More evidence that bosses want you back in the office despite COVID’s endless grip

LOS ANGELES — Most bosses remain steadfast in their desire to see their white-collar employees in the office despite many workers’ desire to stay home most of the time.

About 85% of companies say they want employees to spend half or more of their work time there, according to a recent national real estate brokerage survey.

But rising and waning surges of COVID-19 keep injecting caution into employers’ attitudes about enforcing in-person work, which are still evolving as leaders and workers try to figure out how much time they want to spend in the office and how much room they’ll need to do their jobs when they are together.

Office leasing patterns in Los Angeles County in the second quarter revealed uncertainties about how working from home will change office use in the years ahead.

L.A.-area office buildings remain less than half as populated as they were before the pandemic, real estate industry observers said.

Yet some businesses are making big commitments to their offices and signing long leases for large blocks of space, according to second- quarter leasing numbers from real estate brokerage CBRE. Amazon, for instance. said in May that it will rent 200,000 square feet at the Water Garden office complex in Santa Monica to add corporate and tech jobs.

Many other employers keep paying the rent on their underused offices while pondering whether they’ll need more or less space when their leases are up. Some companies — including Netflix, Yahoo and Verizon — pay the rent but have put unneeded offices on the market for sublease, helping drive up overall vacancy to a high 25% in L.A. County, CBRE data show.

Although people have been adapting to it for more than two years, working from home is a long way from a settled practice for employers. Most of them plan to permanently adopt some kind of hybrid model of working at home some days and in the office on others, but its form is still evolving.

“It’s really early in the ballgame,” CBRE real estate broker Jeff Pion said. “I think we’re in the second inning of this. Companies are still trying to figure out what’s best for them.”

So although 85% of companies responding to a CBRE survey said they want employees in the office at least half the time, there is little consensus about how to achieve this goal. Bosses are almost evenly split about whether the required number of days in the office should by decided by the company alone or in consultation with employees.

Economists at the brokerage predict that U.S. workers will spend an average of 3.4 days per workweek in the office, down from 4.4 days a week before the pandemic.

Employees may want fewer days in the office, even if it involves a pay cut or a new job.

Just over half of U.S. workers want to work remotely more often than they currently do, a recent survey by human resources consulting firm OperationsInc found.

Nearly half said they would even be willing to take a pay cut to increase or retain their remote work arrangements. Others plan to be proactive — 40% said they will look for a new job in the next six months so that they can work remotely more often or every day.

The June survey revealed tension around employee desires and expectations, however, as 56% acknowledged they will probably have to go to the office more frequently in the next six months, perhaps every day. Three-fourths of workers said their direct supervisor has expressed a desire to see them in person more often.

But many bosses hope that being around other people will be appealing, the way it often is in recreational settings.

“I can make coffee in my house. I can watch a movie in my house. I can watch baseball, football and basketball,” Pion said, and yet people make an effort to do those things with others. “We’re social animals.”

Improvements in technology have been gradually liberating workers from the need to be at their desks for years, but remote work forced by the pandemic accelerated the push away from assigned seating. Tech may hold keys to make the office more appealing.

Most employers expect to increase their use of alternatives such as activity-based seating, where workers with laptops and cellphones might use a private room or cubicle for focused work. Or staffers could gather in “huddle rooms” for group projects or set up a laptop in a lounge or coffee bar.

It’s really early in the ballgame. I think we’re in the second inning of this. Companies are still trying to figure out what’s best for them.”

CBRE real estate broker Jeff Pion