Reshaping Flexible Work

Among office workers Ivanti surveyed, nearly half (48%) have experienced pressure to return to the office during the last 12 months — ranging from a strict requirement to return to full-time office work, to “encouragement” to return. For IT professionals, the strain is even greater — 64% of IT workers say they’re feeling pressure from employers to come back to the office.

What’s driving the return-to-office trend? Office workers say their bosses seek improved productivity (41% say this) and stronger company culture (37%). Some also point out that leaders want more “control” (32%). Cybersecurity is also mentioned as a motivator, but many IT professionals agree (56%) that security alone isn’t enough to justify strict RTO mandates.

The impasse: Company leaders hope to improve productivity by bringing employees back to the office, yet 82% of office workers say that working outside the office is at least as productive as, if not more productive than working in the office.

Office workers report strict mandates cause negative knock-on effects. In fact, more than one in three office workers who have experienced return-to-office (RTO) mandates in the last year say both morale and satisfaction have been negatively affected.

And Ivanti’s research suggests worker dissatisfaction may show up in other ways. Forty-eight percent of office workers admit feeling resenteeism (when someone dislikes their job but stays despite the negative feelings). And 37% admit to presenteeism (when an employee comes into the office to be “seen” as working, but not necessarily to be productive).

Presenteeism can take many forms: Logging into work long before actual work begins, jiggling your mouse to keep your computer awake and your Slack status “active,” or even sighing loudly in front of others to convey busy-ness. These behaviors may remind employers that, no matter the location, people need to feel engaged with their work and rewarded for positive outcomes.

How can employers safeguard employee productivity and oversight, yet give employees more of what they want? Ivanti's research shows that employees — who have a wide range of workplace needs, career goals, etc. — largely want greater autonomy over their work lives (for example, working flexible hours or being able to leave early to address a personal matter).

Offering employees these types of flexibility options not only meets their individual needs; it also directly supports the goal of a more productive workforce. It may be time to put aside the in-person vs. remote debate and instead examine workers' deeper motivations — and how addressing them can drive both employee satisfaction and performance outcomes.

Despite ongoing debates about whether or not to allow remote work, the research shows that employees prioritize flexibility even more than hybrid/virtual work.

For office workers Ivanti surveyed, flexibility means working flexible hours, being able to leave work unexpectedly or taking breaks during the day for personal matters. All of these options score higher for employees than the option to work hybrid or remote.

When we compare year-over-year numbers, the value of working outside of the office dropped from 2024 to 2025, while all other aspects of flexibility rose in value. Today, 73% of office workers say flexible working is “high value” or “essential.” For IT professionals, the ratio is even higher — 83%.

While workers highly value job flexibility, their current jobs often do not provide it. Just 23% of office workers say their current job is highly flexible. In fact, the data reveals a substantial "flexibility gap" — IT professionals experience a 58-point difference between desired and actual flexibility, while non-IT office workers face a 50-point gap.

Many say flexibility is so important that they would quit their current job to gain more of it. For example, among Millennials — the generation most likely to be caring for children — 53% say they would consider quitting in exchange for workplace flexibility.

Even among professionals who say they are not planning on leaving their current employer, people are more likely to cite satisfaction with hours than satisfaction with pay among their reasons for staying.

And office workers tell us that gaining greater flexibility and autonomy at work is a sign their employer respects and values their time. Nearly half (48%) claim that when their employer is inflexible about their schedule, it's a sign they don't value them or their work.

Offering more workplace flexibility may be a way for companies to navigate the current “place of work” divide. In other words, providing flexibility and autonomy to employees who earn it can help companies build a performance-based culture, and there may be a workable middle ground in the debate over the time and place of work.

The in-office vs. remote work debate is in some ways a false dichotomy. Few organizations are fully, unbendingly in-office aside from those in highly regulated industries. Even companies that prefer most or all of their employees to work fully in-office still need to support virtual work for all their employees. Why?

Even fully in-office employees work virtually at least some of the time. Among all professionals we surveyed:

Companies need to ensure this type of flexible work — whether for road warriors, evening email correspondence or unexpected virtual work days — is secure, effective and managed. Likewise, companies can push to ensure that employees’ digital experiences (DEX) in these unplanned, off-site work moments are as strong and satisfying as their experiences when working in other ways.

Many company leaders already understand that empowering “anywhere, anytime” arrangements is a priority; for example, a recent study from Monster found that 75% of employers see value in offering flexible work hours. Yet Ivanti’s research shows there’s disagreement among employees about whether it’s truly supported.

Eighty percent of IT professionals say supporting and empowering employees to work remotely is a critical priority for the IT and security teams, but only 61% of non-IT office workers agree that their company prioritizes this.

When we drill down to the details, it’s clear: Many companies still struggle to provide effective out-of-office work experiences. For example, nearly half (49%) of IT workers say collaborating with colleagues and getting their manager’s attention is easier inside the office. Non-IT workers report similar problems, though at slightly lower rates.

Office workers also admit that there are clear collaboration and career benefits to working in person in an office. Sharing knowledge with coworkers (55%) and networking (47%) were some of the top tasks workers felt were easier in the office vs. off-site.

While some of these experiences — for example, face-to-face collaborations and networking — may usually work better in the office, there are still many ways that employers can leverage technology to make anytime, anywhere work better.

We asked IT and security professionals what steps their company has taken to make working outside the office more productive. Providing self-service resources for IT requests was the most common answer at 48%, followed by monitoring device and application performance (43%) and using automation for ticket resolution (43%). Yet many other automation opportunities (e.g., using self-healing capabilities or automating onboarding) are less frequently used.

Solving these problems won’t be easy. Years of rising investments in new technologies, coupled with lackluster implementation of best practices to manage the growing problem, have created a leviathan of tech sprawl — a situation that undermines security, slows growth and drives burnout among the IT workers tasked with managing it.

More than half (58%) of IT professionals tell us wasteful IT spending is a problem inside their organizations, and 21% say it’s a “major problem.”

It’s not a surprise, then, that optimizing IT costs is a critical, strategic priority for 2025; it’s mentioned by IT professionals more often than improving security, investing in infrastructure and finding new ways to deploy AI.

What exactly is dragging down IT efficiency? The statistics are concerning.

Complexity and tech sprawl:

More than one in three IT professionals (38%) say tech complexity has become a significant barrier to effective IT operations inside their companies — up four points from last year. And nearly one in three (31%) say their organizations do not track unused/underused software licenses, possibly because they may not have a complete inventory of the total.

Tech debt:

One in three IT workers report that tech debt inside their companies is a “very serious” problem. And 48% claim their companies use software that has reached end of life (EOL). It’s not a surprise to learn that 39% say outdated hardware drives wasteful IT budget spend.

Data and org silos:

More than half (55%) of IT professionals surveyed report that security and IT data within their organizations are siloed (a figure that’s down 14 points from last year — perhaps proof that companies are taking the problem seriously).

As Ivanti has reported in prior years, data and organizational silos can create damaging ripple effects across security, IT operations and productivity:

All this complexity has a cost. When asked where IT budgets are spent wastefully, IT professionals say redundant applications (43%) and cloud overprovisioning (39%) are two major drivers.

Ballooning tech investments also drive up IT operational costs, as IT teams quickly become overwhelmed by growing demands to support new technologies. In fact, 46% of the IT professionals we surveyed say new software deployments drive up ticket volume.

There’s a steep security cost as well: Thirty-seven percent say their tech infrastructure is so complex that they cannot uphold basic security practices.

Beyond the direct costs of sprawl (e.g., redundant applications, underused licenses, growing ticket volume), there are also indirect, hidden costs:

Poor visibility: Fifty-seven percent say company leadership does not have high visibility into IT efficiency (or lack of efficiency) or what’s driving it.

Suboptimal asset tracking: IT asset management practices are lacking. Just 35% of IT professionals say their company tracks device age or location. Thirty-seven percent track patch status. The data shows most companies do not follow standard best practices for asset tracking.

AI is often promised as the “fix” to inefficiency — whether by unleashing AI help desk agents or using AI to proactively detect and address misconfigurations, among dozens of others. But even promising AI and automation solutions may not be able to perform these fixes unless and until companies reduce sprawl and tech debt.

Dismantling data silos is just as important. After all, AI and automation systems require high-quality, highly accessible data. Without reliable data, companies’ tech investments may struggle to produce reliable results. This both limits companies' ability to capitalize on their investments and downgrades the trust leaders have in the insights these systems deliver.

Unsurprisingly, the research shows a massive uptick in gen AI use over the last 12 months. Forty-two percent of office workers say they’re using gen AI tools like ChatGPT at work — up 16 points since 2024. That uptick is more muted among IT professionals, in part because adoption was already high the previous year. Seventy-four percent of IT professionals use gen AI tools in 2025, compared to 66% in 2024.

It turns out, however, that AI adoption is a bit of a Wild West environment. Many professionals are using AI tools under the radar of their bosses. 46% of office workers say some or all the AI tools they use are not employer-provided.

For IT workers, the share is lower but still concerning Thirty-eight percent are using unauthorized tools. This widespread use of unauthorized AI tools raises significant cybersecurity risks, as these platforms may not meet security standards or data protection requirements.

A significant number of people are also keeping their AI-driven productivity gains secret from their employers … especially younger workers. Among people who use gen AI tools at work, nearly a third (32%) say they’re keeping it a secret.

Some use discretion when using AI because they like the “secret advantage” (36%); others worry their job may be cut (30%). And a significant number (27%) experience AI-fueled imposter syndrome, saying “I don’t want people to question my ability.”

Some also claim that revealing they get help from AIs may compound the heavy workload they hoped AI would help alleviate. Fifty-two percent of office workers agree: “When I work more efficiently, my employer gives me more work.”

The findings reveal a curious and worrying point of tension between employers and employees about who may benefit most from AI-related productivity gains. After all, secrecy about AI use is driven by anxiety about perceptions and impacts. Twenty-nine percent of employees tell us they worry gen AI will make their skills less valuable to their employers.

Another sign of haphazard/disorganized AI adoption: The uptake of AI for important, value-driving IT operations has been slow. Despite many IT workers using AI individually, the majority of IT help desks are still not using AI/automation systematically. This is perhaps a sign that organizations use AI for more mundane tasks but still don’t “trust” these solutions to handle mission-critical work.

For example, fewer than half use AI and automation for scenarios where it has proven to be highly effective: Predictive IT maintenance, detecting usage/traffic anomalies or automating incident response processes.

And fewer than one in three use it for root-cause analysis or intelligent ticket escalation. These low adoption rates continue despite 86% of IT professionals agreeing that AI-powered technology is important to making IT operations more efficient.

Companies may want to rethink how they integrate AI and automation, investing in a comprehensive, global plan for its safe and effective use across the organization. For example:

• Developing a clear plan of how advanced AI and automation will support specific departments and overall business objectives. This plan should include high priority use cases for new technologies.
• Documenting how AI will reduce enterprise complexity over time. Without proper planning and documentation, AI could increase tech complexity, redundancy and tech debt rather than minimize it.
• Mapping out a multi-year program for talent management and training. Currently, 44% of all professionals surveyed say their companies have invested in AI across the organization, but employees lack adequate skills/training to use these tools effectively.

Employees are using AI tools without their bosses' knowledge to boost productivity. It is crucial for employers to assume this is happening, regardless of any restrictions, and to assess the use of AI to ensure it complies with their security and governance standards. Employees adopting this technology without proper guidelines or approval could be fueling threat actors, violating company contracts, and risking valuable company IP. To mitigate these risks, organizations should implement clear policies and guidelines for the use of AI tools, along with regular training sessions to educate employees on the potential security and ethical implications. By fostering an open dialogue, employers can encourage transparency and collaboration, ensuring that the benefits of AI are harnessed safely and effectively.

Brooke Johnson
Chief Legal Counsel, Senior Vice President of Security and Human Resources, Ivanti

More broadly, companies will need to balance two critical strategies — always ensuring that one does not subsume the other:

1. Optimization: Using technology to make companies leaner, faster, simpler, more agile and poised for high growth.


2. Empowerment: Finding ways to unlock the very best from employees by sanctioning AI tools and establishing training to help progress past its secret use. Employers can make work a place for more than just productivity, but also human creativity, judgment, innovation, and ultimately, employee satisfaction.

Technology can serve both of these objectives, supporting business performance while also giving employees greater flexibility and autonomy to decide how they do their best work. The most successful organizations will balance these dual considerations thoughtfully — developing strategies that address operational efficiency alongside creating conditions for employees to find purpose and engagement in their work.