Return to Office Without Illusions: Why Global RTO Tightens, While Ukraine Chooses Hybrid
The global work model that just a few years ago seemed permanently transformed is being reconsidered again. Large international companies are bringing employees back to offices en masse, scaling down remote formats and tightening control over physical presence. For some workers this feels like a step backward, for business it looks like an attempt to regain manageability and predictability in processes. At the same time, in Ukraine this movement has a different nature. Formally, the trends look similar, but the reality in which Ukrainian companies operate is fundamentally different. Time for Action has analyzed what exactly has changed in work formats, why businesses are once again investing in offices, and why hybrid work has become the main compromise between company needs and the realities of life during the war. In the global context, the return to offices is increasingly accompanied by strict rules and sanctions. Large corporations introduce mandatory presence, track attendance, and effectively force employees to choose between the office and leaving with compensation. In this model, the office stops being a space for collaboration and increasingly turns into a tool of control. This causes resistance, but for business it appears to be a way to restore discipline after a long period of remote work.
The Ukrainian market is moving differently. Here, hybrid work dominates, not daily offline presence. Most companies choose two to three office days per week and leave room for individual decisions. The reason is not only values or corporate culture, but objective conditions. Security risks, power outages, internal and external migration make a rigid office-only model unrealistic and often ineffective. In Ukraine, the office has stopped being a symbol of control and has become an infrastructure of stability. During blackouts it provides electricity, internet, heat, sometimes access to shelters and basic working conditions. That is why during outages office attendance increases even in companies with free coworking formats. For many employees, the office becomes not a limitation, but a point of support.
Companies adapt to this reality in different ways, but common features are evident.
First, decisions about offline presence are tied to roles. Managers, junior specialists, and teams with a high need for interaction are more likely to work from the office. Senior specialists and narrow experts retain more freedom.
Second, businesses invest in energy independence and safety. Generators, backup internet, water and fuel reserves have become part of office infrastructure rather than exceptions.
Third, offices are optimized for hybrid work. Fewer fixed desks, more meeting rooms, coworking spaces, and areas for collaboration. Space is planned not for full attendance, but for variable load.
Post List
It is also important that the office has stopped being a universal answer to the question of productivity. Even companies themselves admit that the effect of returning to offline work is difficult to measure in numbers. Instead, they observe qualitative changes. Faster approvals, easier onboarding, stronger horizontal connections between teams. But these effects appear where the office is used as a tool for interaction, not as a way to check who spent how many hours at a desk. At the same time, research and employee sentiment show something else. For most people, flexibility remains key. A significant share is ready to look for a new job if a company fully cancels hybrid or remote work. Many openly say they are willing to give up part of their income for the opportunity to work from home a few days a week. This is a signal that business cannot ignore without consequences for engagement and trust.
Ukrainian discussions around offices increasingly converge on a common conclusion. The format itself does not automatically make a team effective or ineffective. What remains decisive is management maturity, clear processes, transparent expectations, and a focus on results rather than physical presence. In this logic, the office is just a tool. Useful, but not universal. In the end, it can be said this way. The world is moving toward stricter rules, but Ukrainian business is forced to look for a balance between global trends and local reality. Hybrid work today looks not like a compromise of weakness, but an adaptation to life during war. And it is precisely this that allows combining business interests with human resilience.
And how do you experience this personally does the office help you work better or, on the contrary, exhaust you and where for you is the line between flexibility and company requirements?
About the Author
Related posts:
Export as Strategy: Why Accidental Success Doesn’t Work 
Labor Market 2026: How Staff Shortages and Wage Growth Are Changing the Rules for Business 
Marketplaces as Leverage: How Ukrainian Brands Are Changing the Rules of the Game with International Retail 
The New Labor Code and Employment Reform: What the State Is Really Changing in Ukraine’s Labor Market
