Balancing Turnover and Promotion Outcomes: Evidence on the Optimal Hybrid-Work Frequency

Abstract

Hybrid work policy, especially return-to-office requirements, remains a globally salient topic as workers, companies, and governments continue to debate and disagree. Despite extensive discussions on the benefits and drawbacks of remote and hybrid arrangements, the optimal number of remote days that jointly considers multiple organizational outcomes has not been empirically established. Focusing on two critical career outcomes -- turnover risk and promotion -- we examine how remote work frequency shapes employee trajectories using large-scale observational activity data from a company with over one million employees. We find that increased remote-work frequency is associated with an initial decrease and then an increase in turnover, while promotion likelihood initially rises and then declines. Accordingly, we identify approximately two remote days per week as an optimal balance -- maximizing promotion, a positive outcome for employees, while minimizing turnover, which is undesirable for organizations and may indicate negative employee experiences. These patterns vary across subgroups defined by gender, role type, and leadership status. Several notable results emerge. First, male employees derive greater promotion benefits from remote work than female employees. Second, support workers (non-core business roles) do not experience promotion gains, and the reduction in turnover at their optimal remote-work frequency is marginal compared with employees in core business roles. Third, organizational leaders face greater challenges in remote settings than individual contributors: their turnover risk increases substantially at higher remote frequencies, and their likelihood of promotion decreases as remote frequency rises. We further show that time-allocation patterns partly explain how remote-work frequency influences these career outcomes.