Vetted by NeuralPress's Multi-Agent Verifier for strict factual validity and event relevance. Our compliance engine cross-checks and filters search results to ensure zero false correlations or misleading content.
Shift in Employer Hiring Focus
Comparison of traditional hiring reliance vs emerging 'Show Your Work' trends.
Primary Sources
Essential Return-to-Office Statistics and Trends (2026)
Everyone is returning to the office. At least, that’s what the headlines lead you to believe. The past year’s news cycle has been dominated by major corporations announcing return-to-office mandates, but the statistics tell a different story. Only 27% of companies are back to fully in-person models, and remote work as a whole is expected to remain virtually unchanged from the peak in 2024. So, what’s the true state of remote work in America? Companies cite improved productivity, collaboration, and easier management as reasons for returning to the office, but research on these benefits remains mixed. What’s clear, however, is that employees overwhelmingly prefer remote and hybrid arrangements and experience significantly better work-life balance because of them. Employers allowing flexible roles benefit from lower hiring costs and improved employee retention. We’ve studied the data to see which companies have returned to the office in 2025 and 2026, the current state of remote and hybrid work in America, and return-to-office trends for employers and employees to be aware of. 22.6% of US employees worked remotely, at least partially, in March 2026, down slightly from 23% in March 2024. Hybrid roles are more common than fully-remote jobs (53.1% of employees who work from home at least sometimes are in hybrid roles, compared to 46.9% who work fully remote). 27% of companies have returned to a fully in-person model. 67% of companies offer some level of flexibility (hybrid work). 64% of US employees would prefer remote or hybrid roles over working from the office every day. 64% of remote workers would quit or start looking for a new job if their employer stopped allowing remote or hybrid work. 76% of companies experience greater employee retention by allowing remote work. The leading reasons businesses cite for going back to the office include collaboration and teamwork (68%), productivity (64%), and communication (61%). 61% of US companies have formal RTO policies requiring employees to work from the office a minimum number of days each week. 47% of companies requiring a five-day office schedule plan to terminate or discipline employees who do not comply. 37% of companies enforce office attendance requirements. 25% of executives and 18% of HR workers admit they hoped some employees would voluntarily leave because of an RTO mandate. Related: See our national study of Remote and Hybrid workers 2025 and 2026 Return-to-Office Mandates from Major Co...
ATS Compliance: 4 Critical Rules for Global Recruitment
Cross-border hiring has become a staple of the modern working world, and it’s no longer restricted to large enterprises. In 2025 alone, top startups hired 1,400+ employees from different countries, concentrated mainly in the UK, Canada, and Germany, according to Deel’s Global Hiring Report. But alongside the flexibility of accessing global talent comes the complexity of managing candidate data across multiple jurisdictions. The result is a compliance bottleneck that most hiring teams simply aren’t prepared for. Application tracking systems sit right at the center of that bottleneck. Each country has its own rules about how you’re allowed to manage candidate data, and your ATS needs to support all of them. This guide walks you through the key ATS compliance requirements for global hiring teams, and how Deel ATS gives you the framework to meet them, acting as a single source of truth for every cross-border hire.Deel HRHire and recruit faster, with less effortATS accelerates time-to-hire with AI-powered workflows. It’s integrated within Deel, so new hires start onboarding instantly.Why is ATS compliance critical for global hiring? Applicant tracking system (ATS) compliance requires organizations to collect, store, and process their candidates’ data legally, based on the applicant’s local jurisdiction. Organizations that don’t have compliant recruitment practices face significant fines and enforcement under regulations like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA.) Unfortunately, hiring across borders is complicated, and it’s all too easy to make compliance mistakes, especially when your company headquarters is based in a different country to your candidates. Here’s why ATS compliance is critical. Meeting data residency requirements Data residency refers to the physical location where your candidates’ data is stored and processed. This might include any of the following types of hiring data: Application data (CVs, cover letters, assessments) Interview notes and recordings Background check results Candidate communications (emails, messages) Metadata (IP addresses, timestamps, behavioral tracking) In terms of ATS compliance, this data residency location must be legally acceptable for the candidate’s jurisdiction. The problem is that most ATS platforms store and move this data across multiple systems by default, using an array of cloud hosting, integrations, and analytics tools. And often, hiring teams can fall int...
2026 Return-to-Office Tracker: Which Companies Are Requiring RTO?
Searchable database of 115+ company RTO policies for 2026. Find out which companies are requiring full-time office, hybrid, or still allowing remote work.
10 Australian companies have embraced the 4-day week. Here's what they ...
So our results do reflect a management perspective. But what they told us suggests the four-day work week can successfully deliver positive outcomes for both employers and employees across a range of different industries. Who we surveyed Four of the ten organisations in our research [3] have adopted the change permanently after trials.
