As employers prepare for return-to-office mandates that unwind years of remote work, a growing number of workers are weighing how to maintain caregiving responsibilities, manage health needs, and handle the daily burden of commuting. In an Associated Press report as part of its “Be Well” coverage, the story profiles workers who say remote work helped them manage family and medical challenges—and describes advice offered by experts on how to navigate the shift.
One example is Jason LaCroix, a senior systems engineer in Atlanta who said he valued the flexibility of working from home as a father of two young children. He described needing that arrangement when his son suffered a brain injury and spent 35 days in intensive care, and he said he later worked from home while managing appointments. LaCroix said he was laid off last February from a job he had held for five years with remote work, and he described his new role as one that requires him to work in a company office four days a week and commute about three hours per day.
LaCroix said he is trying to balance the new schedule with his family responsibilities. “I want to be around for my kids,” LaCroix, 44, said. “It’s very important for me to be around for my son, because we almost lost him.” In the report, he also described leaving home at 5 a.m. and working in the office until 2 p.m., an arrangement designed to reduce time in traffic and allow him to be home after school pickup.
The report also examines how the return-to-office turn is playing out across large companies and how workers are responding. It notes that employees at companies including Amazon and AT&T have been called back to the office five days a week, and it says President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to fire federal workers who do not report in person. The story frames the situation as a stress point heading into 2025, when thousands of workers who have grown accustomed to remote work must adjust—or look for other employment.
Mark Ma, a University of Pittsburgh associate professor of business administration, is quoted in the report on the experience of workers and employers when remote work is rolled back. He said, “People always want to have flexibility,” and added, “I have never heard anyone telling me that I thank my job because it’s so rigid in its schedule.” The report says Ma researched what happened in recent years when technology and finance companies in the S&P 500 stopped allowing remote work, finding high turnover rates after return-to-office mandates, with especially high turnover among female employees who often have childcare responsibilities and among senior-level executives.
The report also includes insight from therapist Shavon Terrell-Camper, who described how working from home can reshape people’s day-to-day lives. Terrell-Camper said, “Over the years, people have adjusted their lives. They’ve figured out, ‘Oh wow, I can pick my kids up for school. Wow. I can caretake for my aging parents while I am still working,’” and added, “Once you have tasted work-from-home … it’s difficult to see your life going back to something that could’ve been unsustainable from the beginning.” The AP report then turns to practical steps workers say they can take when employers require in-person work.
In one section, the report recommends that employers and workers look for flexibility inside mandates rather than treating the shift as all-or-nothing. Ma is quoted suggesting an “employee-choice” approach that lets teams decide how many days they work in the office together. If that approach is not available, the report says employees can ask to adjust their hours, describing LaCroix’s own schedule modification as one example. The story also describes that some workers have used work-arounds that management may not endorse, including “coffee badging,” where employees swipe in for an office presence, grab a coffee, and then work from home. It also says supervisors have tried a “hushed hybrid” approach in which they take subordinates’ ID badges and swipe them “in” and “out” to make it appear they were in the office, a practice Ma said has been used to help retain employees.
The report urges workers to have direct conversations with managers and to make use of employee assistance resources. Amy Dufrane, CEO of the Human Resource Certification Institute, is quoted saying, “ask for forgiveness ahead of time, because your family is the most important thing,” and she is also quoted urging honest communication about personal needs. The story says many companies have employee assistance programs that can connect employees to resources for caring for parents or children.
For workers with health conditions, the report describes additional constraints that can make on-site work difficult. Kyle Ankney, a public relations strategist based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is quoted saying he has cerebral palsy and needs a nurse to help him change a catheter three times a day. The report says his health insurance will only send a nurse to one location, and he said working in an office was not an option for him. “If that weren’t an issue, I could find my way into the office,” Ankney said. He described seeking director-level roles but saying a recruiter told him he should consider less-senior roles because of his remote-work needs, leading him to apply to director-level jobs that were advertised as on-site or hybrid and then reach out to explain his situation and ask about working from home.
Ankney described the challenge of explaining a disability in hiring settings. “While I would never normally, especially in a career setting, lead with, ‘I have cerebral palsy and I’m in a wheelchair,’ I’m finding that I’m almost having to make myself vulnerable in that way just to see if the opportunity is even there for me,” he said. The report presents the advice that workers should be prepared to discuss their circumstances clearly and directly when seeking exceptions or accommodations.
The AP report also says some workers may have to consider job changes if they cannot find flexibility from current employers. Terrell-Camper is quoted saying, “There are going to be many people that don’t have the luxury just to leave” their current jobs if they are required to return to the office, “especially in a volatile market such as we’re in right now.” It then highlights a job decision made by attorney Holly Keerikatte, who said she had been commuting about three hours a day and working on-site five days a week at a hospital while searching for more family time. The report says she received two job offers—one fully remote and another that paid 50% more but required a long commute—and that she recalled choosing the remote job after reading a phrase about children being the only ones who remember late work.
Keerikatte said, “My primary driver is what’s best for my family,” and the report says she advised people to be “up-front and transparent about what you want, what you’re looking for and why.” In the final part of the report, the article encourages workers to identify positives in the transition, suggesting that friendships can develop as colleagues share breaks and conversations that may not happen during remote work. It also says employers can help by organizing group sessions that allow employees to share what is working during the change, an approach Dufrane said managers can support. The report concludes with a quote from video director Deborah Ann DeSnoo, who owns Plug-In Inc. in Chofu, Japan, saying in-person connection can help people interpret “the air” differently than a video call and find solutions.
DeSnoo said, “You can read the air in a different way, and you find a solution,” and added, “When you’re on a Zoom and they ignore you, there’s nothing you can do.” The AP report invites readers to share workplace wellness questions and stories related to the transition.