Meet the ’empowered non-compliers’: A valuable worker who disregards returning to the office whenever they please

By 2025, the remote work battles were mostly concluded in many places, but not all. The period where white-collar workers worked from home full-time during the pandemic mostly ended in 2024, as employers started requiring them to return to the office up to 5 days a week. (with some leading the way, and Elon Musk famously stating remote workers were “incapable” of doing their jobs.) However, commercial real estate giant JLL discovered something new in its research on the future of hybrid work: a new type of remote workplace rebel archetype.

This isn’t the disengaged quiet quitters from the pandemic era, nor is it a strict traditionalist. This is what JLL termed empowered “non-compliers”: high-value, highly skilled employees who just disregard office attendance rules when it doesn’t suit them—and they have the clout to get away with it.

According to the JLL Workforce Preference Barometer 2025, which surveyed 8,700 office workers worldwide, there’s a substantial gap between accepting office attendance policies and actually following them. Even though 72% of the global workforce has a positive view of office attendance policies, that doesn’t mean they’ll actually show up.

Who are the Non-Compliers?

The report sketches a detailed demographic profile of this group. Unlike “compliers,” who are usually older and value stability, empowered non-compliers are typically younger—often aged between 30 and 34. They’re commonly found in the tech industry, especially in North America, and often hold managerial positions.

“They are highly trained, recent hires, and often managers,” JLL noted. “Remarkably, they tend to work for companies that offer more benefits,” like high-quality offices, childcare, concierge services, free meals, and wellness programs. For these workers, JLL added, non-compliance is usually due to personal limitations rather than disliking the office (or ignoring free food). Many are caregivers who feel their time constraints are “not well understood or supported at work,” and commuting is also a significant factor.

High-performing individuals, who have the ability to switch jobs, are more likely to leave because they know they’re valuable in the job market. “Their non-compliance is less a rejection than a strategic choice based on their feeling of empowerment,” JLL concludes, noting this could change if there’s “instability” in the labor market. (Indeed, the appearance of what Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell referred to as a “low-hire, low-fire” job market would definitely be that kind of instability.) The report states that while compliance with mandates is as high as 90% in France and Italy, it drops to 74% in the U.S., where this “empowered” group is concentrated.

The broken psychological contract

The rise of non-compliers indicates a larger split in the “psychological contract” between employers and employees. The report points out that burnout has become a major threat to business, with nearly 40% of global office workers feeling overburdened.

When this unspoken contract of being valued is broken, the relationship turns transactional. Employees stop seeking involvement and start asking for compensation, pushing for higher commuting allowances or strict flexible hours. If the office experience is “commute-worthy”—providing better technology and facilities than home—acceptance of policies increases. However, nearly 40% of global respondents think their office experience needs improvement, citing problems like noise and lack of nutritious food.

Two management professors,  and , told that they had found a similar broken contract while researching their recent book on remote work, . Nehmeh said they observed that Gen Z’s workplace behavior showed signs of a broken contract between workers and management, as it’s a “very transactional” attitude, which she described as “I show up, I do my job, I leave. I don’t want to be involved in anything else.”

Both Cappelli and Nehmeh ironically suggested ending remote work because of Gen Z, who are missing a particular kind of mentorship at a critical stage in their careers. “I don’t need to be in the office,” Cappelli said, so he often works remotely. “But I can also see how much worse it is, because people like me aren’t in the office, and because we’re not there, the junior staff aren’t either, so no one’s there, right?” He characterized the situation as “good for me… but bad for everyone else.” His findings matched JLL’s discovery that empowered non-compliers, who are exactly the high-performing colleagues who would be great mentors for young workers, are probably not in the office much themselves.

Ultimately, empowered non-compliers are indicating a shift in the meaning of “flexibility.” It’s no longer only about where work occurs, but when. Work-life balance has become the top priority for employees globally, surpassing salary, as cited by 65% of office workers.

The report suggests that successful companies will stop relying on universal mandates and instead “personalize their approach.” For empowered non-compliers, retention depends on autonomy, and JLL advises employers to go beyond counting office days and focus on “managing time rather than place,” recognizing that for this valuable group, flexibility is the new measure of loyalty.

But as Cappelli told in October, this won’t be an easy thing, because the problems with remote work are really reflective of wider failures on the part of managers. “Management’s just gotten worse,” he said. Commenting on his finding that remote work has led to so many meetings that managers are holding follow-up meetings to ensure the message is understood, he added: “It’s a mess. Those issues could be fixed, right? But they aren’t being fixed.”