‘Did we learn nothing?’ Synchrony is hybrid, the Best Company to Work For, and puzzled by the return-to-office push

Synchrony is the country’s largest provider of store credit cards, and a stalwart member of Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For list. The company just claimed the No. 1 spot, rising from No. 37 just five years ago, and marking its ninth consecutive year on the list. It is the first financial services firm to top the list in 23 years.

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DJ Casto, Synchrony’s chief human resources officer, has a pointed message for CEOs mandating five days back in the office: you’ve learned nothing.

“I’ve just been disappointed in how it pivoted,” he told Fortune at the Great Place to Work For All Summit in Las Vegas. He summed up the attitude as “Five days in the office, and then I’m going to check the hours and what you’re working on. But you want people motivated and engaged?”

Synchrony doesn’t check the hours. The company, which employs roughly 20,000 people across hubs including Stamford, Conn., New York City, Chicago, Orlando and Costa Mesa, Calif., operates what Casto and CEO Brian Doubles call a “flex model” — no mandated days, no tracking of badge swipes, no surveillance. And yet the company’s New York City hub at Bryant Park is so packed that employees sometimes struggle to find a seat.

“We don’t tell anybody to do it,” Casto said. “I think if you go to some of my other competitors, they’d have plenty of seats open — and they’re mandating it.”

A different kind of financial services company

To understand why Synchrony can do what JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs cannot, you need to understand what Synchrony actually is.

The company issues private-label and co-branded credit cards for retail giants including Amazon, Walmart, Lowe’s, and PayPal, serving roughly 100 million customers, all digitally. Unlike traditional banks, it operates no physical branches. There is no teller window to staff, no vault to open, no walk-in customer to greet. Every customer interaction happens by phone or online, which gives Synchrony unusual latitude to extend remote flexibility to both salaried employees and hourly contact center workers alike.

That equity is more radical than it sounds. Synchrony’s contact center staff, who represent the majority of its workforce, operate under the same flex model as its senior vice presidents. Most hybrid arrangements at financial services peers apply only to white-collar, salaried staff. Synchrony’s extends to everyone.

Casto pushed back on the notion that flexibility is a white-collar perk, saying it applies from the most junior frontline associate all the way up. And critically, the flex model was not handed down from the executive suite: when Synchrony surveyed its workforce, 85% of employees said they wanted some form of remote-work option. The policy was built in response. Synchrony isn’t asking employees to trust a mandate. It’s honoring one.

The backdrop against which Synchrony is making this claim has been a sweeping, yearslong return-to-office wave across corporate America, leaving hybrid-friendly companies like Synchrony as the exception. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs moved to five-day mandates in 2025. WPP’s four-day mandate prompted an employee petition with more than 18,000 signatures. A KPMG survey found 83% of CEOs expect a full return to office within three years. A Synchrony representative told Fortune that the company has seen an increase in applicants from across the financial services sector, including large banks and other consumer finance companies.

‘The ultimate test in trust‘

CEO Brian Doubles talked to Fortune about his own dislike of the remote environment, like when he took over the top job during the pandemic in January 2021 — when he was alone at home, on a Zoom call, with his dog sitting next to him. “You know, we had the meeting, and the board told me [I was CEO] and I was like, ‘Okay, great,’ but it was very anticlimactic.” He recalled going downstairs and celebrating with his family later that night, “but it was just not how I envisioned it.” He said it was just like the sports teams that won championships that year inside empty stadiums, celebrating in front of empty seats.

When he began thinking about how to reopen, he said he really thought about the pros and cons. “I knew that that period where we were 100% remote, it was corroding the culture a bit, right?” A culture is based on relationships and solving problems together, “and we were still doing that, but it wasn’t the same.”

At the same time, he said he appreciated that people really enjoyed being trusted to get their work done. “If you think about what is the ultimate test in trust, it really is allowing your workforce a flexible hybrid work arrangement,” Doubles said onstage in conversation with Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work. “Our employees told us that was important to them. We listened to that when we were completely remote.”

Doubles was clear on Synchrony’s hybrid model: there are no mandates to be in the office. The company does not measure time in office