With stay-at-home mandates put in place to protect employees during the early days of the Covid pandemic, the American workplace shifted largely from offices to individual homes and, later, to public remote workspots.
New data appears to indicate it’s shifting back, fueled by companies mandating return-to-work policies for their workers. According to data released by Kastle Systems, a Falls Church, Va.-based security systems firm, office occupancy hit a record high average – some 54.2% — in 10 cities, among them Houston, Austin and Dallas in the final week of January.
Washington DC had its highest week, at 51.5%, since the pandemic hit in March 2020, according to Kastle.
The Washington Post reported that commercial property experts expect the rise in people working from the office to continue to climb slowly, although there are still some employers continuing to offer flexible work arrangements.
As of the first week of February, office occupancy remained stable at 54.1%, according to Kastle. Houston led at 65.1%, while San Francisco brought up the rear at 43.2%.
“As more people come back, it makes it easier for other companies to ask their people to come back,” Mark Ein, chairman of Kastle, which offers software that can track who accesses the office for 2.5 million global users, told The Post.
Federal workers are expected to be back in full force in upcoming weeks to comply with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, some companies are jumping on the return-to-office bandwagon, with Gap, JPMorgan, AT&T and Amazon among the most recent, according to The Post.
