Bank of America is taking hybrid work rules a step further with a new policy that won't let employees take their remote days back-to-back.
Starting September 14, hybrid staff at Bank of America will keep their two remote days per week, but those days can no longer be consecutive. A bank spokesperson said the goal is to boost in-person collaboration and make better use of office space by keeping some employees on-site every day of the week. The change was shaped by employee feedback and tailored to the nature of different roles, the spokesperson added. Most client-facing staff, including those in financial centers and sales, are already working in the office full time.
Bank of America isn't alone in dictating which specific days hybrid employees must show up. Apple has long used "anchor days," requiring in-office attendance on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and a third team-specific day. UBS adopted a similar approach in March 2025, mandating that one of employees' three in-office days fall on a Monday or Friday.
Part of the motivation behind these policies is a real estate problem: offices tend to be crowded midweek and nearly empty on Mondays and Fridays. But just as important is making sure employees overlap in the office with the specific colleagues they're meant to be collaborating with.
Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, a prominent voice in remote-work research, has pointed out that letting employees freely choose their own office days can defeat the purpose of coming in at all — if your team isn't there too, you're just working from a different location. A 2023 study backs this up, finding that companies benefit from helping workers coordinate their schedules so teams are actually present together, rather than leaving in-office days to individual discretion.
The broader trend, though, is toward less flexibility overall. Among Fortune 500 companies, the share offering flexible work arrangements dropped 11% between Q2 2024 and Q2 2025, while the share requiring full-time office attendance nearly doubled, climbing from 13% to 24%, according to the Flex Index's Q2 2025 report.
In banking specifically, JPMorgan Chase has mandated full-time office attendance since January 2025, and Truist followed suit in January 2026.