Workers still slow returning to offices

Many offices in the nation’s biggest cities are still less than half full, more than a month after employers increased campaigns to cajole or compel workers back to their desks more often.

The 10-city average occupancy rate for the week ended Oct. 19 was 47.9%, according to security firm Kastle Systems, while New York came in slightly under that at 46.5%.

Both figures were below the previous week’s tally, but those numbers were inflated as Kastle didn’t include data for the federal holiday that fell on Monday, Oct. 10. Monday is a popular day to work from home, so excluding it resulted in a boost for the resulting four-day week ended Oct. 12, a Kastle representative said.

The Kastle numbers, while not fully capturing all returnto-office activity in cities like New York, have become an informal barometer of returnto-office progress. Kastle also disclosed additional figures on which days of the week attract the most office visits. Tuesday is the most popular day across the 10 cities surveyed, followed closely by Wednesday and Thursday, while Friday is the day most people work from home.

In a quarterly survey of global desk-based workers from the Future Forum, a consortium backed by Salesforce Inc.’s Slack Technologies, four out of five said they wanted the ability to work where they wanted, and those who have such freedom reported lower rates of burnout.

“Flexibility is highly desired, second only to compensation when it comes to workplace satisfaction,” the Future Forum report said.