Imagine a founder opening Monday's meeting with a simple announcement: from next month, everyone works in the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The reason sounds sensible. New colleagues need support, decisions take too long, and client knowledge is scattered across video calls and private messages.
Then the questions begin. One employee has worked remotely three days a week since joining. Another arranged childcare around a manager's written promise. A third received equipment and a home-working allowance. Nobody is quite sure what the handbook says.
For many office-based companies, this is ordinary management work. CBS found that 45% of employees worked from home at least sometimes in 2025. Among those home workers, the average was about ten hours a week. The share remained broadly stable for three years.
Hybrid work is therefore part of how many companies organise work. A change in office attendance is less a culture statement than a governance exercise.
The promise may be larger than the policy
Dutch law gives employees a formal route to request a change of workplace, including partial or full home working. At employers with at least ten employees, the usual conditions include 26 weeks of service and a written request at least two months before the proposed change.
The employer must discuss the request and respond in writing. That procedure is only one layer of the relationship. Contracts, collective agreements, handbook provisions, and established working arrangements can shape the position as well.
Repeated management conduct matters too. If a company has allowed the same arrangement for years, staff may reasonably regard it as part of the job rather than a favour renewed each week.
A District Court of Midden-Nederland ruling from November 2025 illustrates the point. In that case, working mainly from Ecuador had become an employment condition through the parties' agreement and conduct. The employer could not withdraw it unilaterally.
The lesson for an owner is simple. Before changing the arrangement, establish what the company already promised, both in writing and in daily practice.
Presence needs a business reason
Office attendance is not automatically good management. A desk occupied from nine to five tells little about service, knowledge sharing, or control. Flexibility does not remove the need for supervision, secure access, training, and dependable team decisions either.
A useful attendance rule starts with the work itself. Junior employees may need direct access to experienced colleagues. Sensitive client matters may require secure systems. A service team may need shared hours for urgent decisions. Equipment or physical records may tie another role to the workplace.
These reasons can differ sharply within one company. CBS reported that remote work was practically possible for 96% of employees in financial services and 91% in information and communication in 2025. In hospitality, the figure was 20%.
Return to the Monday meeting. The founder's mistake was not wanting two office days. The mistake was announcing the answer before mapping existing arrangements and explaining the need.
Tuesday and Thursday may still suit parts of the business. First, the company needs to know which roles require presence, which promises already exist, and whether managers have created different private rules.
The route matters as much as the rule
A general attendance policy may affect a personnel, working-hours, or working-conditions scheme. That can bring the works council into the decision before the company announces a finished plan.
In a 2025 Caterpillar case, the District Court of Oost-Brabant stopped a return-to-office decision until the works council had consented or the court had authorised it. Consultation after an announcement is a different exercise from involving the council before the decision.
The Court of Appeal Arnhem-Leeuwarden offered a further warning in July 2025. A dispute over office attendance, illness, reintegration, and communication developed into a severe and lasting breakdown of the employment relationship.
The court found that requiring partial office attendance was not culpable conduct by the employer in that case. The practical lesson is broader: an unclear attendance dispute can swallow the whole working relationship.
A company should separate the operational question from the emotional one. What work needs people together? Which roles need secure access or direct supervision? Where does presence help new colleagues learn faster? A clear answer makes the policy easier to explain and apply.
The home desk remains part of the company
Bringing people back for part of the week does not end responsibility for the days they remain at home. Rijksoverheid states that employers retain a duty of care for a safe home workplace.
The real working pattern should appear in the risk inventory and evaluation, its plan of action, equipment choices, and employee instructions. The home desk belongs in the company's normal control framework, even when it stands in somebody's spare room.
Payroll records need the same realism. A home-working allowance, an equipment reimbursement, and an occupational-health facility are different items. They should not be treated as interchangeable labels.
Belastingdienst guidance published in July 2026 confirms that qualifying occupational-health facilities may be provided or reimbursed tax-free when the conditions are met. The facility must directly relate to occupational-health obligations and satisfy the applicable requirements.
A general home-office budget cannot carry the full weight of those obligations. Where the work requires further measures, the employer remains responsible for them.
This is where a modest policy review earns its value. Employment terms should match the manager's message. The risk assessment should match where people actually work. Payroll should show what the company paid, why it paid it, and how it treated the item.
Clarity before attendance
The office debate is often framed as a contest between managerial authority and employee freedom. Small employers cannot afford that theatre. They need work completed, clients served, new people trained, and commitments honoured.
Staff need to know where they are expected, why their presence matters, and whether comparable roles follow the same standard. A rule that suits a client-facing service team may add little for a specialist doing focused technical work.
Before sending the return-to-office email, pause at the founder's table. Read the contracts and recent manager messages. Compare the handbook with actual practice. Identify the work that genuinely benefits from presence.
Then consider the works-council route, the home-workplace duties, and the payroll treatment that remains. Make the decision after that work is done.
A clear office rule can support a company. An unexplained one merely reveals how little the company knew about its own promises.
Need a practical review of your attendance rule, staff records and decision route? We can help set out the next steps
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Paolo Maria Pavan. AI was not used to identify sources, build the factual basis, or produce the analytical judgment contained here. AI was used only as a drafting aid. The final English text was personally reviewed, edited, and approved by Paolo Maria Pavan before publication.
