How companies are thinking about remote work, more than three years after the onset of Covid-19

With the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic seemingly in the rearview, Americans have returned to many activities that seemed unthinkable when cases were surging: Stadium shows, blockbuster movie screenings, and European vacations are all back on this summer.

But remote work has stuck around, with many employees still spending at least a few days working from home rather than an office. In the first half of 2023, US workers spent about 28% of their paid working days at home, according to WFH Research—down from a pandemic peak of 61.5%, but still a six-fold increase from pre-pandemic 2020. The scholars who lead WFH Research, which draws upon responses from a monthly Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, believe the shift will be permanent.

Still, leaders of some big firms are making clear they want workers back in the office at least some of the time. In its Q2 outlook, the commercial real estate services firm JLL estimated that 1.5 million office-based US employees have had new attendance policies take effect so far this year, and another 1 million will face mandates between now and the end of 2023.

In the future, it looks like many HR departments will land on a “structured hybrid” model—requiring employees to be in the office a few days a week, but allowing for some flexibility, according to experts. They added that the shift will have implications for talent: Smaller firms are likely to use increased flexibility as a lever to poach competition, experts told HR Brew.

Where remote work is most prominent. Looking through the lens of certain industries, it may seem like everyone’s working from home. But in reality, 59% of full-time US employees were fully onsite as of June, per WFH Research, while 29% were hybrid and 12% were fully remote.

Technology is one of the most flexible industries when it comes to remote work, as well as finance, professional services, and media, according to data from WFH Research and Scoop Technologies, an HR and tech firm advising organizations on hybrid work.

Sectors like retail, food, and hospitality are less amenable to work-from-home arrangements, Rob Sadow, CEO and co-founder of Scoop, told HR Brew. For companies “where your customers are right there, you being in the office and close to them is important for being successful,” he said. “I think that looks different at a tech company."

Education also plays a role in opportunities for hybrid and remote work. In 2022, 54% of employed people with a bachelor’s degree or higher performed some work at home on days they worked, compared to 18% of those with a high school degree and no college, according to recently released data from BLS’s American Time Use Survey.

Remote and hybrid opportunities also vary by geographic location. Firms in the Northeast and on the West Coast tend to offer the most flexibility, while the Midwest and South lag on remote work, according to Sadow.

A new normal. Sanjay Rishi, Americas CEO for JLL Work Dynamics, is bullish on return-to-office. US office occupancy rates could reach 80% of pre-pandemic levels on peak days by the end of the year, JLL estimated in its recent report (office attendance stood at 50.3% of the pre-pandemic weekly average as of June 4, per JLL and Kastle data).

“Flexibility is here to stay, but hybrid, in-office participation is something I hear in spades across industries,” Rishi said. “Even the ones that are on one end of the spectrum, have all migrated to the right end of the spectrum, if you will, or are migrating.”

Among the companies that have recently reneged on remote work: Amazon, which indicated corporate employees may have to relocate in order to comply with the company’s RTO policy, currently set at three days a week.

But despite tighter mandates from corporate powers that be, Scoop’s data shows more companies introduced some level of flexibility this year. Between the first and second quarters of this year, the share of firms that are full-time in-office dropped from 49% to 42%. More than half of the firms Scoop tracks (51%) now offer a hybrid work arrangement.

Sadow said “structured hybrid”—where managers set expectations that employees spend a certain number of days, or percentage of time, in the office—is emerging as a sort of truce between workers who want flexibility and employers who value in-office work.

Both Sadow and Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist who helps lead WFH Research, predicted smaller firms will lean on flexibility to attract and retain talent in the future.

“If you can’t compete on salary, compete on perks, including WFH, which is very valuable,” Bloom told HR Brew via email.

“HR leaders should recognize that the smaller companies are going to use flexibility as a wedge to try and drive talent out,” Sadow said. “That actually may be helpful in tempering executive sentiment around, ‘We should push harder [on] return to office.’”