of rigidity pushes people to start thinking about “balance” again, when what they actually need is integration: the freedom to live and work in a way that feels whole.

The corporate idea right now is that being back in the office is “better.” Better for productivity, better for culture, better for business. That may be true for boardrooms and real estate investors, but it’s not true for the people who actually do the work. Everything popular is usually wrong. And the popular thing right now, dragging people back into office towers without asking whether it makes life better, feels like one more example that nobody needed.

When Burnout Knocks