Snapshots

Office attendance reaches highest post-pandemic level

July 23, 2024

Contributors:

June reflected the highest office attendance rates since the onset of the pandemic, with Placer.AI’s office index exceeding 70% of pre-pandemic levels. Accounting for the adoption of hybrid schedules, this likely indicates that peak-day occupancy is near 80-90% of pre-pandemic levels nationally.

While most private employers had cemented their new attendance policies in 2023, some groups continue to make adjustments, which overwhelmingly favor increased office attendance: Amazon recently announced that they will begin enforcing a minimum hours requirement for attendance, and Salesforce is increasing their three-day requirement to four to five days for most employees.

The public sector has lagged private employers in requiring hybrid attendance, but is beginning to coalesce at all levels of government. Most federal agencies have instituted two to three day hybrid requirements as of 2024, state governments including California and Nebraska have instituted RTO policies YTD, and the City of Philadelphia recently required all city employees to return to the office full time.

As hybrid becomes more dominant across industries, negative impacts to employee engagement stemming from initial mandates are beginning to fade—a Reuters law firm survey showed that 58% of employees were satisfied with their policies, compared to 13% who were dissatisfied. They also found that while only 15% of attorneys are required to attend more than three days per week, nearly 50% are going into the office four or more days.

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