There's a sub-current to the employment figures and the commercial real estate numbers that the Fed watches - what's actually happening down in the trenches of the companies who rent those offices and employ those people. Once upon a time, and hastened by the pandemic, technology was predicted to be the tool that would render all but the most specialized, hands-on work remote capable and office-free.

Hundreds of thousands of US workers found themselves safely tucked in their homes by employers grateful to be able to do so while still keeping the business - whatever it was - up and running. Employees were happy as clams not to have to face commutes, deal with the panic of childcare for random COVID school closings, or buy new office clothes.

In many cases, an assumption was made that this would be the way going forward - the norm rather than the exception - and life settled in and was planned around working remotely from that point forward.

It would always be like this...until it wasn't.

In September of 2022, General Motors was one of the first to put its toe in the "y'all come back to work" waters. I wrote a piece about the backpedaling the company execs did shortly after the blast they received.

…In her note to employees on Friday, Barra wrote that the COVID-19 pandemic has improved dramatically allowing for a safe return to the office and GM’s push to transform the company requires more in-person collaboration.

Or…not. Like, less than 24 hours later and…YOICKS. Hissy fit city.

GM steps back on new return-to-office policy after backlash from salaried workers

…On Tuesday, CEO Mary Barra sent out a note to the salaried workforce offering an apology of sorts for the timing of putting out a new policy late in the day Friday saying that employees would have to return to working in the office three days a week.

But, by August of 2023, almost a year later, even "remote" companies like Zoom were telling pissed-off employees they had to physically return to the office (RTO).

...Speaking of “pissed off people,” HOW ‘BOUT THOSE ZOOM EMPLOYEES, y’all?

You should be able to see the smoke rising from here.

Zoom Staffers Are Furious as Remote Work Declared Dead in Ironic Twist of Fate

The company that once carried the work-from-home movement on its back has admitted defeat.

Zoom recently announced its new “structured hybrid approach,” requiring employees to return to the office at least part-time.

Now, some of its employees are pissed, according to comments from the popular tech community app Blind, which verifies users through their work emails but allows them to post completely anonymously...

What a difference another year removed from the pandemic makes, again. In that same last August, I'd done another story on Philadelphia's woes trying to get downtown offices refilled with productive bodies.

...Philadelphia is a laggard when it comes to businesses and return to work (RTO -return to office) policies refilling office spaces in an urban downtown. It seems not many employees are thrilled with the idea of taking their lives in their hands.

It’s pretty sad when your city is second only to the hellhole of San Francisco.

The City of Brotherly Love has a new reputation as one of the emptiest office districts in America, sparking a debate over what’s keeping Philadelphia workers at home.

Here's the situation in Philly as of 15 July: even the city has mandated everyone back IN to work.

Philly city workers say ‘everyone is pissed’ as Parker’s return-to-office mandate reveals lack of space, resources

When Philadelphia city employees showed up in person last week, the situation was chaotic and without enough office space to do their jobs.

City employees described the first week when all 26,000 workers were mandated to return to the office full-time as chaotic and miserable. “Everybody was pissed,” they told WHYY News.

Mayor Cherelle Parker announced May 20 that everyone would be required to work in person across city buildings — mostly in Center City — starting July 15.

The Parker administration won a legal challenge by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents about 3,700 administrative, professional and technical assistance employees working for the city of Philadelphia on July 12.

Dozens of Philadelphia workers streamed in and out of the employee entrance of City Hall on Friday morning despite a global cybersecurity issue with a Microsoft update. City courts were closed, jurors were sent home and confused attorneys showed up for trials. City officials told WHYY News that all workers still reported to their office in person Friday.

Predictably, the predictable lack of foresight regarding accommodation for the vastly increased number of bodies overnight in offices has made things uncomfortable compared to home, tempers are flaring, and workers are grousing about looking for new gigs.

...The work environment changes have altered the dynamic on his team, too. It wasn’t unusual with remote work for salaried employees on his team to hop on after traditional work hours to handle anything the department needed to function. But now, there’s zero interest in working a second longer than required.

“Now because of the mandate it doesn’t feel like anybody wants to do anything unless they’re in the office, which has been a little weird to adjust to,” he said.

 ...Overall, he said the work experience wasn’t worth the commute. And it definitely wasn’t worth the financial hole he’s in after relocating to Philadelphia months sooner than he anticipated.

Lewis said he moved halfway across the state to take this job about six months ago.

Now he’s looking for a new one.

That’s also the plan for El, who said she was poached from another employer for her job with the city.

She said that the administration’s rhetoric about equity was “absurd to the brink of fictitious,” saying that in-person work increases sexual harassment, sexism and racism in the workplace.

The descriptions in the article of what the city didn't do are just mind-blowing and absolutely demoralizing. There were no prior preparations made at all for the influx of workers from the wilderness.

Philly city workers say "everyone is pissed" as Mayor Cherelle Parker’s return-to-office mandate reveals lack of space and poor working conditions.

via @k_mosbrucker https://t.co/jlm8iPb0yc

— WHYY News (@WHYYNews) July 22, 2024

Dell Computers tried a hardline approach in February to get its employees back in the office. The company drew a line in the sand and had workers declare if they were "hybrid or remote," and those who chose to remain remote had some harsh penalties assessed immediately.

...In February, the tech giant introduced a return-to-office mandate, telling workers to formally classify themselves as either hybrid or remote.

Those who chose remote are no longer eligible for promotion or able to change roles. Meanwhile, hybrid workers must come into the office 39 days a quarter, roughly three days a week, and their attendance is monitored using a color-coded system.

Several months after this RTO policy was announced, it appears it hasn't worked.

Close to 50% of Dell's full-time workers in the US have opted to stay remote, according to internal data on the entire full-time workforce seen by Business Insider.

Unless they agree to change their classification, those US Dell workers are now ineligible for promotion.

The data showed that around a third of international staff chose to stay remote.

Five months later, both sides are sticking to their guns, with Dell being painted as the cruel and intractable corporate betrayer, especially after Michael Dell's 2022 paean to remote work.

...This appears to be a complete 180 from where Dell was less than two years ago when Michael Dell blogged about how “if you are counting on forced hours spent in a traditional office to create collaboration and provide a feeling of belonging within your organization, you’re doing it wrong.”

Dell is riding an optimistic AI wave right now that may allow both sides to call it a draw for the moment. 

A monthly progressive business magazine that tracks technology trends, etc. isn't offering much succor to the workers told to come back. A recent Fast Company article said "the debate is settled." That has to be discouraging news to obstinate holdouts for pajamas and coffee at their home desks but at least it's a hybrid model emerging.

Offices around the country are slowly but steadily seeing workers return. According to a new set of monthly office occupancy data, offices are increasingly busy, with “busyness” up in 28 of the 41 markets being tracked compared to 2023 levels. Some markets, like Manhattan, Washington D.C., and San Francisco, are seeing double-digit increases in activity compared to this time last year.

These figures run counter to the fears many had during and after the pandemic that empty office buildings would never refill. While office leasing is down compared to pre-pandemic times, the offices that are occupied are being used more and more.

...Office busyness in the consulting, research, accounting, and recruiting sector has even surpassed pre-pandemic levels in markets like Manhattan, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and Denver. Mangru says the highest busyness tends to be in the nicest and newest buildings. “What we’re seeing now is that flight to quality is playing a very, very vital role. And that’s what’s enticing employees to go back to the office,” he says.

Even a hybrid model may be cold comfort to the most belligerent company employees, whose own executives were proudly anti-office and are suddenly singing a different tune, changing the ground rules. Challenging economic conditions will do that to a business.

This is going to be a rude culture shock for many employees, I think.

In 2022, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff boldly proclaimed that “office mandates are never going to work.” Now his company is soft-pedaling its own policy. 

According to an internal memo reviewed by The Standard, San Francisco’s largest private employer has made the call to bring the majority of its employees back into the office, reversing a broad shift to remote work during the pandemic. 

Select employees in sales, workplace services, data center engineering and onsite support technicians under the chief information officer will be required to come to the office four to five days a week, effective Oct. 1.

All other departments – including marketing, legal and product teams – will be designated “office-flex” — meaning they must come in at least three days a week. The company’s other engineering roles are also in this bucket, although they will be required to come in only at least 10 days each quarter.

Again, when push comes to staying home, accountability to the bottom line comes first.

...Per the memo, sent out last week, the guidelines are meant to “better clarify our in-person expectations.” To bolster in-person attendance, Salesforce will also roll out an internal dashboard to track data from employee badge scans (in the U.S. only), starting next month. 

The push to return to the office comes as Salesforce cut around 300 roles this month, Bloomberg reported, on top of 700 laid off earlier this year. Early last year, the software company cut around 10% of its positions — about 7,000 employees.

Zoom has found the face-to-face encounters of the past year's hybrid model have worked to their advantage...

...Zoom has customers, “by the way, who span the gamut,” said Saxon, who joined the company from Meta in 2022. “We've got customers who are completely in the office. We've got customers who are completely remote, and we've got all the various flavors of hybrid in between. We want to ensure we’re very customer-centric; that means really, truly understanding the customer use case and pain points.”

That becomes a challenge—particularly assessing the needs of fully in-office workers—if Zoom’s primary workforce is permanently remote.

...but they've also worked with their employees in as open and transparent form as possible. Why they did what they did, who was able to access what aspect of employment, making sure they watch for "proximity bias" between remote and in-office employees as far as promotions go, and being honest about the state of the company from a financial standpoint.

I'd say that's a good model to work off of if a firm has the latitude to do so and is fully cognizant of the fact that not every employee, however much they might wish to, is not work-from-home material.

In this current economic climate, it's a tougher call for the employee whose world is being rocked by an unexpected need to be back in an office three or more days a week. How much resistance do they have in them, and how much latitude for push-back will their employer allow? Where do you turn if you don't want to have a color-coded badge monitored for good behavior?

That margin of opportunity seems to be shrinking even in blue city governments like Philly, however badly they botch the actual implementation.

We're not in that closed pandemic world anymore.

Adjustments are hard.