It was only five years ago when companies across the country told their employees that they were going to be closing their offices for two weeks due to an unknown virus spreading rapidly across the country.
“Stopping the spread” of Coronavirus (COVID-19) was initially thought to only take two weeks. With a majority of people working from home for seemingly the first time, many companies had to adjust office protocols in order to adhere to health and safety guidelines. However, what was only thought to take a few weeks to flatten the curve has now been five years, and employers want their workers back in the building.
This doesn’t appeal to the employees, though. According to a study by Cushman & Wakefield, employees want flexibility of both schedule and location. When this availability is limited, the engagement and wellbeing of employees begin to dwindle. The study found that implementing flexible in-office hours improves attendance organically. Over 60 percent of respondents said that they would rather stay in a job with flexible work options than accept a higher paying position with rigid in-office requirements, according to the Robert Half 2024 Salary Guide.
The current average of employees in the office is about three days a week, according to a survey by CBRE. Hybrid work is the most common workstyle, with 87 percent of organizations having a hybrid program. Employers believe that the current rate of office attendance is negatively impacting interpersonal connections between teams and that office space is wasted while employees work from home. These obstacle is creating the push to return to the office full-time.
Commute time remains a significant deterrent for employees returning to the office full-time, according to the CBRE report. Co-working spaces have been popping up across the country to give remote and hybrid employees the sense of working around people while not having to go to the office. According to Cushman & Wakefield, co-working spaces in New Jersey grew 36 percent year-over-year, while markets in Nashville grew 40 percent. Because of this success, landlords are now offering more flexible work spaces to companies According to the report, providing a wider range of office options to prospective tenants give owners a wider pool of tenants.
Still, the main reason why employees aren’t in-office the same way they were pre-Covid is simply because there’s no mandate saying that they have to.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating that all federal employees return to in-person work full time. According to Government Executive, employees will have 30 days to “fully comply” with the order. It is unclear if more companies will follow suit with the push to return to the office.
According to the CBRE survey, it will take more than policies or mandates in order to boost office attendants. Change management strategies need to be implemented in order to have employees comply with the changing of times. The report found that 66 percent of respondents believe that company leaders need to act as role models and come into the office more often. Meanwhile, having more social and event programming may consider people to come into the office more often to build the connections that leaders claim has been lost since the pandemic.
Still economic uncertainties may prevent more companies from moving forward with in-office mandates. According to the CBRE survey, 44 percent of companies are struggling with the financial aspect of reconfiguring a new existing space or relocating to a higher-quality space.
Mackenna Moralez is the associate editor of the facilities market.
