In-office days required per week — Employees vs Employers

Ireland's financial services industry is now operating under a settled return-to-office (RTO) pattern — and the data shows that pattern is at odds with what its workforce actually wants. Recruitment firm **Morgan McKinley** (part of Org Group), in its 2026 guide *From Hybrid to HQ: The Impact of Return to Office on Financial Services in Ireland*, reports that **66%** of employees now rank hybrid work as their most valued benefit while only **13%** of organisations offer a fully flexible arrangement, and **77%** of employers are struggling to attract skilled talent. Stacked on top of that mismatch, **51%** of Irish financial services workers say they are unhappy with their current office attendance policy, **62%** say it has increased their desire to leave their role, and **70%** report needing higher pay to cover the cost of getting to work.[^1][^2] This article walks through what the report and its accompanying landing page actually say — every figure, chart and quotation below comes from Morgan McKinley and is attributed accordingly.

66% rank hybrid as their most-valued work benefit	13% of organisations offer a fully flexible arrangement	77% of employers struggle to attract skilled talent
51% are dissatisfied with their current RTO policy	62% say office mandates have increased their desire to leave	70% need higher pay to cover commuting costs

## What You'll Learn - The talent-attraction tension at the centre of Morgan McKinley's report - How many days a week Irish financial services staff are now in the office, and how that maps to what employers think they require - The "productivity perception gap" between leadership and staff - How stricter office mandates are landing disproportionately on women - The five recommendations Morgan McKinley puts forward for employers - A plain-English summary of what it all means ## About the Report *From Hybrid to HQ* is a multi-region Morgan McKinley study covering its operating markets, including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong SAR, Ireland, Japan, Mainland China, Singapore and the UK.[^1] This article focuses on the **Irish segment**, which is based on a survey of **440 respondents** drawn from Morgan McKinley's database of clients and candidates within the Accounting & Finance (A&F) and Banking & Financial Services (BFS) sectors.[^1] | Profile | Employee respondents | Employer respondents | |---|---|---| | Total | Part of the 440-respondent Ireland sample | Part of the 440-respondent Ireland sample | | Sector | 80% in A&F (57%) or BFS (23%) | 42% A&F, 21% BFS, 17% HR | | Company size (largest bracket) | 50–249 employees (23%); 50% in firms <500 staff | 1,000+ employees (34%) | | Age (largest bracket) | 35–44 (34%) | 45–54 (40%) | | Gender | 58% female, 41% male | 49% / 49% split | | Compensation (most common) | €50,000–€75,000 (35%) | €100,000–€150,000 (28%); 23% earn over €150,000 | | Caregiving responsibilities | 48% carry them | 51% carry them | | Ethnicity (largest group) | White (80%), Asian (9%) | White (92%), Hispanic (2%) | Source: Morgan McKinley methodology section, page 16.[^1] ## Insight 1: Half the Workforce Is Unhappy With the Current Model According to Morgan McKinley, **80%** of Irish financial services employees are required in the office between two and five days a week, with **three days** being the single most common pattern at **32%** of employees and **38%** of employers reporting it as the standard.[^1] The split on satisfaction is brutal in its simplicity: when asked whether they are happy with their company's current in-office requirement policy, **49%** of employees said yes and **51%** said no.[^1] When the same employees were asked in an open question what would be gained from a full return to office, **24%** answered "nothing."[^1]

Morgan McKinley flags that with only **4%** of companies offering "no requirement" and only **3%** of employees (vs **16%** of employers) reporting that individual teams have authority to set their own schedules, the prevailing hybrid setup functions as a top-down mandate rather than a flexible, trust-based arrangement.[^1] Nearly half of employees (**48%**) carry caregiving responsibilities for children, elderly parents, or pets — meaning the "home office" is a piece of working infrastructure, not a perk.[^1] ## Insight 2: The Office Builds Culture, But Workers Pay the Bill Morgan McKinley's data shows clear agreement that office time delivers some real benefits — chiefly collaboration and culture — but workers carry an unequal share of the cost. The table below shows what each group says it experiences from being in the office.[^1] | Benefit experienced from in-office working | Employees | Employers | |---|---|---| | Enhanced collaboration | 47% | 73% | | Culture-building | 31% | 69% | | Learning and mentorship opportunities | 28% | 51% | | Access to better equipment | 18% | 11% | | Better work/life boundaries | 13% | 24% | | Increased productivity | 12% | 22% | | Better for clients | 8% | 18% | | Higher cybersecurity | 3% | 9% | | Helps attract talent | 2% | 9% | | None / nothing | 12% | — | Source: Morgan McKinley, *From Hybrid to HQ* (2026), Figure 2.1. The financial cost falls squarely on staff. **70%** of employees identify the need for higher pay to cover commuting costs as a major negative of in-office working, against a salary base where €50,000–€75,000 is the most common bracket (35% of respondents).[^1] Morgan McKinley calls this a financial "tax" on returning to the office — and one that is reshaping employee priorities away from compensation and toward flexibility.[^1] ## Insight 3: The "Productivity Perception Gap" Of all the findings in the report, the gulf between how employers and employees perceive office productivity is the starkest.

Morgan McKinley's open-question data shows that only **14%** of employers believe a full return to office would increase productivity — yet **60%** of employees cite lower productivity as a current impact of being in-office. Asked specifically what would be lost in a full RTO scenario, **34%** of employees cited a drop in productivity.[^1][^3] The report concludes that modern offices have become places of distraction rather than spaces that support [deep work and flow state](/vibe-coding-effectively-the-art-and-science-of-flow-in-software-development). The second-order effects are already visible. **69%** of employers report employee pushback as a consequence of increased office days, **44%** report recruitment challenges, and **33%** admit office mandates have actually led to lower productivity within their teams.[^1] Morgan McKinley's summary line is pointed: "until leadership reconciles the fact that **62%** of their staff feel an 'increased desire to leave' due to the current in-office expectations of their employer, the pursuit of office-based productivity may continue to yield the exact opposite result."[^1] ## Insight 4: Stricter Mandates Are Hitting Women Harder This is the section Morgan McKinley's executive summary chose to lead with — and the data justifies the prominence. The financial geometry is unequal before any mandate is applied. **36%** of women earn between **€30,000–€50,000**, compared to **21%** of men. At the top end, men are twice as likely to reach the **€100,000–€150,000** bracket (**14%** vs **7%**). Women are also more likely to carry caregiving responsibilities: **51%** of female respondents versus **45%** of male respondents.[^1] When stricter office expectations are imposed on top of that unequal baseline, the impact compounds across four measurable dimensions.

Morgan McKinley's conclusion is unambiguous: if the office environment remains unsustainable for the **51%** of women balancing caregiving loads, many middle-management leaders may opt out, "creating a potential decade-long shortage of diverse C-suite talent."[^1] ## Insight 5: Employers Are Underestimating the Damage The report identifies a clear "perception gap" between employers and employees on the drawbacks of in-office mandates. Both groups agree on the upside — team collaboration (17% employees vs 18% employers) and productivity (14% on both sides) are the primary gains.[^1] But they diverge sharply on the downside. On what is being lost, employees focus on life autonomy: **59%** cite work flexibility, **41%** cite the increased commute, and **34%** cite productivity. Employers frame the risk in business terms: **19%** fear reduced employee retention, **15%** worry about motivation, **12%** about work-life balance.[^1] The asymmetry is sharpest on what is already being felt versus what is being noticed: | Negative impact reported | Employees | Employers | |---|---|---| | Stress and burnout from RTO | 64% | 27% | | Need for higher pay to cover commute | 70% | 18% (formal requests received) | | Increased desire to leave | 62% | 29% (rise in resignations observed) | | Lower levels of productivity | 60% | 33% | | Employee pushback against the policy | 30% | 69% | | Recruitment challenges | 23% | 44% | Source: Morgan McKinley, *From Hybrid to HQ* (2026), Figure 3.1.[^1] The dissatisfaction is showing up in how staff feel, but has not yet fully translated into the formal indicators (pay requests, resignations) that employers track. Morgan McKinley warns this is a lagging-indicator problem, not an absence of one. ## Insight 6: The Tug-of-War Has Stabilised After several years of policy churn, the report finds a clear plateau. The desire to further reduce office time has effectively vanished from the corporate agenda.[^1] | 12-month outlook on in-office requirements | Employees | Employers | |---|---|---| | Will stay the same | 83% | 84% | | Will increase | 16% | 16% | | Will decrease | 1% | 0% | Source: Morgan McKinley, *From Hybrid to HQ* (2026), Figures 6.1 and 6.2. That said, **33%** of employers have already increased their in-office requirements over the past year, and **67%** have kept them steady.[^1] The era of radical workplace pivots, in Morgan McKinley's framing, is behind us — what remains is the unresolved cost of the structure now in place. Three days a week has clearly emerged as the new dominant benchmark, with **32%** of employees and **38%** of employers reporting it as the standard.[^1] ## What Morgan McKinley Recommends The report closes with five action points for financial services employers navigating the new normal.[^1] **1. Bridge the productivity perception gap — measure outputs, not attendance.** With only **14%** of employers believing full RTO boosts productivity and **60%** of employees saying RTO has hurt theirs, the report recommends moving to output-based KPIs, prioritising the office for interactive tasks, and reserving remote settings for deep work. **2. Mitigate the commute tax with financial support.** **70%** of employees feel they need higher pay to cover commuting costs, but only **18%** of employers have received formal requests. Commuter subsidies and flexible benefits packages are a strategic response to the documented retention risk. **3. Move from top-down mandates to team-led flexibility.** Today, only **3%** of employees and **16%** of employers say individual teams set their own office schedules. Morgan McKinley recommends "anchor days" determined by project needs, not corporate-wide mandates. **4. Redesign the office for collaboration, not desk-rows.** Given that **24%** of employees say "nothing" would be gained from a full RTO, the report recommends curating the office for breakout rooms, social hubs and mentorship zones — and measuring the quality of collaborative outcomes, not badge-ins. **5. Monitor wellbeing — especially for women.** **64%** of employees report RTO-related stress but only **27%** of employers see it as a current issue. The gap widens further for women (**69%** burnout, **47%** satisfaction), so regular anonymous pulse surveys focused on office attendance and manager training on signs of fatigue are recommended. In a closing commentary, **Seb O'Connell, Chief Executive Officer of Org Group** (Morgan McKinley's parent), writes that flexibility has become a competitive advantage — not a "feature" but a true lever only when it aligns with a candidate's specific priorities. For employers committed to a full RTO, the strategy must "refocus from offering flexibility to providing a compelling value proposition that enhances the in-office culture and in-person collaboration" — and accept that the available talent pool will be smaller. To remain competitive for "high demand skills in [AI and emerging technologies](/ai-career-roadmap-2026-skills-tools-real-world-pathways)," he argues, firms must emphasise the tangible in-office benefits — stronger collaboration, career development, rewards and mentorship — that are difficult to replicate in a virtual environment.[^1] ## The Bottom Line: A Plain-English Conclusion If you strip away the charts, Morgan McKinley's report says five things: - **Three days a week has won.** Most Irish financial services staff are in the office two to five days a week, and three days is the new normal for both employees and employers. - **About half the workforce is unhappy with that arrangement.** The reasons are concrete: an expensive commute, an office full of distractions, and flexibility that has been quietly taken away. - **Bosses and staff are looking at the same office and seeing two different things.** Employers see collaboration and culture; staff also see stress, lower productivity and a stronger reason to start job-hunting. - **The pain is not falling evenly.** Women, who are more often caregivers and more often in lower salary bands, are taking the hardest hit — and they are the diverse leaders companies say they want to keep. - **The situation has stopped changing on its own.** Most firms are not planning to tighten or loosen further, so the underlying problems will not solve themselves; they have to be actively addressed. The take-home for employers, in one line: if you want people in the office, make it worth their while — financially, professionally and personally — or you will quietly drain the people you most need to keep. --- ## Sources [^1]: Morgan McKinley (Part of Org Group), *From Hybrid to HQ: The Impact of Return to Office in Financial Services in Ireland* (2026). Ireland-segment survey of 440 respondents across Accounting & Finance and Banking & Financial Services. The full report is available to download directly from Morgan McKinley after registration: [Report landing page](https://www.morganmckinley.com/ie/resource/guide-return-to-office-ireland). [^2]: Morgan McKinley, landing page for the report: [From Hybrid to HQ: Is Your RTO Policy Driving Growth or Driving Your Best Talent Away?](https://www.morganmckinley.com/ie/resource/guide-return-to-office-ireland). The 66% / 13% / 77% / 68% framing stats are drawn from this published page, which Morgan McKinley presents alongside the deeper survey data inside the gated report. [^3]: The "14%" figure for employers who believe a full RTO would boost productivity matches Figure 5.1 of the PDF and the headline of Insight 3 (page 5). The Recommendations section of the same PDF (page 14) uses 13% in prose. This article uses 14% throughout, matching the chart in the source.

#workplace-diversity

From Hybrid to HQ: Inside Ireland's Financial Services RTO