The Great Resignation is Over, but the Great Resentment is Just Beginning

For a brief moment, it felt like work had changed forever.

Commutes disappeared. Parents had dinner at normal hours. People moved closer to family, farther from expensive cities, and built routines that didn’t revolve around traffic. Productivity didn’t collapse. In many cases, it improved. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom found remote workers were more productive and less likely to quit in controlled studies.

Fast forward to 2026, and the vibe has shifted. Companies across industries have pushed employees back into offices. Some require three days a week. Others demand five. The flexibility that once felt permanent now feels conditional. The obvious question is: if remote work delivered real benefits, why aren’t workers collectively pushing back harder?

The answer isn’t that we’ve stopped wanting it. It’s that we’re exhausted, and the “fight” has become a lot more complicated than a simple ultimatum.

The Lever Has Moved

The most glaring reason for the silence is the job market itself. In 2021, if your boss told you to get back in your seat, you could quit and have three remote offers by Friday. Today, the leverage has swung back to the employers. With economic uncertainty loitering in the background, the fear of being “first on the chopping block” is real.

According to recent labor statistics, nearly 47% of companies requiring a five-day office schedule now plan to terminate or discipline employees who don’t comply. When your mortgage is on the line, “fighting the system” feels a lot less like a heroic stand and more like a reckless gamble.

The Job Market Changed the Mood

When labor markets were tight, workers had leverage. Companies were competing for talent, and flexibility was a powerful recruiting tool. But the landscape shifted. Layoffs in tech and other sectors made headlines throughout 2023 and 2024. Hiring slowed. Remote job listings declined from their pandemic peak, according to research by WFH Research.

When people feel replaceable, they don’t make demands.

In uncertain markets, job security becomes more important than work location. It’s hard to rally around flexibility when you’re worried about keeping your paycheck. Remote work might improve quality of life, but it doesn’t feel worth risking employment over.

That fear — quiet and practical — explains a lot of the silence.

The Strategy of the “Soft Layoff”

There’s also a growing suspicion that these Return-to-Office (RTO) mandates aren’t actually about “synergy” or “collaboration” at all. They’re what some are calling “soft layoffs.”

It’s a cynical but effective move: if a company needs to reduce headcount by 10% without paying out millions in severance or taking the PR hit of a mass layoff, they simply mandate five days in the office. They know that a certain percentage of people—parents, caregivers, and those who moved hours away during the pandemic—simply won’t be able to make it work.

A recent study by BambooHR found that 25% of executives and 18% of HR professionals admitted they hoped RTO mandates would lead to voluntary resignations. It’s hard to fight for a seat at the table when the table is being used as a weapon to push you out the door.

Employers Have Incentives to Pull People Back

The push toward return-to-office (RTO) isn’t purely about collaboration. Real estate commitments, long-term leases, and downtown economic pressure all play a role. Commercial vacancy rates remain elevated in major cities, and local governments have openly encouraged companies to bring workers back to revive urban business districts.

There’s also a cultural factor. For decades, management equated visibility with productivity. Even though research from Gallup shows engagement depends more on clarity and management quality than physical presence, old habits are hard to break.

Some companies frame RTO as collaboration-driven. Others quietly use it as a filtering mechanism — knowing that stricter in-office policies may reduce headcount through attrition without formal layoffs.

When leadership wants people back, they often get their way.

The “Bad Apple” Effect

We also have to be honest: a small group of people may have ruined it for the rest of us. We’ve all worked with someone who became a ghost the moment they went remote—unreachable, unproductive, and clearly “multitasking” to the point of negligence.

Management, often lacking the tools to measure actual output, has defaulted to the easiest metric they have: physical presence. Instead of managing the underperformers, they’ve decided to punish the entire class. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom has noted that while hybrid work typically has a neutral impact on productivity, fully remote work can see a 10% dip if not managed correctly. That 10% is all the ammunition a traditionalist CEO needs to call everyone back to HQ.

Remote Work Was Never Equal

It’s also important to acknowledge something uncomfortable: remote work isn’t universally beneficial.

For some roles, especially those requiring hands-on collaboration or secure environments, being physically present makes sense. For some individuals, remote work brought isolation, blurred boundaries, and burnout. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index has repeatedly highlighted how digital overload and endless virtual meetings create a different kind of exhaustion.

Hybrid models emerged as a compromise, and for many workers, that feels reasonable.

But the debate isn’t simply remote versus office. It’s about autonomy. The frustration many employees feel isn’t about commuting alone — it’s about losing choice after proving the model could work.

Why Collective Action Feels Unlikely

If remote work improved productivity and employee satisfaction, shouldn’t there be stronger resistance?

In theory, yes!

In practice, collective action requires coordination and risk tolerance.

Unionization remains relatively low in many industries. Knowledge workers are geographically dispersed. And unlike wages — which are clearly measurable — work location is often treated as a policy preference rather than a core labor right.

There’s also fragmentation. Some employees prefer hybrid. Others are fully remote by necessity due to caregiving or health constraints. Still others don’t mind being in-office. That lack of unified demand makes it difficult to organize around a single goal.

When priorities differ, momentum fades.

So, Is Remote Work Over?

Not exactly!

Data from Pew Research shows a significant share of workers with remote-capable jobs still work from home at least part of the time. Hybrid work appears to be stabilizing rather than disappearing entirely.

What’s fading is the expectation that remote work is a default right.

The pandemic temporarily shifted power toward employees. As economic conditions cooled, that balance reset. Employers regained confidence. Workers recalibrated risk.

The silence isn’t apathy. It’s pragmatism.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The reality is that the office as we knew it in 2019 is gone, regardless of what the mandates say. You can force a body into a chair, but you can’t force engagement, loyalty, or creativity.

If companies want to win the long game, they need to stop looking at the clock and start looking at the work. Until then, the “Great Resentment” will continue to simmer. We might be back in the office, but we haven’t forgotten what it felt like to have our time—and our lives—back.

The revolution isn’t over; it’s just waiting for the next shift in the wind.

Further Reading: Do Recruiters Actually Look at LinkedIn — or Is It Just Career Theater?