The large companies went to five days; many small ones are settling at two or three. Whatever the number, the policy fails the same way: nobody can say who complied. Here is how to write one that can be measured.
A return-to-office (RTO) policy sets how many days, and which, employees are expected to work from the office, and what counts as compliance. Through 2025 and 2026 the large Indian and global employers moved to four- and five-day mandates; small businesses mostly settled on two or three days with team anchor days. The policy problems are identical at any size: the requirement is stated as days per week when teams think in weeks that contain holidays and leave; "in the office" is undefined (an hour at lunch?); exceptions multiply until the rule is fiction; and compliance is measured, if at all, by someone eyeballing a floor. A policy that works defines the unit (days per month is more forgiving of holidays than days per week), defines an office day (check-in at the office location before a cut-off, present for the core hours), names the exceptions and who approves them, and measures compliance from the attendance record already being kept. Template below. Facts checked 14 October 2026.
| Fixed days | Everyone in on Mon/Wed/Fri. Simple to state, simplest to measure, least flexible. Fits small co-located teams where the office is the point. |
|---|---|
| Anchor days + count | Team anchor days (e.g. Tue/Thu) are mandatory for collaboration; a monthly count (e.g. 12 office days) covers the rest at the employee's choice. Fits most 20–200 person companies. |
| Count only | A monthly or quarterly count or percentage with no fixed days. Most flexible, weakest for collaboration, easiest to game by clustering. Fits roles where office presence is about access to equipment or clients, not teammates. |
Whichever you pick, state the goal: collaboration days are measured by whether the team was together; count days are measured per person. The hybrid attendance guide covers the four statuses (office, WFH, remote, leave) the record needs to distinguish.
"Present in the office" has to be a testable statement. The usable definition: checked in at the office location by the cut-off time, and not checked out before the end of core hours, with the check-in location verified against the office radius. Check-in from the café downstairs does not count; check-in at 15:30 does not count; check-in at 09:30 and out at 11:00 counts as a half-day under the normal half-day rules and not as an office day. Writing it this way means the attendance record, not a manager, decides.
Badge-swipe counting produced the 2025 headlines about "coffee badging" because it measured entry, not presence. The attendance record you already keep for payroll — check-in time and location, check-out time, status — measures presence if it was captured at the punch. The monthly RTO report per employee is then: office days (as defined) ÷ required office days for the month (after leave and holidays), with the shortfall listed by date. Produce it once a month, share it with the employee and the manager, and use it in the monthly review. Do not build a dashboard of live floor occupancy; it is surveillance with no decision attached.
| Unit | Days per month or percentage of working days; anchor days for collaboration |
|---|---|
| Office day | Checked in at the office location by cut-off; present through core hours |
| Measured from | Check-in time and location already captured for payroll |
| Exceptions | Approved WFH, leave, holidays, approved travel, documented accommodations |
| Not a pay deduction | Shortfall is a conduct matter unless the day was also an unapproved absence |
| Report | Monthly, per employee: office days ÷ required days, shortfall dates listed |
| Avoid | Badge-swipe counts, live occupancy dashboards, manager memory |
There is no right number; two or three days with team anchor days is where most small businesses have settled, and some roles need five. State the requirement as days per month or a percentage of working days so holiday weeks and leave do not break it, and state why — collaboration days and access days are different rules.
Define it in the policy: checked in at the office location by a cut-off time and present through the core hours. Without a definition a brief visit counts, and the policy cannot be enforced. Check-in at an approved client site usually should count as well.
Use the attendance record you already keep: check-in time and location at the moment of the punch, check-out time, and the day's status. A monthly per-employee report of office days against required days, shared with the employee, is enough. Avoid live occupancy dashboards and badge-swipe counts, which measure entry rather than presence and create resentment without improving anything.
Not for an RTO shortfall as such — the employee worked, from elsewhere. Presence is a conduct and performance matter handled through conversation, written notes and the review process. Pay is affected only if the day was also an unapproved absence under the attendance policy.
Name them in the policy: approved WFH requests under the WFH policy (capped per month), leave and holidays, approved client travel, and documented accommodations with a review date. Anything outside the list is a shortfall, counted and raised, so the exception list does not grow by precedent.
It can be, as long as each team's rule is written and measured the same way. Teams whose work needs collaboration get anchor days; teams whose office need is equipment or client access get a count. Managers should not be inventing per-person rules.
Merik records each day as office, WFH, remote or leave from what actually happened: check-in and check-out from the employee's own phone, server-timed, with the location at the tap reverse-geocoded to a place name and verified against your office or client-site radius. WFH is a request with an approver, leave and holidays come from the leave module, and late marks and half-days apply by your configured rules — so "office days this month" is a filter on the attendance record, not a count anyone has to keep.
Merik does not track location between punches or show live floor occupancy; the monthly RTO conversation happens in the performance review, grounded in the same record. See the attendance and leave modules.
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