89% of employers require at least three days in the office. Only 22% of remote-capable workers are actually there full time, according to CBRE and Gallup. The gap between what companies mandate and what actually happens is not closing. It is widening.
Disney just made that gap visible. On September 14, the company told remote tech and product employees to return to the office four days a week or face termination. The policy is not new. Disney has required four in-office days since March 2023. What changed is that the exceptions are closing.
But buried in the Business Insider reporting is a detail every HR leader should stop and read twice. Staffers told BI: "Some say their managers strictly monitor the four-day rule, while others say their bosses are more lax."
Same policy. Different outcomes depending on who your boss is.
That is not a Disney problem. That is the problem with every RTO mandate that does not have a system behind it.
Inconsistent enforcement is not an HR annoyance. It is a legal liability.
When enforcement depends on individual managers, the same rule gets applied 12 different ways across 12 different teams. Some managers strictly monitor attendance. Others are lenient. Some track it carefully. Others do not track it at all.
Employment attorneys describe this as the fastest way to turn a defensible termination into a discrimination lawsuit. When an employee is disciplined or terminated for violating an RTO policy, their attorney's first move is to find a comparator. Someone who broke the same rule and was not punished. If that comparator exists, the policy on paper says one thing and the practice in reality says another. The employee does not need to prove the decision was motivated by a protected characteristic. They only need to show the inconsistency. Your own enforcement record becomes evidence against you.
J.P. Karam, a partner at Willis Business Law, represents employers in RTO termination cases. He told Canadian HR Reporter that when he asks whether the policy was "appropriately prepared and then was it enforced consistently," he often gets "blank stares." His warning: if the expectation is ambiguous in your policy, "you're going to have an uphill battle meeting the standard, plain and simple."
A written policy does not protect you if you cannot show consistent enforcement. The policy becomes a liability, not a shield.
This is not theoretical. It is already in court.
Bell Canada is facing a $6 million lawsuit from nearly 50 former employees terminated for "swipe-and-go" behavior, badging into the office and leaving immediately. The plaintiffs allege the firings were economically motivated, not genuine enforcement of a conduct policy. None of the fired workers were replaced. Their positions were eliminated.
Whether Bell wins or loses, the case puts RTO enforcement under legal scrutiny. The lawyers involved say the employer must demonstrate the policy was reasonable and consistently enforced. If certain employees or managers were allowed to work from home while others were fired for noncompliance, that inconsistency creates human rights exposure. If older employees were disproportionately affected, the case becomes an age discrimination claim.
The Bell Canada case demonstrates what happens when enforcement is selective. The company thought it was enforcing a policy. The plaintiffs say it was using the policy as cover for cost cutting. Either way, the inconsistency is what puts the policy at risk.
The mandate is the easy part. The system is the hard part.
Companies have spent three years writing RTO policies. The policies are fine. The language is clear. The expectations are specific. Four days a week. Monday through Thursday. No ambiguity.
What companies have not built is the infrastructure to enforce those policies consistently.
Imagine two companies with identical RTO policies. Company A has a system. Presence is detected through existing endpoint security tools. No new hardware, no new software on employee devices. Every exception request goes through the same documented process. ADA accommodations, FMLA leave, remote work waivers. Every request evaluated against the same criteria, stored in the same system. Progressive discipline is automated. Verbal warnings, written warnings, termination reviews. Every step logged in an audit-defendable system of record. When a termination is challenged, the company produces a complete, consistent paper trail showing the same rule applied the same way to every employee.
Company B has the same policy on paper. But enforcement depends on individual managers. Some are strict. Some are lenient. Exceptions are handled informally. Documentation lives in emails and spreadsheets. When a termination is challenged, the company has 12 different enforcement records across 12 different teams, and no two of them match.
Company A can defend its policy in court. Company B cannot.
Disney has the policy. Disney does not have the system. Most companies are in the same position.
Atteniv is the system. It detects presence through the endpoint security tools you already have, like Zscaler, Fortinet, and Microsoft Defender. No new hardware. No new software on employee devices. It manages exception requests through one documented process so every ADA accommodation, FMLA leave, and remote work waiver goes through the same criteria and gets stored in the same place. It automates progressive discipline so verbal warnings, written warnings, and termination reviews happen the same way every time, logged in an audit-defendable system of record. The same policy applied the same way to every employee, regardless of who their manager is.
The companies that figure out the infrastructure layer will be the ones whose RTO policies actually hold up. In the office. And in court.
Have questions about how Atteniv closes the enforcement gap? Contact us at sales@atteniv.com.