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Return to office attrition
calculator

See how many people a full return to office (RTO) mandate could cost you, and who walks first.

Your numbers

Research suggests about 1 in 5 consider leaving after a mandate
Projected cost of a mandate
 
Share
Do return to office mandates really increase attrition?

Research published through 2025 and 2026 repeatedly links hard RTO mandates to higher resignation rates, with a disproportionate effect on senior employees and women.

How we calculated this

We take the share of your headcount currently working hybrid or remote and apply the quit-intent uplift, your estimate of what proportion of them would leave if a full return to office were mandated. The default is about one in five, in line with the RTO attrition research of the last two years. Those projected resignations are multiplied by average salary and by 1.5, the mid-point of Gallup's replacement-cost range, to give the cost of replacing them. It is a scenario cost for a decision not yet made, not a forecast. The working, the assumptions and the research behind the default are below.

New to the term? Read the plain-English definition of attrition rate in the HR Glossary.

Your working
Assumptions
  • The quit-intent uplift is an estimate and the number moves in step with it. The 20% default is a mid-range reading of the research; a mandate with no flexibility and no notice will run higher, a phased hybrid model lower. Replace it with your own engagement or pulse data if you have asked the question.
  • Everyone who leaves is assumed to cost the same, at 1.5 times base salary. The research (Ding and Ma of the University of Pittsburgh with colleagues; Van Dijcke, Gunsilius and Wright) finds senior and skilled employees, and women, leave first, and senior people cost more than 1.5 times to replace, so the figure understates the real bill.
  • Only replacement cost is counted. Longer time to fill after a mandate (which the same research documents), lost institutional knowledge, the productivity of the people who stay and resent it, and the second wave of exits that follows the first are all excluded.
  • The calculator says nothing about the office itself. Whether people should be together more is a real question; this tool prices only the way the decision is made.
Sources

What to do about it

A return-to-office mandate is a people decision that usually gets made as a property decision. The number above is what it costs when the people who leave are the ones you cannot replace. These steps are for whoever will be asked to make the policy work, whether or not they get a vote on it.

1

Put the replacement cost in the room where the mandate is being decided

Take the figure above, add the senior roles you know would go, and put it next to the property cost that started the conversation. If the mandate is being sold as a productivity fix, ask for the productivity evidence; the Pittsburgh research finds mandates hurt satisfaction and do not improve firm performance.

2
Where a tool helps

Ask before you announce

A short pulse to the hybrid and remote population, by team: how many days works, what would make you leave, what do you actually come in for, who do you need to be near. Ten days of that replaces the 20% guess with your own number, and it tells you which teams will absorb a change and which will not.

3

Design for the work, by team, and write down why

Some teams need days together and some do not; a blanket rule treats them the same and loses the second group. Let managers set the pattern with their teams inside a frame the business sets, and record the reason for each. A policy with reasons attached is one people can argue with instead of leave over.

4

Watch the senior and specialist roles first

The research is consistent that senior and skilled staff, and women, leave first after a mandate. List the people whose exit would hurt most, check their engagement, and talk to them before the policy lands. Losing them is where the number above turns real.

5

Track resignations, time to fill, engagement and absence by team for the following two quarters

Whatever is decided, measure it. Re-run this calculator with the actual resignations and compare to the projection. Either the mandate cost less than feared, which is worth knowing, or it did not, and you have the case to change it before the second wave.

Step 2 reads the culture
before the mandate.

Compono Engage is an employee engagement platform that reads culture and climate alongside work personality, team by team, so you can see how connected each team already is and how its people are wired to respond to a change like this before anyone announces it. Attendance trackers count badge swipes after the fact. Engage reads the climate the policy is about to land on.

That is step 2 done with more than a survey, and step 3's team-by-team design built on evidence rather than a floor plan. The figure above is what a blanket mandate could cost. Engage shows you which teams would carry that cost and which would not.

See how it works
Compono Engage
8%+
reduction in turnover

Common questions

Where does the default quit-intent figure come from?

The default assumes about one in five remote or hybrid staff would consider leaving after a mandate, in line with recent RTO attrition studies. You can change it to reflect your own data.

Why use 1.5 times salary as the replacement cost?

Replacing an employee carries recruitment, onboarding, lost productivity and ramp-up costs. A multiplier of 1.5 times salary is a widely used mid-range estimate, and it climbs higher for senior or specialised roles.

What can we do instead of a blanket mandate?

Start with how engaged and connected your teams already are. Measuring that gives you a far better basis for an attendance policy than a one-size-fits-all rule, and it shows you where flexibility is keeping good people.

This page is general information, not legal advice. We check figures annually and update them on a best-efforts basis, but employment rules change and we cannot promise everything here is current or complete. Before you act on it, confirm the detail with the relevant authority in your country or your own adviser. Last reviewed July 2026.

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Attrition rate

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