There is a question employers across Europe keep coming back to: how much salary would it take to get someone back into the office?
It sounds like a simple question about money.
The Romanian labour market suggests it isn’t.
According to Randstad Romania’s 2026 Workmonitor, 82% of Romanian employees say salary is the most important factor when choosing a new job. So no, employees have not suddenly decided that money doesn’t matter. But the same research found that 48% consider work-life balance the main reason they stay with their current employer, compared with 30% who point to pay.
There is a difference between deciding whether a job is attractive enough to consider and deciding whether that job is worth staying in.
That distinction is becoming increasingly important for employers.
Salary Still Gets People to the Table
If a company is trying to attract candidates, it cannot simply offer flexibility and hope the rest takes care of itself.
Romanian employees are clear about this. Salary remains the strongest consideration when choosing a new position, with 82% putting it first.
That makes sense, particularly when household costs are rising and employees are comparing opportunities in a market where experienced professionals can move between employers.
A candidate may like the idea of working from home twice a week, but if another company offers a substantially better salary for a comparable role, that flexibility may not be enough to close the gap.
Employers therefore need to be careful about treating flexibility as a substitute for competitive pay.
It isn’t.
But Then Flexibility Enters the Decision
The calculation changes once the salary is reasonably competitive.
Randstad found that 40% of Romanian employees would not accept a new job without location flexibility, while 42% would reject a position without flexibility around working hours.
Those figures are significant because they suggest candidates are not necessarily asking employers to choose between salary and flexibility.
They expect both to be part of the conversation.
Imagine two companies offering roughly the same salary for the same position. One requires five days in the office and fixed working hours. The other allows employees to work remotely on certain days and gives them some freedom over their schedule.
The second company has given the candidate another reason to say yes.
The salary got the companies into the comparison.
The working arrangement may determine who wins it.
The Commute Has a Price Too
There is also a cost to going into the office that doesn’t appear on a payslip.
Transport costs money. Commuting takes time. For parents and people with other responsibilities, fixed office hours can create additional childcare or household costs.
An employee earning more money but spending several extra hours each week commuting may not feel significantly better off.
That doesn’t mean every employee wants remote work.
Some people prefer the office. Others like having colleagues around them. Some roles genuinely require people to be physically present.
The point is that employees increasingly have a reason to put a value on where and when they work.
And that value is not necessarily measured in salary.
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Romanian Employees Are Already Leaving Jobs Over Poor Fit
The strongest evidence may come from what employees are actually doing rather than what they say they prefer.
Randstad found that 43% of Romanian employees have left a job because it did not fit their personal life, while 30% have resigned because they lacked independence in how they worked.
That is important for employers because it turns flexibility from a recruitment issue into a retention issue.
A company may successfully attract someone with a good salary and an impressive benefits package. If the employee later discovers that the working arrangement makes their personal life difficult, the salary may not be enough to keep them.
This is one reason employers need to think about the entire employment experience rather than just the offer letter.
The Office Isn’t Necessarily the Problem
There is a danger of taking these numbers and concluding that employees simply don’t want to work from offices anymore.
The data doesn’t say that.
What it shows is that employees value flexibility.
Those are not the same thing.
A company can require employees to come into the office and still offer flexibility. Perhaps teams come together on certain days and work remotely on others. Perhaps employees have flexibility around start and finish times. Perhaps the company allows people to work from home when they have personal commitments.
The arrangement can vary considerably.
What matters is whether employees have some control over how work fits into their lives.
Employers Are Saying One Thing and Doing Another
This is where the Romanian data becomes particularly interesting.
Randstad found that 75% of employers believe greater autonomy can improve engagement, productivity and retention, yet 85% do not allow employees to set their own schedules.
There is clearly a gap between recognising the value of flexibility and actually giving employees more control.
For employers, that gap can become a competitive disadvantage.
If a company knows that flexibility matters to candidates but refuses to offer it, it needs another reason for someone to choose the role.
That reason may be salary.
It may be career progression.
It may be the strength of the brand or the work itself.
But the employer should understand what it is trading away.
Also read: Is IT Recruitment In Europe Better Than Hiring Offshore?
Final thoughts
So are candidates choosing flexibility over salary? Not exactly.
The Romanian data suggests that candidates are not choosing flexibility instead of money.
They are increasingly evaluating both.
Salary remains the biggest factor when people choose a new job. Flexibility and work-life balance become particularly important when employees decide whether the job is sustainable and whether they want to remain with the employer.
For companies hiring in Romania, that creates a fairly straightforward challenge.
If your salary is below market, flexibility will probably not rescue the offer.
If your salary is competitive but your working arrangements are rigid, you may lose candidates to an employer offering a similar package with greater freedom.
And if you offer both competitive compensation and a working arrangement that respects people’s lives outside the office, you have removed two of the biggest reasons a candidate might say no.
The question employers should therefore stop asking is “Would candidates take less money for remote work?”
A better question is:
“What combination of pay, flexibility and working conditions makes this job difficult to turn down?”
That is where the real competition is happening.
