Forget RTO: Fully remote workers report the highest well-being—and are less likely to quit, new study of 7,700 employees finds

Business leaders, from JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon to Tesla’s Elon Musk , have argued that workers need to get back to the office in the name of productivity and collaboration.

But a new study suggests the opposite may be better for employee well-being—and even company bottom lines.

Researchers tracked 7,704 employees at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center across three work arrangements: roughly one-fourth worked fully remotely, one-fourth worked hybrid, and about half worked entirely onsite.

The results? Employees who worked fully remotely reported the highest levels of workplace well-being—defined broadly to include physical, mental, emotional, social, and financial health—while those who worked entirely onsite reported the lowest.

The study , which was published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology last month, also found little evidence that remote workers felt less connected to colleagues or workplace culture.

“Our findings challenge the idea that simply bringing people back into a building will automatically make them more engaged, connected, or likely to stay,” co-authors Stefanie Johnson , a professor at the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business, and Courtney Holladay , chief learning officer at MD Anderson Cancer Center, told Fortune in a joint statement.

“The mistake is treating physical presence as the outcome rather than asking what organizations are trying to accomplish through it.

If the goal is collaboration, mentoring, innovation, relationship-building, or organizational culture, then employers should design experiences that actually produce those outcomes.” Remote work could help companies save money—by keeping their best talent around The benefits of remote work didn’t stop at how employees said they felt.

One year after the initial survey was completed, researchers examined employee turnover and found that workers with higher levels of well-being were less likely to leave the organization, meaning those working remotely were associated with higher retention.

For companies, keeping talent around can be a major financial incentive.

After all, even before the pandemic ushered in an era of remote work, U.S. businesses were losing $1 trillion annually due to voluntary turnover, according to a 2019 Gallup analysis .

However, critics of return-to-office mandates have argued that requiring employees to return to the office can serve as a backdoor way to reduce headcount without formally laying off workers.

A survey last year suggested that concern isn’t entirely unfounded: one in five HR professionals admitted their company’s in-office policy was intended to encourage employees to quit .