Apr 11, 2026
After most workers went fully remote when the world "shut down" during the pandemic, there's been a push to get them back into the office over the past few years. But, those return-to-office (RTO) efforts have not been entirely successful.
In one survey (1), 8 out of 10 business leaders admitted to losing talent as a result of RTO mandates. And 41% of hybrid workers said they would start looking for another job if their company mandated five days in the office, according to a December 2024 Stanford-led survey (2).
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Employees at Superhuman, which offers AI assistant apps including Grammarly, dug in their heels when a two-day in-office mandate was introduced last April. It was met with "negative energy and sentiment," chief people officer Kenny Mendes told Business Insider (3).
So, the San Francisco-based company moved from mandates to financial incentives. Now, a third of Superhuman employees who live near one of its offices come in four or five days a week.
"I've been really shocked at how well it's working," Mendes said (4).
How they sweetened the deal
As Superhuman's CPO explained to Business Insider, employees who "opt in" to work from the office two days a week get $500 each quarter in the form of a wellness stipend, which can be used for things like child care, gym memberships, grocery delivery and cleaning services.
It's a more for more model so, if employees choose to bump up their in-office days to five a week, they get up to $2,000 in quarterly stipends.
Mendes says they went from "pulling teeth to get people in two days a week" to employees showing up 85% of the time they committed to.
Although he noted that the company also worked on improving office culture, introducing daily lunch and social hours, the benefit of improving someone's bottom line can't be discounted.
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According to a report (5) by Care.com (6), families, on average, spent $323 a week, or $4,199 a quarter, on child care last year. That means, Superhuman employees who pay for day care could knock off about half of their bill simply by coming into the office each work day (a cost they'd likely incur even if they work from home).
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What workers value
As companies like Superhuman look to lure remote and hybrid employees back into the workplace full time — or more often — it's not just money that they may need to put on the table.
According to Owl Labs' 2025 State of Hybrid Work Report (7), other than compensation and salary, some of the most important things to employees surveyed include:
- Good technology (85%).
- Being able to work flexible hours (83%).
- Being able to work flexibly in terms of days (82%).
- Having their own dedicated desk or office (78%)
- Learning and educational opportunities (77%).
- Flexible or nonexistent dress code (71%).
- Attractive office environment (71%).
And when remote/hybrid workers were asked what they would expect if they were mandated back full time, less than a quarter (22%) responded that a pay increase would make up for the loss of flexibility (5% would quit).
On the flip side, according to WTW's 2024 Flexible Work Models Pulse Survey (8), almost half (48%) of remote/hybrid workers said they'd take an 8% pay cut just to avoid returning to the office full time.
This suggests financial incentives could work both ways, as employers and employees grapple over where work could and should be done.
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
Resume Builder (1); WFH Research (2); Business Insider (3,4); Care.com (5,6); Owl Labs (7); WTW (8)
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Tara Losinski is an associate editor for Moneywise.
