JSE-listed technology services group iOCO has scrapped its work-from-home policy entirely, requiring all employees to return to the office full time — and it says the move has delivered a measurable improvement in productivity, fewer errors and happier customers.
The decision, disclosed by CEO Rhys Summerton during the group’s interim results presentation on Wednesday, places iOCO firmly in a camp occupied by some of the world’s largest technology companies, including Amazon, Dell Technologies, Meta Platforms and Google, all of which have tightened or eliminated remote work arrangements over the past 18 months.
But it also puts iOCO at odds with a growing body of academic research suggesting that hybrid work — not a full return to the office — delivers the best outcomes for companies and employees alike.
Summerton, who took the reins at iOCO — the former EOH Holdings — as CEO in February 2025, said the company had to break a post-Covid mentality that had taken root across its workforce of about 4 300 people. Chief financial officer Ashona Kooblall said the results have been tangible.
“We’ve seen a nice uptick in productivity, fewer errors, more focus, faster turnaround on client delivery bids and fewer complaints from customers,” Kooblall told TechCentral in an interview. “In a 4 300-people organisation, at least 90% of them are at customers serving customers, and there’s fewer complaints. There’s more impact.”
The decision was not popular, Summerton acknowledged.
Pushback
“There was obviously a lot of pushback,” he said, noting that employees had grown accustomed to the flexibility of remote work — dropping children at school, going to the gym and fitting work in around personal routines.
However, Summerton said international data suggested companies might lose about 2% of their workforce when mandating a return to the office, typically staff who had relocated during the pandemic and couldn’t easily move back. At iOCO, he said there had been virtually no unwanted attrition.
One of the biggest challenges, he said, was getting senior staff on board. “The more senior people don’t want to come back. But they need to set the tone. If the senior people aren’t in the office, the junior people have nobody to learn from.”
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Asked whether exceptions were made for developers — a category of workers often considered better suited to the quiet of a home office — Summerton was blunt.
“They say that’s what they say. I just never buy that,” he said, noting that iOCO employs about 300 to 400 developers out of its total workforce, the majority of whom work at customer sites rather than on internal projects.
Summerton also made an argument rooted in the rise of artificial intelligence: if everyone is using AI tools and becoming 20-40% more productive, workers should have more capacity to take on additional work rather than less. “It’s not interruption by being in the office. Just live with it. I think there are more benefits than negatives.”
iOCO’s decision mirrors a broader corporate shift that has accelerated sharply over the past year. According to a survey of business leaders by ResumeBuilder, nearly half of all companies will demand that employees be in the office at least four days a week, with 28% phasing out remote work entirely.
The list of major technology firms that have mandated a full-time return to the office continues to grow. Amazon required its 350 000 corporate employees back five days a week from January 2025. Dell ended its hybrid policy in March 2025, with CEO Michael Dell declaring the company was “retiring” flexible work, according to Fortune. TikTok and financial services firm Truist have both announced five-day office mandates taking effect in 2026.
Meta’s Instagram head, Adam Mosseri, announced that most US Instagram employees would need to be in the office five days a week from February 2026, while Disney has maintained a four-day in-office requirement for corporate staff, Newsweek reported.
‘Go-go environment’
Even as remote job opportunities have declined, the competition to land them remains fierce: just 20% of LinkedIn postings are for remote or hybrid positions, yet they attract 60% of all applications on the platform, according to CNBC.
The evidence on whether full-time office mandates actually deliver productivity gains is far from settled.
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A widely cited study led by Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, published in the journal Nature, found that employees who worked from home two days a week were just as productive and as likely to be promoted as their fully office-based peers. Crucially, hybrid arrangements reduced employee turnover by a third.
Managers in Bloom’s study initially predicted that remote work would hurt productivity but changed their minds by the experiment’s end, concluding that flexible arrangements could actually improve output.
Despite the academic pushback, Summerton said iOCO’s own experience had been overwhelmingly positive. “It’s almost like a go-go environment that we’ve got going,” Kooblall said.
Whether iOCO’s experience can be generalised to other technology companies remains an open question. But for Summerton, the calculus is simple: “There are more benefits than negatives,” he said. “I think they’ve forgiven us now.”— (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
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