Employers are thinking about how to make in-person days more productive, rather than massively mandating all employees back-in five days a week.
Back-to-school season won’t be combined with a rush of back-to-office mandates this year.
For the past four years, Labor Day has marked not only the end of summer but the beginning of renewed seasonal efforts to get workers to return to physical offices. With years left in building leases and rising concerns from CEOs about work-from-home productivity, employers have often boosted return-to-office mandates after Labor Day, when children are back in school and summer travel comes to an end.
This year, however, the push is much more subdued.
“We've gone from the fifth annual post-Labor Day return-to-office battle to the fifth annual post-Labor Day return-to-office minor skirmish,” says Brian Elliott, a future of work consultant.
Even as corporate employees at companies such as Kohls and Walmart have been asked to return to the office this fall, experts who follow hybrid work policies say anecdotally, they’re seeing less chatter over the issue this September. Even in past years, pronouncements about back-to-office policies haven’t prompted big shifts in behavior: Office occupancy rates have stabilized at about........