Average weekly - 42%
Peak Day - Wednesday 57%
Slow Day - Monday 29%
While the beginning of the year, shows signs of more employees back in the office, a number of major companies expect this number to move up substantially in the next 3 months. Monday and Friday continue to attract fewer people than mid week, expect this to prevail.
Two words resonate in interviews with tenants, flexibility, and productivity. While many employers are permitting employees to be flexible while planning both home and work, employers are concerned about productivity and maintaining a competitive edge.
The next Index is scheduled for the week of February 8th 2023.
Links to Articles of Interest
Employers starting to worry about liability linked to remote work as legal challenges emerge
What is a workplace? Before COVID defining what constitutes a workplace was reasonably straightforward. These days, with many office workers still working a hybrid schedule, employers are discovering that blurring of the lines between workplace and home can lead to unanticipated conflicts. “The heyday of the hybrid office is coming to an end,” a Globe and Mail columnist suggests.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-hybrid-offices-liability-employers/
Enticements to Lure Workers Back Are the Norm – ‘Show Me the Money’ say Some Workers
This Forbes article on how U.S. companies are dealing with a push to get workers back in the office reports on two independent studies. A survey of 800 company leaders in the U.S. by Envoy, a San Francisco based company that offers an enterprise workplace visitor management software platform, found that even though many workers are “tired of their makeshift home offices and workplaces,” 88% of employers are still having to take extraordinary measures to entice workers back to the office. Most continue to rely on hybrid working schedules and a majority have felt it necessary to make physical improvements to office design. A smaller study done by Blackhawk Network, which provides a digital payments platform, found that financial incentives, including more paid time off, score high on a long list of preferences.
Some U.S. CEOs Are Getting Testy Over Continued Reluctance to Come Back to the Office
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is mandating workers to come back to corporate offices at least three days a week in an effort to boost camaraderie and productivity. The coffee retailer is the latest in a wave of companies that have begun enforcing stricter hybrid work models.
Mississauga Company Moving to Downtown Toronto Hired Extensively During COVID
Not every company will be willing to invest in its employee base as extensively as Intuit but steps taken by the fast growing provider of business software to successfully manage a shift in location appear to be paying off. A key difference is that the employee count at Intuit has grown from 20 prior to COVID by almost 200 today. Management realized that more effort was needed because so few had had a chance to meet face to face, having been hired during the pandemic. VP David Marquis says: “You can be an okay company and work from home but if you want to be a great company with the best culture, you need to give people flexibility and encouragement to work together.” This sentiment is reflected in a new report for NAOIP prepared by the Altus Group made public last month.
Mixed Messages from Latest UK Survey on Remote Work
Job ads for 100% remote work continue to fall, but employers cautioned to continue offering flexibility to retain top workers. “Despite the popularity of remote roles among jobseekers, our data shows that we have passed ‘peak remote’,” said Ngaire Moyes, UK country manager at LinkedIn.
Stay safe,
Your SRRA Team
“The Occupancy Index is supported by the City of Toronto, Financial District BIA, Bloor-Yorkville BIA, The Waterfront BIA, Downtown Yonge BIA, St Lawrence Market BIA and Toronto Entertainment District BIA. It is a measure of the percentage of office employees returning to the office compared to the number of employees who would normally have come to their offices pre-COVID. For a detailed description of the calculation please contact Iain Dobson at [email protected],”