The best RTO strategies start with who, not what
Companies successfully making the transition to in-person and hybrid schedules know it’s their people, not their policy, that will make it work.
When companies abruptly sent employees home in the spring of 2020, they worried about how working remotely would affect morale, productivity, and team cohesiveness. They likely never imagined the bigger challenge—convincing employees to come back to the office. A shift that took weeks to become the norm has taken months, and many failed attempts, to reverse.
With the majority of employees preferring a fully remote or hybrid work option, companies developing and implementing return to office (RTO) strategies are experimenting with a variety of tactics: reconfiguring the workplace to expand space for collaboration; establishing enhanced safety policies; and offering incentives such as food and beverages, social events, and amenities lacking in most home offices.
While there is no perfect RTO policy that works for all organizations, the most successful strategies do have one thing in common. They start with the employee—and keep employees at the center of all decisions.
Organizations forming their RTO strategy should consider the following:
Hiring and Retention is at Stake: In a recent survey, 87% of working Americans said they would choose to “work flexibly” when provided the opportunity.1 The same survey found that the third most common reason participants were looking for a new job was to have a remote work option. With today’s fierce competition for talent, a company’s ability to attract and keep high performers depends on getting its RTO strategy right.
The consequences of getting it wrong can be brutal: In 2021, a manager at a professional services firm unilaterally decided to require his team to be back in the office four to five days a week. Within months, half the team had left the firm. By talking with employees before issuing the RTO order, this leader could have better understood his team’s needs and wants. Such a dialogue would have increased mutual trust, helped the leader understand the risks of his plan—and enabled him to craft a policy that didn’t have talent bolting for the exit.
Engagement Hinges on Job Reattachment: For people who’ve been working remotely for over two years, a hybrid or fully in-person schedule upends established routines. Employees experience a kind of “reboot” and must mentally prepare not only for tasks and responsibilities, but for a new physical environment. Before they can be engaged and productive, they must rebuild a mental connection to work. In psychological terms, this is known as “job reattachment.”
Managers can assist their teams in that adjustment by creating an environment where employees feel psychologically safe, by leading with humanity and empathy. This requires leaders to be aware of their own mindsets, cognizant of how their actions affect others, and willing to learn quickly and change as needed.
Equity Matters: Even within organizations, one-size-fits all policies have little chance of succeeding. Some positions might lend themselves to fully remote work. For other jobs—such as those in manufacturing or R&D or those that are client-facing—even a partially remote arrangement might not be possible. Providing different options to employees in different functions across the organization can lead to tension.
Employers can defuse the tension by striving to make remote work equitable for all, communicating transparently and leading with the needs of their people. This includes recognizing that for some employees a return to in-person work also means a return to lengthy, expensive daily commutes, or that the new policy will send parents scrambling for childcare. Leaders should look for solutions to help mitigate these stressors.
Authorship Leads to Ownership: To craft an RTO policy that keeps employees at the center, organizations must start by talking with employees. Sounds obvious, but too many RTO initiatives fail because companies skip or skimp on the process of discovering their employees’ wants and needs. This assessment can take the form of surveys, interviews, town halls, focus groups, anything that lets employees be—and feel—heard.
Ultimately, the RTO policy won’t please everyone (has anything ever?). It will, though, be built on meeting the needs of employees. Even those who are disappointed by some parts of the plan will feel a greater sense of buy-in for having had their voices heard.
Flexibility is Key: Again, there is no perfect approach to RTO. How could there be? There is no precedent, no model for what companies are attempting to do. The principles and practices outlined here can lay the foundation of a winning RTO strategy. Success, though, demands that companies stay flexible, trying out new policies, listening to employee feedback, admitting when something doesn’t work, and pivoting when necessary.
The pandemic has forced organizations into a massive experiment. It will take intentionality, flexibility, and a relentless focus on people to discover the RTO formula that best serves the needs of employees and organizations.
Sources
Related content
Related content
From top-down to judgment all around: The AI imperative for organizations
Each business revolution has reshaped not only how businesses operate, but how they organize themselves and empower their people. From the industrial age to the information era, and now into the age of artificial intelligence, technology has always brought with it a reconfiguration of authority, capability, and judgment.
In the 19th century, industrialization centralized work and knowledge. The factory system required hierarchical structures where strategy, information, and decision-making were concentrated at the top. Managers at the apex made tradeoffs for the greater good of the enterprise because they were the only ones with access to the full picture.
Then came the information economy. With it came the distribution of information and a need for more agile, team-based structures. Cross-functional collaboration and customer proximity became competitive necessities. Organizations flattened, experimented with matrix models, and pushed decision-making closer to where problems were being solved. What had once been the purview of a select few, judgment, strategic tradeoffs, and insight became expected competencies for managers and team leads across the enterprise.
Now, AI is changing the game again. But this time, it’s not just about access to data. It’s about access to intelligence.
Generative AI democratizes access not only to information, but to intelligent output. That shifts the burden for humans from producing insights to evaluating them. Judgment, which was long the domain of a few executives, must now become a baseline competency for the many across the organization.
But here’s the paradox: while AI extends our capacity for intelligence, discernment, the human ability to weigh context, values, and consequence, is still best left in the hands of human leaders. As organizations begin to automate early-career work, they may inadvertently erase the very pathways and opportunities by which judgment was built.
Why judgment matters more than ever
Deloitte’s 2023 Human Capital Trends survey found that 85% of leaders believe independent decision-making is more important than ever, but only 26% say they’re ready to support it. That shortfall threatens to neutralize the very productivity gains AI promises.
If employees can’t question, challenge, or contextualize AI’s output, then intelligent tools become dangerous shortcuts. The organization stalls, not from a lack of answers, but from a lack of sense-making.
What organizations must do
To stay competitive, organizations must shift from simply adopting AI to designing AI-aware ways of working:
- Build new learning paths for judgment development. As AI replaces easily systematized tasks, companies must replace lost learning experiences with mentorship, simulations, and intentional development planning.
- Design workflows that require human input. Treat AI as a co-pilot, not an autopilot. Embed review checkpoints and tradeoff discussions. Just as innovation processes have stage gates, so should AI analyses.
- Make judgment measurable. Assess and develop decision-making under ambiguity from entry-level roles onward. Research shows the best learning strategy for this is high-fidelity simulations.
- Start earlier. Leadership development must begin far earlier in career paths, because judgment, not just knowledge, is the new differentiator.
What’s emerging is not just a flatter hierarchy, but a more distributed sense of judgment responsibility. To thrive, organizations must prepare their people not to outthink AI, but to out-judge it.
BTS acquires Nexo to strengthen its position in Brazil and Latin America
P R E S S R E L E A S E
Stockholm, May 5, 2025
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – BTS Group AB (publ), a leading global consultancy specializing in strategy execution, change, and people development, has agreed to acquire Nexo Pesquisa e Consultoria Ltda., Nexo, a boutique consulting firm headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil.
Nexo has been growing continuously since it was founded in 2017. With revenues of approximately 12 million Brazilian Reales (approx. 2.1 million USD) in 2024, and a highly capable team of 21 members, Nexo has built a strong reputation for delivering transformative projects in strategy, innovation, leadership, and culture.
Nexo collaborates with a great portfolio of clients across sectors such as financial services, consumer goods, and technology, assisting both local and global companies in navigating uncertainty, unlocking creativity, and activating strategy through people. Their work encompasses culture transformation, leadership development, employer value proposition, innovation culture, and vision alignment – supported by proprietary methodologies and frameworks.
BTS currently operates in Brazil servicing both local and multinational clients with a team of 13 employees. By acquiring Nexo, BTS not only increases the Group’s footprint in Brazil but also adds significant capabilities in culture and transformation services. Nexo’s client base has limited overlap with BTS, creating strong growth potential and synergy opportunities.
“Nexo is known for helping leaders and organizations tackle some of the most complex, human-centered challenges with creativity, empathy, and strategic clarity and the Nexo team is loved by their clients,” says Philios Andreou, Deputy CEO of BTS Group and President of the Other Markets Unit. “Their products and services complement and elevate our existing offerings, especially in culture transformation, and we are thrilled to welcome the Nexo team to BTS.”
“We’re excited to join BTS. We’ve long admired BTS’s approach and unique portfolio to support large organizations and leaders in connecting strategy with culture across the organization,” says Andreas Auerbach, co founder of Nexo. “Becoming part of BTS, allows us to scale our impact and bring more value to our clients while staying true to our values and culture,” adds Mariana Lage Andrade, co-founder of Nexo.
Upon completion of the transaction, Nexo’s business and organization will merge with BTS Brazil. Nexo’s founders will assume senior management roles in the joint operation.
The acquisition includes a limited initial cash consideration. Additional purchase price considerations will be paid between 2026 and 2028, provided Nexo meets specific performance targets. A limited portion of any such additional purchase price considerations will be paid in newly issued BTS shares. The transaction is effective immediately.
BTS’s acquisition strategy continues to focus on broadening our service portfolio, expanding our geographic reach, and enhancing our capabilities to support future organic growth in a fragmented market.
For more information, please contact:
Philios Andreou
Deputy CEO
BTS Group AB
philios.andreou@bts.com
Michael Wallin
Head of investor relations
BTS Group AB
michael.wallin@bts.com
+46-8-587 070 02
+46-708-78 80 19
High-performing teaming
Work today is too complex for individuals to succeed in isolation. Almost every critical decision, innovation, or transformation depends on teams working effectively together. Leaders rely on their teams to deliver results. Teams, in turn, rely on their leaders to create the conditions where performance is possible. This exchange, what leaders need from their teams, and what teams need from their leaders, sits at the heart of what we call teaming.
When teaming is strong, leaders get what they need from their teams [creativity, resilience, execution] and teams get what they need from leaders [direction, support, and the conditions to thrive]. It’s how strategy becomes action, how uncertainty becomes opportunity, and how businesses stay competitive in a fast-changing world.