Six years after COVID-19 transformed the way Americans work, the pendulum is swinging back toward the office.

The pandemic forced companies to send employees home almost overnight, transforming remote work from a perk enjoyed by a handful of workers into a necessity for much of the white-collar workforce.

As the health threat from COVID-19 has lessened, companies have been steadily revising their rules about where employees are expected to work. Some have established hybrid schedules. Others have tightened their polices, requiring workers to spend more days in the office.

And some companies have decided that the pandemic-era experiment with remote work has run its course.

Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank made headlines with a dramatic announcement early this year that all of its employees would be required to return to the office five days a week.

“PNC has always been an in-office company,” CEO Bill Demchak said at the time. “It’s not just how we operate — it’s part of our culture. We are a relationship-driven organization, and our strength lies in the connection we build with each other, our clients and our communities.”

PNC’s decision made news, but the bank was hardly alone in reconsidering the long-term role of remote work in corporate America.

At Pittsburgh-based First National Bank, the return actually had begun much earlier and unfolded in stages.

FNB began bringing employees back into its offices in phases, starting in 2021, said Meghan Barr, a communications officer for the bank. The company ultimately returned to full-time, in-office work when conditions improved following the pandemic.

“We believe there is significant value in bringing teams together,” Barr said. “We have found that employees perform at their best when they are connected to colleagues, supported by leaders and equipped with the resources they need to thrive.”

Prior to the pandemic, employees — for the most part — didn’t question the five-day in-person work week or long commutes to the office. What changed after the pandemic is that many employees had proven they could effectively perform their jobs from home.

Hybrid work remains common in 2026, especially for remote-capable and large-company workforces. Research from real estate firm CBRE in May shows that 89% of large organizations now have a formal hybrid work program in place.

Recent Gallup data found around 66% of companies with formal polices now require employees to be in the office at least three days per week, making “3 days in, 2 days remote” the dominate setup across large organizations.

When Gallup studied employees’ preferred work style, researchers found that 50% define themselves as “splitters” and 50% as “blenders.” Splitters prefer to have clear boundaries between their work and personal time. Blenders prefer to mix work and personal time, moving between the two throughout the day.

Remote work may have lost some of its momentum since the pandemic, but it has not disappeared.

For some companies, working remotely was never a response to COVID-19. It was their regular way of doing business.

Carnegie Learning is one example.

The Pittsburgh-based K-12 education company, which provides educational software, tutoring and teacher training, has employees spread across the U.S. and Canada. Rather than impose a one-size-fits-all schedule, the company has built its workplace around flexibility, said Justin Netz Roth, senior vice president of people.

Carnegie Learning maintains offices in Pittsburgh and encourages employees to gather when being together adds value — for onboarding, planning sessions, team meetings and relationship building, for example.

But there is no mandate requiring employees to show up at the office on a set schedule.

And there’s little indication that the company is preparing to reverse course.

“We expect our overall approach to remain largely the same,” Roth said.

“We’ll continue evaluating our workplace practices based on what’s best for our employees, our customers, and our business, but we don’t anticipate shifting away from our remote philosophy,” Roth said.

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