Lindiwe Sebesho, Managing Director of Remchannel

Hybrid work in South Africa is no longer an open-ended flexibility experiment. It is becoming more structured and more prescriptive.

Insights from the 2025/2026 Remchannel Employee Benefits Guide, which tracks how employers structure pay and benefits in response to economic and regulatory pressures, show that 67.4% of hybrid organisations now require employees to be in the office at least three days a week, up from 40.7% in 2023. A further 41.3% of organisations have increased their minimum office attendance requirements over the past two years.

Speaking on Radio 702’s The Money Show, Remchannel Managing Director Lindiwe Sebesho said the shift reflects a broader focus on accountability and collaboration. “This represents a significant change. The hybrid environment has consequently become more structured and clearly defined. Ultimately, the objective is to foster greater collaboration among employees and restore the inter-personal organisational culture that diminished during periods of remote work. The renewed emphasis is on cultivating a collaborative environment that drives collective performance and strengthens team dynamics within the workplace.”

Sign-On Bonuses Fall Out of Favour

The renewed emphasis on in-office collaboration is unfolding alongside a sharper focus on how performance is rewarded.  If hybrid arrangements are being tightened to strengthen culture and accountable delivery, incentive structures are being recalibrated to ensure that reward follows demonstrable outcomes.

Sign-on bonuses have declined sharply, from 52.1% of surveyed employers offering them in 2023 to 28.3% in 2025. “They are definitely out of flavour,” Sebesho said on 702. “There is now less emphasis on past or promised performance and much more emphasis on future sustainable performance. So, basically, employers are no longer paying for what you are promising to do, but rather incentivizing actual performance that will create value into the future.”

This reflects a broader movement away from attraction focused based schemes that paid for past experience towards paying for actual delivery as this is easier to explain or justify through results achieved.

Wellness Remains a Priority, But Delivery Shifts

At the same time, well-being remains central to employer strategies, but with a shift in how support is structured. “The interesting insight from this survey, is that overall wellbeing has become the top benefit priority,” Sebesho said during the interview.

While employee wellness ranks highest in perceived importance, traditional financial support structures are declining. Soft loans and cash advances fell from 40.4% of employers providing same in 2023 to 31.7% in 2025. In contrast, 20% of organisations have implemented earned wage access programmes.

“What earned wage access does is allow employees to access a portion of wages they have already earned before payday, rather than encouraging them to take out expensive loans. It provides a more structured way to manage month-to-month expenses and reduce reliance on high-cost debt.”

A More Demanding Value Proposition

The interplay between employer competitiveness and workforce expectations remains complex.

“Skilled and sought-after employees are becoming more direct about what attracts them, drives their performance, motivates them to stay, and matters most to them, especially now that five different generations share the workforce. As a result, it’s essential to offer a diverse value proposition that addresses the unique needs of each generation fairly and without adding cost.”

Other Highlights from the 2025/2026 Survey

• Fully paid four-month maternity leave declined from 58.5% to 41.7%
• 13th cheques declined from 62.8% of employers in 2023 to 53.3% in 2025
• 66.7% of employers now differentiate notice periods by seniority
• Only 11.7% of organisations currently set formal overtime ratio targets

Taken together, the findings point to a shift in the fundamental question employers are asking about pay and benefits. “The better question for 2026 is not ‘what more can we offer?’” said Sebesho. “It is ‘what value can we derive, protect and defend for each rand we spend?’”

Employers are shifting attention from intent to outcomes, with benefits increasingly evaluated based on measurable impacts such as productivity, retention, health and performance, as well as their ability to mitigate risks like burnout or turnover and to be transparently and credibly explained to employees, shareholders and the public.

“The same discipline is increasingly evident in incentive design, where performance must clearly justify reward,” concluded Sebesho. “What ultimately matters is whether reward decisions deliver outcomes. If they don’t improve productivity or sustainable performance, or if they can’t be explained and defended, they don’t belong in the EVP.”

ENDS

Ed’s note: Catch EBnet’s Exec Meet & Greet with LIndiwe Sebesho here.