Last month, US President Trump doubled down on his push for a widescale return to the office, declaring, “Nobody’s going to work from home, they’re going to be going out, they’re going to play tennis, they’re going to play golf.”
“You might work 10% of the time, maybe 20%,” he added.
A return to office is part of President Trump, and Elon Musk’s, broader campaign to make the US government “better, more efficient and smaller.” In January, President Trump signed an executive order mandating the end of remote work for some federal workers.
All told, his comments have reignited the debate over the future of remote work and its impact on productivity.
Several prominent companies like Amazon, Dell and JP Morgan have recently implemented return-to-office (RTO) mandates.
However, surveys of HR professionals by Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the representative body in Ireland, found the majority of companies here report no significant difference in productivity between hybrid, fully remote, or on-site work.
CIPD Director Mary Connaughton told Prime Time that hybrid work is often seen as more productive.
About two-thirds of companies are sticking with their current hybrid patterns, while a quarter are changing their policies, according to the most recent CIPD HR Practises in Ireland survey.
“60% of our respondents have said that their company’s productivity has increased since Covid, and we can see that in the economy. Our economy is booming versus the number of extra employees that we have in the labour force,” Ms Connaughton said.
Before the pandemic, the vast majority of Irish employees, almost two million, never worked from home. However, during the pandemic the scale of remote working exploded to a peak of 850,000.
The trend has been evolving since then. The most recent CSO figures suggest the rate of employees who never work from home is steadily growing and those who usually work remotely is slightly falling, now at its lowest rate since the highs of 2021.
Across the EU, significant national differences in remote working exist, with countries like Cyprus and Greece showing lower rates while Ireland has the second highest rate in the bloc. 72.5% of Irish employees that can work remotely – partially or fully – do.
Yet, despite having one of the highest remote working rates in the EU, other research suggest fully remote opportunities may be declining.
Figures from hiring platform IrishJobs show that the proportion of fully remote vacancies on their platform has fallen by more than 80% since the high recorded in the third quarter of 2022. However, the proportion of hybrid working vacancies, as a share of total vacancies, has remained stable at 10.7% for the second successive quarter.
Among companies, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus around how efficient workers are at home.
Remote working productivity levels have been a constant concern for one third of all businesses, according to a recent Dublin Business Outlook survey produced by Dublin Chamber.
For the Irish base of AI security company, CalypsoAI, the importance of on-site engagement and collaboration is behind its decision to require most staff to be in the office four days a week.
CEO Donnchadh Casey told Prime Time that while remote work has its place, it introduces friction that hinders the rapid innovation and team cohesion crucial for their business.
“On any individual day being in the office may not be as good for one or two people, but for the company productivity is far greater,” Mr Casey said.
Citing the conversations that can happen in an informal, short duration compared to a scheduled video call, Mr Casey maintains there are obvious efficiencies to working in person.
“Working remotely you have to find a slot in somebody’s calendar, probably book half an hour because nobody books ten minutes, jump on a call with that person in a few hours time and then have a brief conversation or send them a slack and hope they see it in the moment.”
“Being in the office can just cut through all of that friction,” he added.
Research and Development workers spend two days in the CalypsoAI office because “they operate in a different way, both as individuals and as teams”, according to Mr Casey who also acknowledges that recruitment is more difficult when requiring the majority of staff to attend the Dublin city centre office four days a week.
“There are a bunch of great candidates we speak to who we just don’t think it’s the right fit, not because they can’t do the job but because they want to be remote or they want to live in another county.”
In a fast-growing company with many new and young employees, the importance of in-person work outweighs the drawbacks, the company believes.
“We work in a very fast-moving world where speed is everything. We have all of the best tools out there – Slack, Google Meet, Zoom – but while that helps remote work it doesn’t remove the friction completely.”
“I don’t think we could move as fast if we had everybody working remotely.”
Right to remote work?
Since last year all employees in Ireland have a legal right to request remote working arrangements.
While the law represents progress, there remains no automatic right to remote work.
Latest figures obtained by Prime Time show that as yet nobody has successfully won a case taken under the legislation at the Workplace Relations Commission.
Seventeen cases taken since March 2024 have either been withdrawn, settled, mediated or ruled against. The remaining 21 complaints are awaiting a hearing or decision by an Adjudication Officer.
At the Department of Social Protection, staff were told recently they had to come into the office more frequently – from a minimum of once a week to twice.
Trade Union Fórsa said the department had acted unilaterally and outside the terms of an agreed framework. It instructed its members to maintain their existing hybrid working schedule and not comply with the new in-office attendance requirements.
“It was a complete bypass of the framework,” Aisling Cusack, Policy and Research Officer, told Prime Time.
“For any review to take place we need to evaluate the business needs case and see if that has changed, but also see what the impact on the worker is, what is the impact on the organisation, and then what is the impact on wider society?”
The department maintains that it developed and shared an updated blended working policy with the unions in November 2024 and engaged in discussions, making revisions based on union feedback. A dispute resolution process is now under way and the changes to remote work practices are on hold.
“I think the argument around remote work has to move away from quantity and the number of days people are spending working in the office and instead, we should form the discussion around quality,” Ms Cusack said.
“It just doesn’t really stand up that people cannot communicate because they’re working remotely. If that were the case, how would we have provided services during the pandemic? How would multinational organisations link in with colleagues to deliver services across the continent?”
Figures obtained by Prime Time show rates of remote work vary across civil service organisations.
At the Department of Social Protection, 12% of staff currently work one day a week in the office, while 60% of the department’s total employees have some form of blended working arrangement.
Meanwhile, 82% of Revenue staff work remotely, while 75% of Department of Justice staff are also approved for remote work.
Rates are lower in departments such as Agriculture, Food and Marine at 44%, Foreign Affairs 44% and Education at 34%. Direct comparisons are difficult as departments have varying amounts of roles that cannot be done remotely.
‘Hushed Hybrid’
At the vanguard of the private return to office mandates are high-tech US companies.
Tesla boss Elon Musk has previously suggested that remote working is “morally wrong,” arguing office workers stay home while factory employees, delivery drivers and others can’t. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, suggested last week that staff working on artificial general intelligence should be in the office five days a week, working 60 hours a week.
But while some firms are increasing in-office days in Ireland, the experience here may be quietly deviating from the corporate mandate, according to Mary Connaghton.
“A newer concept called ‘hushed hybrid’ sees a manager agreeing with some of his team that they can work from home against company policy. They are doing that to retain their people where they trust they will continue to perform their job,” she said.
Asked whether some employers may be attempting to downsize without paying redundancies through return to office mandates, Ms Connaughton said it is inevitable in a period of full employment that retention will be an issue if remote work is reduced.
“I don’t believe companies are making those decisions blindly. I don’t know whether it’s a drive to have a headcount reduction but certainly they have to be aware of the implications.”
While some companies are mandating more office days, many still maintain flexibility, especially for new hires or roles requiring on-site collaboration. Flexible working options are crucial in a tight labour market, many contend, where employees increasingly seek work-life balance and reduced commuting time.
Remote work has played a crucial role in supporting the government to overcome some key national challenges, according to Ms Cusack.
Working from home has opened up housing options for those who have been willing to relocate along with reducing carbon emissions caused by commutes, she told Prime Time.
“These are things that need to be considered when talking about remote work, because we can’t just say that there might be an impact on productivity or there might be an impact on communication without looking at some of the wider benefits that society has experienced over the last number of years.”
Donnchadh Casey, CEO of CalypsoAI maintains that while larger companies with more established workforces may have successfully navigated remote work, the benefits will diminish over time.
“People get new jobs and as those staff are swapped out they’re replaced with employees who don’t have the relationships or experience.
“If you strip out the organisational cohesion that greases the wheels of all companies, firms start to move a lot slower.”
Mr Casey believes an ongoing reliance on remote work in Ireland could ultimately diminish the country’s attractiveness to outside investment.
“If companies arrive in Dublin and they look around and all of the employees are actually based elsewhere, then Ireland becomes a little bit less attractive.
“The pendulum is swinging back towards the office, particularly in the tech world.”
Reporter Louise Byrne and producer Isabel Perceval’s report on remote working broadcasts on Prime Time on RTÉ One and on RTÉ Player on 4 March at 9.35pm.
