Report: 5 RTO takeaways from Density’s office comeback

In January 2025, we made the call: Density was going back to the office four days a week. We believed more time in person would lead to faster product development, better decision-making and more alignment across our teams.

We don’t just build workplace analytics tools—we use them ourselves. So when we returned to our San Francisco headquarters, we turned to Density sensors—Entry, Open Area and Waffle—to help us understand how our RTO policy was working in real time.

Three months in, we’ve seen what’s working—and what needs tweaking. Here's what we’ve learned from our own return to office, and how those insights can help you design a smarter, more successful RTO strategy.

Download a PDF version of this report.

1. Set a clear policy—Then measure it

Our approach: 4 days in-office (Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri) with Wednesdays as WFH/focus days.

The results? Policy adherence is high. We’ve seen close to 100% attendance among employees who are expected to come into the office, with small dips during travel-heavy weeks. Important to note: we don’t make it a practice to track in-office presence. We measure outcomes and address issues if we see them.

What you can learn:
Make your RTO policy clear, consistent and easy to follow. Then use workplace data like utilization, peak days and collaboration time to track adherence and spot patterns over time. Look for trends, not one-off exceptions.

2. Design a schedule that supports flow

Our approach: Create rhythm. Mondays are our heaviest day, and—surprise—Fridays aren’t slack days either. They’re nearly as busy as Tuesdays.

The results? Wednesdays offer a built-in break from the office for focused, heads-down work at home or wherever suits. But we still see folks trickle into our office by choice.

What you can learn:
Build a schedule that balances structure and flexibility. Give employees time to reset mid-week while still maintaining strong bookends for collaboration. Your data will show you what’s actually working.

3. Establish core hours to boost connection

Our approach: We implemented 10am–3pm core hours to maximize in-office overlap. It gives people the flexibility to manage their mornings and evenings while ensuring meaningful collaboration time.

The results? The data shows most employees (81%) arrive earlier than 10am and many (65%) stay past 3pm. There's a natural drop-off after 5pm.

What you can learn:
You don’t need a 9-to-5 mandate. Just enough overlap for meetings, mentorship and those casual, serendipitous “collisions” that only happen in person.

4. Measure how space is used—then adjust accordingly

Our approach: We didn’t just improvise the layout—we let the data lead. We knew we’d need a mix of assigned and unassigned space and definitely more meeting rooms, phone booths and flex spaces. 

The results? While most meeting rooms are used for collaboration, we saw that some 40% of our 2-person rooms are being used solo. 
That’s what phone booths and flex areas are for. So we added 
a few more of those.

Meanwhile, our largest rooms are getting solid usage from 7+ person groups—proof that people are gathering with purpose.

What you can learn:
Sensor data gives you visibility into how your spaces are actually being used—not just booked. Use that to adjust layouts, reduce solo squatting and right-size your meeting rooms.

5. Consult with your teams—and with your data

Our approach: Our RTO strategy is focused around velocity. We believed that we would see faster product development if our team was more aligned because they spent more time together in person.

The results? We developed and launched our new plug-and-play sensor Waffle in record time. We attribute the increased velocity to two things: better alignment and more collaboration. 

An employee engagement survey we ran in March 2025 shows a higher engagement rate among our in-person employees compared with our remote ones, 79% vs. 69%. For in-office employees, the higher engagement rate represents a 15-point jump from before we made the move back to in office.  

What you can learn:
A successful RTO strategy isn’t just about presence—it’s about purpose. Measure employee sentiment alongside behavior and be ready to adapt when the data tells you something’s off.

Final thoughts: RTO that works for people

We don’t pretend to have every answer—but we’ve learned a lot by practicing what we preach.

A good RTO policy isn’t just about writing rules. It’s about designing a workplace people want to be part of. It’s about using data to close the gap between how spaces are intended to be used and how they’re actually experienced. And it’s about communicating clearly—early and often.

All the insights in this report including the charts come straight from Density’s own analytics platform, Atlas. It’s our simple, self-serve tool that helps you turn workplace data into real-world decisions. If you're a Density customer, you already have access. 

Want to make your RTO plan successful?

Start with our Return to Office Playbook, talk to your people and let the data guide your decisions.

Download a PDF version of this report.