FEBRUARY 18, 2026 — Back-to-office mandates are putting new pressure on BPO providers that expanded remote contact center delivery after the pandemic.

In an industry commentary released Wednesday by Ryan Strategic Advisory, it noted that the return-to-office mandates across major economies are challenging the consensus around home-working and putting pressure on outsourced customer experience delivery.

Ryan Strategic Advisory said, “the days of remote work as the norm for contact center management are a thing of the past.”

Even before the pandemic, outsourcers had already promoted home-based delivery, citing lower facility costs, broader access to talent, specialized virtual networks by language or subject matter expertise, and more mature technology for quality and engagement management.

The wave of return-to-office mandates across private and public sectors over the past 12 to 18 months, however, has strengthened expectations that employees should be in the office at least part of the week. Potential reasons around this include compliance needs, supervision concerns, or culture building as its main drivers.

Despite these mandates, the firm cited a study by The Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London and King’s Business School that found, “only 2 in 5 employees would comply with 5 day a 5-day-a-week back-to-the-office setup.”

Ryan Strategic Advisory advised BPOs to emphasize hybrid working, aligning higher-value processes best suited to remote work, and targeting industries where remote working is already common in operations.