The Return-to-Office Shift Doesn't Answer Your Next Hiring Question
September 29, 2026
September 29, 2026
Return-to-office policies are becoming more demanding across the US. At the same time, companies continue to hire across borders. Those developments can look contradictory at first, but they address two different workforce decisions.
The first is where an existing employee works. The second is where a company sources the capability it needs next.
Return-to-office mandates in the US are getting stricter, not looser. Resume Builder's 2026 research found that 30% of companies now require employees in the office five days a week, up from 28% in 2025. Enforcement has moved even further: CBRE's 2025 Americas Office Occupier Sentiment Survey found the share of companies actively enforcing office attendance policies rose from 17% in 2024 to 37% in 2025, and JLL data reported by Bisnow showed 54% of Fortune 100 companies requiring full-time office attendance by mid-2025, compared with 11% a year earlier.
Cross-border hiring has kept expanding at the same time. Stealth Agents' 2026 Cross-Border Remote Hiring report puts the share of companies hiring internationally for remote positions at 78%, with continued year-over-year growth in cross-border hiring volume on major global employment platforms and in international remote job postings on LinkedIn.
That difference has real implications for companies considering a Philippine-based team in 2026. A stricter office policy for a US-based workforce does not automatically eliminate the business case for hiring in the Philippines. It simply means the company needs to be clearer about why the role is being created, where the capability is available, and how the team will operate.
For Montani, this is an important distinction because Philippine hiring is not simply a workaround for remote-work policies. It can be part of a longer-term workforce strategy.
Return-to-office policies have become more structured and, in some companies, more heavily enforced. But they do not answer a different question: where should a company build its next team?
An organization can decide that its US-based employees need to be in the office while simultaneously deciding that certain new technical, operational, HR, or customer-support roles can be built in another market. Those decisions can coexist because they concern different populations and different workforce needs.
The more useful takeaway from the cross-border figures above is not any single percentage. It is that companies are continuing to look beyond their home market when the capability they need is difficult, slow, or expensive to build domestically.
The reason for doing that is also becoming more nuanced. Cost remains relevant, but talent access is increasingly part of the conversation. Stealth Agents' 2026 report finds that the share of employers citing cost as the primary reason for hiring in comparable international markets such as India fell from roughly 70% in 2020 to about 34% in 2026, with access to specialized talent now cited more often than cost alone.
That shift is important for Philippine hiring. A company should not start with "how much cheaper is this person." It should start with "where can we realistically build the capability this role requires." Cost can then be evaluated alongside availability, experience, retention, management requirements, and the complexity of establishing the team. That makes cross-border hiring a build-versus-source decision, rather than simply a remote-work decision.
The easiest way to understand the distinction is to separate the two decisions.
This distinction also changes how companies should interpret RTO headlines. If a US company announces a five-day office requirement, that does not necessarily mean every future role must also be located in that same office. The company may still need more engineers, customer support coverage, or specialized finance, HR, operations, or QA roles. The relevant question becomes whether those roles need to be performed by employees physically located at headquarters, or whether the capability can be built elsewhere with the appropriate structure and support.
The RTO debate is unlikely to provide a clear answer to that question. A better approach is to evaluate the role itself.
Start with the role, not the location. Define what the business actually needs before deciding where to hire: the responsibilities, required experience, working hours, communication requirements, technical qualifications, and level of independence expected from the employee. A role that requires daily physical access to a US facility is different from a role that depends primarily on systems, communication, technical expertise, or customer interaction. The location decision should follow that analysis.
Look at capability, not just salary. Salary is one part of the calculation, but it is not the entire hiring equation. A more complete comparison considers the availability of qualified candidates, expected hiring timeline, compensation, employment and statutory requirements, management capacity, onboarding and training, equipment and systems, communication and time-zone requirements, retention and continuity, and the cost of maintaining the team over time. This is where a Philippine hiring strategy becomes different from simply looking for the lowest-cost labor market.
Decide how the team will be supported. Cross-border hiring also creates operational responsibilities: a clear employment structure, payroll process, statutory compliance, HR administration, employee support, performance management, and a process for handling the practical issues that come with managing an international team. This is one area where Montani's role extends beyond recruitment. The objective is not only to find a candidate; it is to help create a structure in which the employee can remain part of the business over the long term.
A Montani client example: Rev365, a digital marketing company that has continued building technical capacity in the Philippines over multiple hiring phases. Since 2018, Montani has recruited more than 10 technical professionals for Rev365, with hiring taking place over several years rather than as a one-time response to a particular remote-work trend. Each phase involved identifying candidates, screening them, conducting interviews, and completing technical assessments. The relationship also extends beyond recruitment: Montani has supported the team's HR administration, payroll, statutory compliance, and employee engagement throughout the engagement.
That history matters because it shows what a long-term Philippine hiring strategy can look like. The decision was not dependent on whether US companies were moving toward remote work or back toward offices in a particular year. The business continued to use the Philippines as a source of technical capability because the team remained relevant to its operating needs.
As Carlos Abiera, Owner of Montani International, puts it:
"Clients who are still building their Philippine team eight years in aren't reacting to a headline. They found a source of capability that works, and they kept using it."
That is a more useful lens for evaluating Philippine hiring than asking whether the current RTO cycle is "pro" or "anti" remote work.
The question is not "are companies returning to the office." The answer to that is increasingly clear for many US employers, as the figures above show.
The more relevant question is "where should we build the capability we need next." For some roles, the answer will be the company's existing office. For others, it may be another city, another state, or another country. A Philippine team can make sense when the company needs access to qualified talent, wants to expand capacity, needs specific skills, or wants to build a long-term international workforce structure. That decision should be based on the role and the business requirements, not on whichever workplace trend happens to dominate the headlines that month.
Does a return-to-office mandate mean a company should stop hiring in the Philippines? Not necessarily. RTO policies primarily determine where a company's existing employees work. Philippine hiring is a separate decision about where the company sources additional capability.
Is Philippine hiring mainly about reducing labor costs? Cost can be an important consideration, but industry research (Stealth Agents, 2026) shows it is increasingly weighed alongside talent access rather than treated as the sole driver. International hiring can also provide access to skills and capacity that may be difficult or slower to source domestically.
Can a company have an in-office US team and a Philippine-based team? Yes. The two arrangements can serve different roles within the same organization. What matters is that responsibilities, reporting structures, schedules, communication expectations, and employment arrangements are clearly defined.
What should a company evaluate before building a Philippine team? Start with the role and business requirement. Consider talent availability, compensation, hiring timelines, required skills, working hours, management needs, compliance, onboarding, and the level of ongoing HR support the team will require.
How much can a company save by hiring in the Philippines? There is no single savings figure that applies to every role. The comparison depends on the position, seniority, employment structure, and the costs included in the calculation. Companies should evaluate the full cost of building and maintaining the role rather than relying on a generic percentage.
Is the RTO trend a reason to delay a Philippine hiring decision? RTO data by itself does not answer that question. The more relevant considerations are the capability the business needs, where qualified talent is available, and how quickly and sustainably the company needs to build that capacity.
Source note: The workforce statistics referenced above come from Resume Builder's 2026 research, CBRE's 2025 Americas Office Occupier Sentiment Survey, JLL data reported by Bisnow, and Stealth Agents' 2026 Cross-Border Remote Hiring report. Figures should be checked against the original publications before being reused externally.
Return-to-office policies may continue to change. So will the broader conversation around remote and international work. A hiring decision, however, does not need to follow every change in that conversation.
For companies considering the Philippines, the more durable question is where the business can build the skills, capacity, and operational support it needs for the long term. That is the part of the decision that the RTO debate cannot make for you.
If your business is evaluating Philippine-based talent, explore Montani's talent pool or talk with Montani about building a long-term team.