From Hybrid to HQ: Inside Ireland's Financial Services RTO

Ireland's financial services industry is now operating under a settled return-to-office (RTO) pattern — and the data shows that pattern is at odds with what its workforce actually wants. Recruitment firm Morgan McKinley (part of Org Group), in its 2026 guide From Hybrid to HQ: The Impact of Return to Office on Financial Services in Ireland, reports that 66% of employees now rank hybrid work as their most valued benefit while only 13% of organisations offer a fully flexible arrangement, and 77% of employers are struggling to attract skilled talent. Stacked on top of that mismatch, 51% of Irish financial services workers say they are unhappy with their current office attendance policy, 62% say it has increased their desire to leave their role, and 70% report needing higher pay to cover the cost of getting to work.¹²

This article walks through what the report and its accompanying landing page actually say — every figure, chart and quotation below comes from Morgan McKinley and is attributed accordingly.

66% rank hybrid as their most-valued work benefit	13% of organisations offer a fully flexible arrangement	77% of employers struggle to attract skilled talent
51% are dissatisfied with their current RTO policy	62% say office mandates have increased their desire to leave	70% need higher pay to cover commuting costs

What You'll Learn

• The talent-attraction tension at the centre of Morgan McKinley's report
• How many days a week Irish financial services staff are now in the office, and how that maps to what employers think they require
• The "productivity perception gap" between leadership and staff
• How stricter office mandates are landing disproportionately on women
• The five recommendations Morgan McKinley puts forward for employers
• A plain-English summary of what it all means

About the Report

From Hybrid to HQ is a multi-region Morgan McKinley study covering its operating markets, including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong SAR, Ireland, Japan, Mainland China, Singapore and the UK.¹ This article focuses on the Irish segment, which is based on a survey of 440 respondents drawn from Morgan McKinley's database of clients and candidates within the Accounting & Finance (A&F) and Banking & Financial Services (BFS) sectors.¹

Profile	Employee respondents	Employer respondents
Total	Part of the 440-respondent Ireland sample	Part of the 440-respondent Ireland sample
Sector	80% in A&F (57%) or BFS (23%)	42% A&F, 21% BFS, 17% HR
Company size (largest bracket)	50–249 employees (23%); 50% in firms <500 staff	1,000+ employees (34%)
Age (largest bracket)	35–44 (34%)	45–54 (40%)
Gender	58% female, 41% male	49% / 49% split
Compensation (most common)	€50,000–€75,000 (35%)	€100,000–€150,000 (28%); 23% earn over €150,000
Caregiving responsibilities	48% carry them	51% carry them
Ethnicity (largest group)	White (80%), Asian (9%)	White (92%), Hispanic (2%)

Source: Morgan McKinley methodology section, page 16.¹

Insight 1: Half the Workforce Is Unhappy With the Current Model

According to Morgan McKinley, 80% of Irish financial services employees are required in the office between two and five days a week, with three days being the single most common pattern at 32% of employees and 38% of employers reporting it as the standard.¹

The split on satisfaction is brutal in its simplicity: when asked whether they are happy with their company's current in-office requirement policy, 49% of employees said yes and 51% said no.¹ When the same employees were asked in an open question what would be gained from a full return to office, 24% answered "nothing."¹

In-office days required per week — Employees vs Employers In-Office Days Required Per Week Source: Morgan McKinley, From Hybrid to HQ (2026), Figures 1.1 & 1.2 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 13% 4% 5 days 10% 7% 4 days 32% 38% 3 days 25% 22% 2 days 6% 2% 1 day 8% 4% No req. 3% 16% Team-led Employees Employers

Morgan McKinley flags that with only 4% of companies offering "no requirement" and only 3% of employees (vs 16% of employers) reporting that individual teams have authority to set their own schedules, the prevailing hybrid setup functions as a top-down mandate rather than a flexible, trust-based arrangement.¹ Nearly half of employees (48%) carry caregiving responsibilities for children, elderly parents, or pets — meaning the "home office" is a piece of working infrastructure, not a perk.¹

Insight 2: The Office Builds Culture, But Workers Pay the Bill

Morgan McKinley's data shows clear agreement that office time delivers some real benefits — chiefly collaboration and culture — but workers carry an unequal share of the cost. The table below shows what each group says it experiences from being in the office.¹

Benefit experienced from in-office working	Employees	Employers
Enhanced collaboration	47%	73%
Culture-building	31%	69%
Learning and mentorship opportunities	28%	51%
Access to better equipment	18%	11%
Better work/life boundaries	13%	24%
Increased productivity	12%	22%
Better for clients	8%	18%
Higher cybersecurity	3%	9%
Helps attract talent	2%	9%
None / nothing	12%	—

Source: Morgan McKinley, From Hybrid to HQ (2026), Figure 2.1.

The financial cost falls squarely on staff. 70% of employees identify the need for higher pay to cover commuting costs as a major negative of in-office working, against a salary base where €50,000–€75,000 is the most common bracket (35% of respondents).¹ Morgan McKinley calls this a financial "tax" on returning to the office — and one that is reshaping employee priorities away from compensation and toward flexibility.¹

Insight 3: The "Productivity Perception Gap"

Of all the findings in the report, the gulf between how employers and employees perceive office productivity is the starkest.

The productivity perception gap — Employers vs Employees The Productivity Perception Gap Source: Morgan McKinley, From Hybrid to HQ (2026), Figures 3.1 & 5.1 Employers who believe a full RTO would increase productivity 14% Employees who report lower productivity from being in-office 60% 0% 60%

Morgan McKinley's open-question data shows that only 14% of employers believe a full return to office would increase productivity — yet 60% of employees cite lower productivity as a current impact of being in-office. Asked specifically what would be lost in a full RTO scenario, 34% of employees cited a drop in productivity.¹³ The report concludes that modern offices have become places of distraction rather than spaces that support deep work and flow state.

The second-order effects are already visible. 69% of employers report employee pushback as a consequence of increased office days, 44% report recruitment challenges, and 33% admit office mandates have actually led to lower productivity within their teams.¹ Morgan McKinley's summary line is pointed: "until leadership reconciles the fact that 62% of their staff feel an 'increased desire to leave' due to the current in-office expectations of their employer, the pursuit of office-based productivity may continue to yield the exact opposite result."¹

Insight 4: Stricter Mandates Are Hitting Women Harder

This is the section Morgan McKinley's executive summary chose to lead with — and the data justifies the prominence.

The financial geometry is unequal before any mandate is applied. 36% of women earn between €30,000–€50,000, compared to 21% of men. At the top end, men are twice as likely to reach the €100,000–€150,000 bracket (14% vs 7%). Women are also more likely to carry caregiving responsibilities: 51% of female respondents versus 45% of male respondents.¹ When stricter office expectations are imposed on top of that unequal baseline, the impact compounds across four measurable dimensions.

Gender disparity in RTO impact — Female vs Male respondents Gender Disparity in RTO Impact Source: Morgan McKinley, From Hybrid to HQ (2026), Figures 4.2–4.4 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 47% 52% Satisfied with current RTO 10% 16% Productivity gain in-office 69% 58% Stress / burnout 28% 12% Less DEI support Female respondents Male respondents

Morgan McKinley's conclusion is unambiguous: if the office environment remains unsustainable for the 51% of women balancing caregiving loads, many middle-management leaders may opt out, "creating a potential decade-long shortage of diverse C-suite talent."¹

Insight 5: Employers Are Underestimating the Damage

The report identifies a clear "perception gap" between employers and employees on the drawbacks of in-office mandates. Both groups agree on the upside — team collaboration (17% employees vs 18% employers) and productivity (14% on both sides) are the primary gains.¹ But they diverge sharply on the downside.

On what is being lost, employees focus on life autonomy: 59% cite work flexibility, 41% cite the increased commute, and 34% cite productivity. Employers frame the risk in business terms: 19% fear reduced employee retention, 15% worry about motivation, 12% about work-life balance.¹

The asymmetry is sharpest on what is already being felt versus what is being noticed:

Negative impact reported	Employees	Employers
Stress and burnout from RTO	64%	27%
Need for higher pay to cover commute	70%	18% (formal requests received)
Increased desire to leave	62%	29% (rise in resignations observed)
Lower levels of productivity	60%	33%
Employee pushback against the policy	30%	69%
Recruitment challenges	23%	44%

Source: Morgan McKinley, From Hybrid to HQ (2026), Figure 3.1.¹

The dissatisfaction is showing up in how staff feel, but has not yet fully translated into the formal indicators (pay requests, resignations) that employers track. Morgan McKinley warns this is a lagging-indicator problem, not an absence of one.

Insight 6: The Tug-of-War Has Stabilised

After several years of policy churn, the report finds a clear plateau. The desire to further reduce office time has effectively vanished from the corporate agenda.¹

12-month outlook on in-office requirements	Employees	Employers
Will stay the same	83%	84%
Will increase	16%	16%
Will decrease	1%	0%

Source: Morgan McKinley, From Hybrid to HQ (2026), Figures 6.1 and 6.2.

That said, 33% of employers have already increased their in-office requirements over the past year, and 67% have kept them steady.¹ The era of radical workplace pivots, in Morgan McKinley's framing, is behind us — what remains is the unresolved cost of the structure now in place. Three days a week has clearly emerged as the new dominant benchmark, with 32% of employees and 38% of employers reporting it as the standard.¹

What Morgan McKinley Recommends

The report closes with five action points for financial services employers navigating the new normal.¹

1. Bridge the productivity perception gap — measure outputs, not attendance. With only 14% of employers believing full RTO boosts productivity and 60% of employees saying RTO has hurt theirs, the report recommends moving to output-based KPIs, prioritising the office for interactive tasks, and reserving remote settings for deep work.

2. Mitigate the commute tax with financial support. 70% of employees feel they need higher pay to cover commuting costs, but only 18% of employers have received formal requests. Commuter subsidies and flexible benefits packages are a strategic response to the documented retention risk.

3. Move from top-down mandates to team-led flexibility. Today, only 3% of employees and 16% of employers say individual teams set their own office schedules. Morgan McKinley recommends "anchor days" determined by project needs, not corporate-wide mandates.

4. Redesign the office for collaboration, not desk-rows. Given that 24% of employees say "nothing" would be gained from a full RTO, the report recommends curating the office for breakout rooms, social hubs and mentorship zones — and measuring the quality of collaborative outcomes, not badge-ins.

5. Monitor wellbeing — especially for women. 64% of employees report RTO-related stress but only 27% of employers see it as a current issue. The gap widens further for women (69% burnout, 47% satisfaction), so regular anonymous pulse surveys focused on office attendance and manager training on signs of fatigue are recommended.

In a closing commentary, Seb O'Connell, Chief Executive Officer of Org Group (Morgan McKinley's parent), writes that flexibility has become a competitive advantage — not a "feature" but a true lever only when it aligns with a candidate's specific priorities. For employers committed to a full RTO, the strategy must "refocus from offering flexibility to providing a compelling value proposition that enhances the in-office culture and in-person collaboration" — and accept that the available talent pool will be smaller. To remain competitive for "high demand skills in AI and emerging technologies," he argues, firms must emphasise the tangible in-office benefits — stronger collaboration, career development, rewards and mentorship — that are difficult to replicate in a virtual environment.¹

The Bottom Line: A Plain-English Conclusion

If you strip away the charts, Morgan McKinley's report says five things:

• Three days a week has won. Most Irish financial services staff are in the office two to five days a week, and three days is the new normal for both employees and employers.
• About half the workforce is unhappy with that arrangement. The reasons are concrete: an expensive commute, an office full of distractions, and flexibility that has been quietly taken away.
• Bosses and staff are looking at the same office and seeing two different things. Employers see collaboration and culture; staff also see stress, lower productivity and a stronger reason to start job-hunting.
• The pain is not falling evenly. Women, who are more often caregivers and more often in lower salary bands, are taking the hardest hit — and they are the diverse leaders companies say they want to keep.
• The situation has stopped changing on its own. Most firms are not planning to tighten or loosen further, so the underlying problems will not solve themselves; they have to be actively addressed.

The take-home for employers, in one line: if you want people in the office, make it worth their while — financially, professionally and personally — or you will quietly drain the people you most need to keep.

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Sources

Footnotes

1. Morgan McKinley (Part of Org Group), From Hybrid to HQ: The Impact of Return to Office in Financial Services in Ireland (2026). Ireland-segment survey of 440 respondents across Accounting & Finance and Banking & Financial Services. The full report is available to download directly from Morgan McKinley after registration: Report landing page. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵

2. Morgan McKinley, landing page for the report: From Hybrid to HQ: Is Your RTO Policy Driving Growth or Driving Your Best Talent Away?. The 66% / 13% / 77% / 68% framing stats are drawn from this published page, which Morgan McKinley presents alongside the deeper survey data inside the gated report. ↩

3. The "14%" figure for employers who believe a full RTO would boost productivity matches Figure 5.1 of the PDF and the headline of Insight 3 (page 5). The Recommendations section of the same PDF (page 14) uses 13% in prose. This article uses 14% throughout, matching the chart in the source. ↩