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by Ashley Huynh, Employment Law Expert, CalChamber
One enduring effect of COVID-19 is remote and hybrid work arrangements, which have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. For instance, a 2025 Gallup study found that 51% of full-time remote-capable employees work a hybrid schedule, 28% work exclusively remote and 21% work fully onsite. Additionally, in 2025, nearly 35% of full-time workers performed at least part of their job from home, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey.
As time goes on, however, employers slowly continue to require employees to return to the office — either fully onsite or using an onsite/remote hybrid model. But making this transition can be complicated and potentially create employee relations problems and compliance issues. As employers return their employees to onsite work, they’ll want to create a plan and follow some best practices to mitigate those issues while ensuring compliance with the law.
For those employers transitioning to more in-office work, they should start with deciding whether they are moving to fully onsite work or creating a hybrid schedule. If they choose a hybrid model, they need to determine how they will decide their hybrid schedule. For instance, does the employee, team or company choose their in-office days? Will the company have anchor days — where all employees will be onsite on the same specified days?
After making these decisions, they should create an updated policy and then communicate these changes as well as employee expectations, along with any rationale or justification.
For example, an employer may decide to transition to a hybrid schedule, with in-office, anchor days of Monday through Wednesday, while Thursday and Friday are remote workdays. These anchor days could allow for better collaboration amongst coworkers as team members can meet in-person on those days. Plus, it could lead to better team interaction, engagement, increased productivity and less time coordinating (compared to hybrid schedules where different groups of employees work different schedules).
As employers review and refresh their policies, it’s also a good opportunity to update their travel time pay policy for nonexempt employees and expense reimbursement policies, like mileage policies since they may be applicable, depending on employee’s work location(s), and where the employee may need to travel (e.g. where employee’s may work at one location and need to travel to another location). Employers moving to a hybrid schedule should also consider reviewing and revising their telecommuting/remote standards for those days that employees are working from home.
When significant organizational or company changes impact employees’ daily lives, it has the potential to lead to employee-relations issues, including morale problems, employee conflicts, and even litigation or claims/charges through a government agency.
Some resistance to change is common. To help with the transition, employers who are requiring employees to work fully onsite may consider announcing a phased implementation to give employees some time to transition. For example, employers may communicate their plan to phase into fully onsite work with an initial three days per week hybrid schedule for the first few months before transitioning to fully onsite. During this time, employers should listen to employees’ concerns and work with them collaboratively to reach potential solutions. For example, to help make the change successful, provide more flexibility during a transitional period even when it is not required by law and make sure to communicate that the employer wants to help support the employees during this transitional period.
Here’s a few sample scenarios that employers have had to navigate when transitioning employees from fully remote to fully onsite or a hybrid schedule:
Sample 1: Employee Needs to Pick up Child from School/Day Care
After Sarah was notified about the return to office, she spoke to her manager about needing to pick her daughter up after school at 2:30pm every weekday. Since her house is only 10 minutes away from school, she’s never had any issues picking up her daughter and completing her work. Sarah asks if she could have an exception to allow her to continue working from home.
First, her manager should review her request with HR and their leadership team to ensure consistency and compliance with any applicable policies and past practices. Any exceptions should be reviewed to ensure that employees are treated fairly and consistently with the understanding that these exceptions may create a precedent. Keeping that in mind, the company has a few options they may want to consider to provide some flexibility during this transition:
After talking to HR and the leadership team, Sarah’s manager should have a discussion with her to see what she is open to and discuss feasible options with her.
Sample 2: Employee Disability Accommodations
Upon hearing that the employer is transitioning to employees’ working fully onsite, Jacob notifies his employer that he has a disability and requests to work from home as a reasonable accommodation.
In this case, the employer should engage in the interactive process for reasonable accommodation and follow its regular disability accommodation process under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (if 15 or more employees) and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) (if five or more employees). The employer may request the employee provide a physician/healthcare provider medical certification and should provide the employee with a list of the essential functions of their job for the employee to provide to their doctor.
Employers should ensure they do not ask about the employee’s specific medical condition. Instead, the interactive process should focus on identifying the employee’s limitations with respect to their job duties and whether remote work would be a reasonable accommodation the employer could provide without creating an undue hardship. And if an alternative accommodation would be effective in allowing the employee to perform their essential job functions, employers may choose to provide that accommodation rather than remote work.
Sample 3: Employee Needs to Care for Spouse, Parent, Child or Designated Person due to Disability
Janice approached HR after hearing the announcement about transitioning to in-office work. She is caring for her disabled spouse and requests accommodation to continue to work from home.
Unlike the prior example with Jacob, since this request for accommodation does not involve the employee’s own disability, the employer does not have an obligation under ADA/FEHA to reasonably accommodate Janice. However, since she is caring for a seriously ill or injured family member, the employer can provide a leave of absence under the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) and/or the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) — if she meets all the requirements. This leave could be used to allow the employee to have some time to find a caregiver for her spouse.
The employer may also explore other feasible options and work with the employee to provide some flexibility, such as providing a hybrid schedule or temporary remote work. Any exceptions, however, should be reviewed for the potential to create a precedent but still ensure that all employees are treated fairly and consistently.
As employers continue to transition employees to in-office work, employers should create a plan for the transition — including drafting and/or revising applicable policies and how they will communicate these to employees — to help mitigate risk. Employers can work with employees to provide flexibility and options to help with the transition, but employers should do so with caution because providing flexibility arrangements for one employee can set a precedent for other employees who may have similar needs and requests.
Additionally, employers must understand all applicable legal requirements that may be implicated with the transition, including: