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HR Brew

Flex work

Mikaela Cohen

hr-brew.com

The return-to-office (RTO) conversation is a lot like Russian nesting dolls: seemingly never-ending. Now, it appears the number of RTO holdouts is, like the dolls, getting smaller and smaller.

 32.2% compared to March 2019, a slight improvement from 35.9% in March 2024 and 37.9% in March 2023, according to 

. But last month, office visits reached new heights nationwide, and even more so in a few cities.

In July, visits to US offices were down 21.8% compared to July 2019. Office visits in New York City exceeded 2019 levels by 1.3%, while those in Miami were down 0.1% from its pre-pandemic norm, recent Placer.ai 

. Office traffic in Atlanta and Dallas were down just 14.8% and 18.3%, respectively.

“There’s certainly some seasonality at play here,” said R.J. Hottovy, head of analytical research at Placer.ai.

The change from March to July could be related to a tendency to go into the office more often in the warmer months, Hottovy told HR Brew. But there may be some larger trends at play unrelated to the weather.

 The cities that have seen office traffic improve, Hottovy said, have also seen RTO mandates. Many New York City 

 like tech and finance have pushed for an RTO, he said, as have some in cities like Atlanta and Dallas.

“Whether it’s tech, whether it’s consumer…office mandates have started to pick up. That’s probably what’s driving Atlanta and Dallas,” he said. “Those are two cities that have seen an increase in population in the last couple years too.”

While office visits have rebounded in Miami and New York City, they’ve lagged in Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. Office traffic in Denver is down 40%, while that in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago is down 34.6%, 34.2%, and 34.1%, respectively.

“It’s interesting looking at all the different markets. It really feels like there’s different dynamics in each city driving return to office,” Hottovy said.

He does, however, suspect that some cities may see the same rebounds currently in Miami and New York City.

“I don’t think we’re going to get there nationwide,” he said. “But it’s possible some of these other markets that have seen big population increases could get back or above what we were pre-pandemic.”

Split photo illustration of an in office worker and at home worker.

Office attendance returns to pre-pandemic levels in some cities

Just when you thought the RTO debate was over…

Has the traditional workday gone the way of the Edsel?

For many employees, the workday stretches beyond a nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday schedule, according to a Microsoft 

 from last month, as the average employee gets 50 work messages outside of business hours. That’s on top of 29% of employees checking their emails after 10:00pm and 20% of employees reading emails on Saturday and Sunday.

Working off-hours is nothing new for many corporate roles, according to Kim Seals, senior partner at consulting firm West Monroe, especially in industries like sales, accounting, or consulting where employees are often “rewarded” for working off-hours, she said.

But what’s evident in Microsoft’s findings, Seals told HR Brew, is that working off-hours has seeped into roles where it may not be required or rewarded to work late nights or early mornings.

“What Covid did was really just normalize [working off-hours] for other jobs where that was not always the case,” she said. “When we went to these hybrid jobs or remote-first jobs, then the trade-off that folks expected was, ‘Look, if you’re at home and you have more flexibility, then you don’t need to be tied to a core set of working hours.’”

Working outside normal hours can also be fueled by return-to-office mandates and fear from employees to appear more productive, Seals said.

“[It’s a] concern that I have to be visible online for people to see that I am working, and I am productive,” she said. “Did that drive some folks to say, ‘Let me show them that I’m still willing to work different hours, so that I don’t lose my privilege, if you will, to work from home or to work remotely?’”

Other employees might be working off-hours, Seals said, because they’re overwhelmed with meetings and in-person interactions in the office to complete tasks and working in the office means more time is spent commuting.

“If you put all that together, the commute, the caregiving, the meetings during the core working hours…the only time I have quiet time to actually answer emails and do the work is after dinner,” she said. “After all the other obligations are dealt with, now I have time to actually do my job.”

People leaders can use screen time monitoring tools, Seals said, in the same way that people use screen time monitoring on their phones to track how long they’ve spent on certain apps or social media. If HR notices employees spending consecutive late nights or early mornings working, she said, then there’s an opportunity for them or their managers to flag it and have a check-in conversation.

“We need to use the tech tools to flag for people leaders like, ‘Hey, Kim has been online four out of five nights this week. She’s been working eight to midnight in addition to her regular work schedule,” Seals said. “Give [their] manager some talking points to come to [them] and say, ‘Hey, Kim, I’ve noticed a lot of long nights like, what can we be doing? Can I help you prioritize? How can I help you set healthy boundaries?’”

HR pros should be aware that working off-hours is primarily a concern when it’s in addition to the eight-hour workday, Seals said, but if employees are taking time during the workday to pick up kids from school or take a parent to a doctor’s appointment, then working late hours might be the time to catch up.

“When you have that balance, and it’s not a true infinite workday where I don’t ever switch off, it’s not always a bad thing,” she said. “To give workers flexibility to say, ‘We’re not just going to tie you to a core set of hours of nine to five’...That way it benefits both parties.”

The nine-to-five workday is dead, a recent study finds

More employees are increasingly working at any time of day or night.

 want to spend less time working and more time lounging poolside in the sweet, sweet summertime? According to one recent survey, it depends on who you ask—and maybe how old they are.

Some 49% of workers reported working less in the summer, according to a recent 

 released in June. Gen Z is leading the pack, as 64% of employees aged 21–25 and 56% of employees aged 26–29 said they are taking it easier, compared to 39% of employees over 45 years old (Gen X) who reported doing the same.

“People actually tend to be more productive and task focused when there’s nothing else to do [recreationally],” said Adam Grant, organization psychologist, author, and Glassdoor’s chief worklife expert. “And it’s summer; there’s a lot more to do. The desire to relax is amplified. Sun’s out. It’s warm. People are excited to do activities.”

As a way to embrace this, HR can offer shortened workweeks or more flexibility in the summer. Some 59% of people leaders have already provided additional flexibility or time off this summer compared to the rest of the year, according to a recent 

Grant told HR Brew that US workers might be picking up on a “summer holiday” culture favored by many in Europe, where it’s common for employees to take several weeks off in the summer. “A lot of us have fond memories of summer in childhood, going to camp, being on the water, and there’s a desire to recapture that a little bit,” he added.

Decreased productivity during the summer doesn’t necessarily mean employees are less dedicated or loyal to their roles, Grant cautioned. Instead, it’s a reflection of a trend towards a “seasonality” to how work gets done, he said.

“It’s not something we ever saw people talk about when I started in this field, and now it’s a pretty common refrain,” Grant said. “‘I’m going to be as productive as I can during the winter, and then in summer, I’m going to embrace the fact that it’s a different season.’ There’s more freedom and flexibility to have fun and relax.’”

Palm trees and a pool emerging from a computer screen 

Employees work less in the summer. Workplace expert Adam Grant wants HR to get used to it

Automatic reply: Hello! I’ll be slow to reply to emails from now until Labor Day. I’ll respond to your email as soon as I’m more productive this fall. Thanks!

Fridays in the office during the summer are quieter, Slack messages slow down as the day wanes, and early departures or dismissals are more common.

 “Summer Fridays” as a way to offer employees flexibility, and it’s a trend that’s on the rise. Some 59% of HR pros provided additional flexibility or time off this summer compared to the rest of the calendar year, and 28% provided more summer flexibility in 2024, according to a survey of 514 HR Brew readers.

The fewer employees an organization has the more likely it is to offer summer flexibility. Nearly half (41%) of small companies with fewer than 100 full-time employees partake in Summer Fridays. Meanwhile, only one-fourth (26%) of large companies, those with 500 or more full-time employees, offer this summer benefit.

Most HR pros see no signs of their return-to-office policies slowing during the warmer months. Nearly all people pros (92%) with a five-day, in-office requirement don’t offer any special flexibility perks.

Once an organization tests a flexible summer schedule, it likely sticks around. Some 75% of people leaders who offered Summer Fridays this year, for instance, also followed the same schedule last year.

Employees undoubtedly would welcome more flexibility this summer so they can follow the lead of other HR Brew readers who are enjoying this warm-weather benefit.

Summer Fridays have become a popular choice for HR to offer employees

More companies are offering flexibility this summer compared to last year, an HR Brew survey found.

Hybrid work arrangements are often touted as the best of both worlds, but even they can present some 

That’s why financial services company Prudential Financial is trying to give its hybrid employees even more flexibility. The majority of the company’s roughly 13,000 US-based corporate employees work in one of its 145 offices two to three days a week. But in January 2024, the Newark, New Jersey-headquartered firm soft launched its Work from Anywhere (WFA) program, allowing these employees to work from any location for four weeks a year.

“We are a company and a culture of respect and inclusion, and this flexibility, specifically in ensuring that our employees were feeling supported as they were coming back to work, was really important to us,” Nya Patel, the company’s VP of culture and inclusion, told HR Brew.

In anticipation of its consistent hybrid work policy at the start of 2024, Patel said Prudential wanted to give its employees something in return, and landed on flexibility.

“We started this program as a pilot last year, as we thought about giving that flexibility to our employees,” Patel said.

When employees want to take advantage of the program, they discuss it with their managers in their one-on-one meetings. Patel said she hopes to eventually adopt a formal request process, like that which the company uses for PTO and volunteer days.

Some employees have tacked a WFA week onto their PTO to maximize flexibility. Patel said she’s done this herself: After traveling to Costa Rica last year to vacation and volunteer at an animal rescue, she used a WFA week to visit family in Texas on her way home to New Jersey.

Kate McKeon, a director of culture and inclusion at Prudential, utilized WFA in January alongside two of her colleagues, Sam O’Mara, a talent management manager, and Rosauri Rodriguez, an inclusive recruitment manager. The three, who are based on the East Coast, convened in San Diego, California for two weeks of coworking, during which they joined meetings by the beach and bonded over after-work walks with O’Mara’s dogs.

“Being in a different setting and place allowed us to have more of those conversations of being creative and thinking about things differently that sometimes in your day-to-day [and] in meetings, and out getting things done, that you don’t necessarily have that time for,” McKeon told HR Brew. McKeon, like Patel, said she plans to take another WFA week around the same time as some PTO for a family beach trip.

 One year in, Patel said she’s excited about the program’s progress and potential.

“It was this test and learn, and we actually didn’t know how this was going to go, and having heard all of these exciting stories from our employees and creative ways in which people are using it now, this is the year where we really have to think about, how do we think a little bit bigger?” Patel said. “How do we get creative about it? How do we add a little bit more structure around it that helps support our employees even further?”

Patel’s advice for other HR pros starting a similar program: “It all comes down to your core values as a company,” she said. “If you believe that your employees need the flexibility to do their best work, which we do, I think that then everything is driven from that.”

Prudential sign and building at its headquarters in New Jersey.

Why Prudential Financial lets its employees work from anywhere for four weeks each year

Prudential’s VP of culture and inclusion, Nya Patel tells HR Brew that the company’s Work from Anywhere program gives employees more flexibility.

Theresa Agovino

The benefit that employees want most after a good salary is the one many companies are eliminating.

Workplace flexibility in hours and location topped employees’ list of most desired benefits after a good salary, with 65% of workers surveyed by the Conference Board rating it in their top five desired perks. The data was released Tuesday at the organization’s People 2030: Our Talent, Our in Future conference. Incentive pay, such as bonuses and commissions, was second, with 64% of the roughly 1,500 respondents selecting it. Generous paid time off, retirement plans, and flexible, affordable health plans rounded out the top five.

The study comes after Amazon’s blockbuster 

 last month that it was ending its hybrid work policy and ordering employees back to the office five days a week starting next year. The decree sparked outrage among some employees and discussions about whether other strict corporate mandates would follow. That hasn’t happened, though other Fortune 500 companies like 

 already have such mandates. Earlier this month, 

 that managers would have to report to the office at least three days a week.

Despite all the speculation about five-day RTO mandates, research by the Conference Board found that 56% of companies are either hybrid or fully remote, while 44% of organizations require employees to be onsite.

drawing of woman working at home and woman working in office 

Flexibility is employees’ most valued benefit after salary

Employees want to choose where and when they work more than they desire other benefits.

In a gnarly game of “Would You Rather,” some employees admitted they would rather keep their flexible work arrangements than their partners.

Some 43% of US adults are more afraid of having to work on-site full-time than they are of breaking up with their romantic partner or getting a divorce, according to a LiveCareer 

 of 3,853 respondents published earlier this year.

“Someone mandating me to go back into the office means I have less control over my time, and my time is directly equated to how I feel about my life, how I feel about myself,” said Jasmine Escalera, a career expert at LiveCareer.

She shared with HR Brew how people pros can navigate “sticky” return-to-office conversations.

 HR pros are no strangers to being the messenger of leadership’s rules. Escalera recommended setting up pre-RTO interviews with employees to discuss they’re feelings about the change and the potential upsides.

“Utiliz[e] that as a catalyst to, hopefully, help the organization see that productivity could potentially be impacted by bringing employees back into the workplace,” she said.

While HR pros can’t dismantle a company-wide mandate, Escalera said they can advocate for certain employees to have remote or hybrid work arrangements, depending on individual needs or job requirements.

Leadership may feel RTO can help the “bottom line,” Escalera said, “but if we’re not thinking about the front line and we’re not thinking about the workers, we could actually be reversing the actual thing we’re trying to help, which is to enhance productivity, enhance innovation, enhance creativity.”