The debate over where finance and accounting employees should work has entered a more settled, but still evolving, stage. During the years immediately following the pandemic, many organizations treated remote and hybrid arrangements as broad workforce policies. By 2026, employers appear to be making more deliberate decisions based on the duties of particular roles, the needs of their departments, and the operating priorities of the business.
The Corporate Finance & Accounting Talent Study 2026 found that fully onsite work has become the most common model for finance and accounting teams for the first time since the pandemic began. Forty-six percent of respondents expect their teams to operate entirely onsite, compared with 43 percent using a hybrid model and 11 percent remaining fully remote.
The year-over-year change is substantial. In the 2025 study, hybrid work accounted for 53 percent of responses, while 33 percent of organizations operated fully onsite. The 2026 findings therefore represent a 13-percentage-point increase in onsite arrangements and a 10-point decline in hybrid policies. These results indicate a renewed preference for in-person work, although they do not suggest that workplace flexibility is disappearing.
Finance Employers Are Reassessing the Value of Proximity
The increase in onsite work reflects a broader reassessment of how finance departments perform their responsibilities. Accounting and finance teams manage recurring deadlines, interdependent workflows, confidential information, and responsibilities that often require coordination among employees with different levels of experience. Although these activities can be completed remotely, many employers have concluded that at least some aspects of finance work benefit from regular physical proximity.
The financial close offers a useful example. Completing the close requires accountants, business-unit leaders, FP&A professionals, treasury staff, and executives to resolve discrepancies, review estimates, answer questions, and approve results within a compressed period. Digital collaboration tools can facilitate that work, but in-person access may shorten review cycles and make it easier to address complicated issues as they arise.
The same reasoning applies to system implementations, audit preparation, acquisition integration, budgeting, and finance transformation initiatives. These projects frequently require sustained collaboration across departments, considerable documentation, and prompt resolution of decisions that affect multiple stakeholders. Employers returning finance teams to the office may therefore be responding to operational experience rather than pursuing a general preference for traditional workplace arrangements.
Hybrid Work Remains a Durable Part of Finance
Although onsite work now ranks first, the difference between onsite and hybrid models is only three percentage points. With 43 percent of respondents maintaining hybrid arrangements, workplace flexibility remains firmly established across a large portion of corporate finance.
That finding is significant because it indicates that the movement toward onsite work is not a complete reversal of post-pandemic practices. Most organizations are choosing between onsite and hybrid structures, while relatively few have adopted fully remote finance departments. The practical question for finance leaders is therefore less about whether flexibility should exist and more about how much flexibility different responsibilities can support.
Certain activities may be performed effectively from almost any location. Financial analysis, report preparation, account reconciliation, documentation, and routine transaction review can often be completed remotely when employees have secure systems, suitable equipment, clear procedures, and dependable access to colleagues. Other responsibilities, including employee development, executive collaboration, complex project work, and sensitive performance discussions, may benefit from more frequent in-person interaction.
A sound hybrid policy recognizes these differences rather than applying the same attendance requirement to every employee and every task.
The Office Plays an Important Role in Employee Development
The renewed interest in onsite work may also reflect concern about how finance professionals develop technical judgment and leadership capability. Much of accounting education occurs through formal training, but a considerable portion takes place through observation, informal questions, review comments, and exposure to discussions among experienced colleagues.
Junior accountants learn how senior professionals investigate unusual transactions, communicate with auditors, evaluate estimates, and respond to requests from management. These lessons can be taught remotely, but they require more deliberate scheduling and documentation when employees are not working together. In an office setting, some of that development occurs naturally through daily interaction.
This consideration is particularly relevant given the broader talent findings in the study. Controllers and Assistant Controllers remain the most difficult finance roles to recruit, while a majority of respondents report shortages of finance, accounting, or CPA talent. Organizations cannot depend entirely on the external labor market to supply future leaders. They must develop more of those professionals internally, and workplace policy may influence how effectively that development occurs.
Mandating attendance, however, does not automatically produce stronger development. Employees gain little from commuting to an office where meetings remain virtual and senior leaders are rarely present. Onsite work contributes to professional growth only when organizations use the time for coaching, collaboration, review, and meaningful interaction.
Workplace Policy Has Become Part of Talent Strategy
The movement toward onsite work arrives at a difficult moment for finance recruiting. Sixty-one percent of respondents report some degree of finance and accounting talent shortage, while 38 percent plan to increase headcount over the next twelve months. Employers are therefore tightening workplace expectations while competing for a limited supply of qualified professionals.
This creates an important tradeoff. Greater onsite presence may support collaboration, supervision, training, and organizational cohesion. At the same time, rigid attendance policies can reduce the available candidate pool, particularly for specialized roles that are already difficult to fill. A company recruiting only within commuting distance of one office has access to fewer candidates than an employer offering hybrid or remote options.
Hybrid work may consequently remain an important recruiting tool even as fewer organizations treat it as their default model. Employers can use flexibility selectively for scarce positions, experienced professionals, or responsibilities that do not require regular physical presence. The most effective policy may differ by role, seniority, location, and the maturity of the employee involved.
Finance leaders should also consider the consequences for retention. Experienced employees who have successfully worked under flexible arrangements may regard a full return to the office as a reduction in the value of their employment. Since the study identifies limited flexibility and work-life balance as one of the reasons finance employees leave their organizations, workplace policy should be evaluated alongside compensation, career advancement, and professional development.
Fully Remote Finance Departments Remain the Exception
Only 11 percent of respondents expect their finance and accounting functions to operate entirely remotely. That share confirms that fully distributed finance departments remain possible, but comparatively uncommon.
Organizations that succeed with fully remote finance teams generally require mature systems and disciplined management practices. Cloud-based financial applications, electronic approvals, centralized documentation, formal close calendars, secure access controls, and clear performance expectations are essential. Managers must also replace informal office communication with structured check-ins, documented procedures, and intentional employee development.
Remote work tends to expose weaknesses that an office environment can conceal. Poorly documented processes, unclear responsibilities, fragmented systems, and inconsistent management become more visible when employees cannot resolve every issue through informal conversation. Organizations considering a fully remote model must therefore assess the maturity of their finance operations rather than assuming location alone determines productivity.
The limited share of fully remote respondents suggests that most employers still see continuing value in some form of physical workplace, particularly for leadership, collaboration, and development.
Policy Should Follow the Work
The most consequential lesson from the survey is that workplace policy should be based on the requirements of the finance function rather than broader fashion or executive preference. A policy that works well for one organization may be unsuitable for another because the underlying systems, processes, workforce, and business responsibilities differ.
Finance leaders should examine which activities require close collaboration, which roles depend heavily on mentoring, and which tasks can be measured reliably regardless of location. They should also consider the quality of the organization’s technology, the geographic availability of talent, the cost of office space, employee turnover, and the expectations of business-unit leaders.
Attendance requirements should have a clear operational purpose. When employees understand why particular work is better completed together, policies are more likely to be accepted and applied consistently. When requirements appear arbitrary, organizations risk weakening morale without achieving better performance.
What the Shift Toward Onsite Work Means for Finance Leaders
The 2026 findings indicate that finance organizations are moving toward more onsite work, but they are not returning uniformly to pre-pandemic practices. Onsite and hybrid models together account for 89 percent of respondents, demonstrating that most employers still regard the office as important while differing over how frequently employees should use it.
For CFOs and Controllers, the appropriate policy will be the one that supports accurate reporting, timely execution, employee development, talent retention, and effective business partnership. Those objectives may favor greater onsite presence for some teams and structured hybrid arrangements for others.
The strongest workplace strategy will connect attendance expectations to the actual work of finance. It will preserve flexibility where flexibility improves access to talent and employee retention, while using in-person time deliberately for collaboration, coaching, and decisions that benefit from direct interaction.
Download the complete Corporate Finance & Accounting Talent Study 2026 to review the full findings on workplace models, hiring plans, talent shortages, compensation, recruiting, retention, training, and artificial intelligence in finance and accounting.
