Working from home or the office? The perfect balance – what science says

Mercedes means business – and the debate is heating up

The current situation at Mercedes-Benz illustrates just how charged this topic has become. The company has terminated its existing works agreement on mobile working; in the future, full-time staff are expected to work from the office four days a week . The leverage behind this is controversial: if no new agreement is reached, all employees would be required to return to the office from Monday to Friday – the board’s current offer is four days. According to reports, CEO Ola Källenius had originally even considered a return to a five-day in-office requirement. The mood among the workforce is already tense: in early July 2026, around 33,000 employees at ten German locations took to the streets to protest against company policy. 

Mercedes justifies the move by stating that the workplace should once again be the central hub for collaboration, knowledge transfer, and innovation. An understandable goal. The only question is: do you achieve it through mandates – or through conviction? 

What the science says

Arguably the most robust study on the subject comes from Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom. Together with Ruobing Han and James Liang, he published the first randomized controlled trial on the effects of hybrid work in the journal Nature. Over six months, 1,612 employees at the travel company Trip.com were studied with regard to retention, satisfaction, productivity, and career development. 

The result is clear: two days of working from home per week did not impair performance or promotion prospects, while the turnover rate dropped by about a third. Women, employees without management responsibilities, and people with long commutes benefited the most. The perspective of the managers is also interesting: before the experiment, they expected a productivity loss of 2.6 percent; in the end, they actually estimated a slight gain of one percent. The consequence: Trip.com subsequently introduced hybrid working across the entire company. 

However, it is important to put this into context: the study shows that two days of working from home can work in a large company – but it does not prove that exactly three days in the office are ideal for every type of job. 

Data from Germany also paints a clear picture. According to the Konstanz Home Office Study, employees in 2026 want an average of 2.78 days of working from home per week – a figure that has remained remarkably stable for years. At the same time, skepticism toward rigid requirements is growing: only 22 percent of managers now support a stricter office mandate, down from 25 percent in 2025 and 33 percent in 2024. Study director Florian Kunze sums it up: his data suggests that mandatory office attendance often does more harm than good. The study also shows a correlation between stricter office mandates and emotional exhaustion. 

The research conclusion: For most knowledge workers, the sweet spot is around two to three days in the office per week. However, the exact number is less important than the question of what actually happens on those days.

Privilege or right? The perception gap

Many conflicts stem from a fundamental misunderstanding. Companies like to talk about the "privilege of working from home"—a benefit that can be granted and revoked as needed. Many employees see it differently: for them, working from home has long been an integral part of their employment contract, their life planning, and their work-life balance daily routine. Anyone who has organized daycare pickups, commutes, or the care of relatives around hybrid work does not see a reversal as the end of a privilege, but as a loss.

Incidentally, the legal situation is clear: in Germany, there is no statutory right to work from home, which is why employers can often bring employees back to the office. However, what is legally possible is not automatically wise. Bringing employees back to the office against their will risks dissatisfaction and resignations—and thus the loss of skilled talent. 

The real problem is rarely the rule itself, but how it comes about. When office attendance is mandated from above without explaining the "why," it quickly creates the impression of distrust and control. Employees feel unseen—and that is exactly where the leverage lies.

Why it still makes sense to come to the office

As clearly as studies support hybrid work, the office is not obsolete. On the contrary—when used correctly, it is irreplaceable. Because some things simply work better on-site:

• Spontaneous interaction: A quick question at the coffee machine often solves problems that would require a scheduled meeting when working remotely.
• Learning and onboarding: Especially those just starting their careers benefit enormously from looking over the shoulders of experienced colleagues.
• Creativity and innovation: Brainstorming sessions, workshops, and strategic discussions develop a different dynamic when everyone is in the same room.
• Relationships and trust: Teams that know each other personally also work together more smoothly when remote.
• Belonging: Corporate culture is created in shared moments—and those rarely happen on a video call.

The crucial point: The office must offer added value that working from home cannot. Anyone commuting to the office just to spend the whole day in video conferences will not see the point. Management consultant Burghardt puts it aptly: mandatory office attendance without a change in how work is done is merely a change of location. Her advice to managers: before every day in the office, clarify which decision is to be made, which problem is to be solved together, and what knowledge is to be shared. 

Creating the framework: How to strike the right balance

Instead of rigid quotas, companies need a clear framework that combines commitment with flexibility. These five building blocks have proven effective:

1. Clear, understandable rules

Whether it’s two or three fixed office days, the rule should be communicated and justified transparently. It makes sense to have common team days when as many people as possible are on-site. After all, nothing is more frustrating than commuting to the office only to find no one from your own team there.

2. The wild card: one exception per quarter

Life doesn't stick to attendance rules. A repair appointment, a sick child, a project that requires full concentration—sometimes an office day just doesn't fit. A "wild card" per quarter gives employees the option to move a mandatory day to their home office without needing to provide a reason. This costs the company almost nothing, but it signals trust and takes pressure out of the system. A rigid obligation becomes a sensible agreement.

3. Create formats that make the trip to the office worthwhile

Office days need substance. Fixed formats give the office a purpose: a weekly team breakfast, on-site sprint planning, lunch & learn sessions, cross-departmental exchange rounds, or a monthly innovation day. When employees know they would miss out on something on a specific day, they come in voluntarily.

4. Set goals instead of measuring attendance

Good work is recognized by results, not by the number of hours spent at a desk. Clear goals—such as those based on the OKR principle—provide direction, regardless of where work is being done. At the same time, goals for collaboration can also be defined: How often do we want to see each other in person as a team? Which tasks do we deliberately complete together on-site? This turns presence from an end in itself into a tool.

5. The workshop: developing rules together

The most effective way out of the "privilege vs. right" dilemma is participation. In a workshop, teams work together to determine which activities make more sense on-site and which work better remotely. Possible guiding questions:

• Which tasks benefit most from personal interaction?
• On which days are most team members happy to be in the office anyway?
• What is missing in the office that would make us enjoy working there?
• What exceptions do we need—and how do we handle them fairly?

The result is a team agreement that everyone supports. Rules that you have helped shape are not perceived as coercion. And managers learn what really matters to their employees.

Conclusion: It’s not the quota that matters, but the purpose

Science provides a clear direction: Hybrid models with about two to three office days a week offer the best balance of productivity, satisfaction, and employee retention. Conversely, strict mandatory office attendance carries the risk of burnout, frustration, and turnover—without any proven gain in productivity. The Mercedes case shows how quickly a debate over office attendance can turn into a cultural conflict.

The key is to make the office a place where people want to be: with clear frameworks, meaningful formats, shared goals, some flexibility in the form of a "wild card," and rules developed through dialogue rather than by decree.

To make this work in everyday life, you also need the right organization. With Flexopus, teams can see at a glance who is in the office and when, book desks and rooms for their team days, and plan their in-office days strategically. This turns mandatory attendance into an attractive option—and makes the office a place for connection once again.