Texas Highest Return to Work - With 49% Back
NY & San Fran the Lowest with 21% & 19%

Yes, the office is back. It just might never be the same

Workers are suddenly feeling happiness and angst; frustration and relief. Sometimes all at once.

Handshakes are back from the dead, against all odds. Hugging too. (Hope Not - my addition)

Across the country, the leaders of corporate America have begun opening their doors again at companies like Facebook, Goldman Sachs and Microsoft, bringing the country’s white collar workforce back into the skyscrapers, office parks and campuses that were long assumed to be the only way to corral them.

Companies that have begun bringing back people into their offices, even as data shows that most big commercial buildings are still well below full capacity across the country.

Most workers spoke about a strange office environment that bears little resemblance to the one they left behind — a world of complicated social interactions, lingering anxieties about masks and vaccinations, and simmering frustrations about inflexible work policies. Companies spoke about the challenge of getting a workforce that has grown accustomed to working from home fired up again about office culture.

Only about one-third of workers — 32 percent — are back in large office buildings, according to data from building security firm Kastle Systems, although the numbers have been increasing in recent weeks. Of the major cities the company surveys, San Francisco and New York have the lowest occupancy, at 19 and 21 percent, while cities in Texas have the highest — about 49 percent of workers are back in Dallas, Houston and Austin.

Some went back to workplaces operating at only a fraction of the capacity they used to have; others returned to packed rooms with people in every seat. Some dreaded the return; others looked forward to it. Some found the new office life little different from the isolation they felt at home, just with a longer commute; others said they were invigorated from being around people once again.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has determined that companies can require vaccinations for staff, but many companies have been opting for a less confrontational approach — encouraging and at times incentivizing vaccines but not explicitly requiring them.

Many companies, including Wpromote, are asking employees who are not vaccinated to wear masks, but none of the workers interviewed across the country said the requirement was enforced — companies are putting their faith in the honor system.

Bosses told workers they could choose whether to wear masks inside, which she said had created a somewhat tense atmosphere — because of the way mask-wearing has become such a clear stand-in for political beliefs over the last year.

“I’ve heard conversations with some passive aggressiveness, of like somebody talking about somebody else that isn’t wearing a mask and is super relaxed. And they’re kind of like, ‘Well, it’s not that hard to wear a mask,’ ” she said. “It’s causing tensions that weren’t necessarily there before. I mean, our whole office gets along pretty well. It’s just that now there’s like this new clear divide.”

Workers described some physical modifications made to the offices — increased spacing between desks or plexiglass dividers — but overall said that the physical makeup of the spaces had been little changed, despite all the talk about the reinvention of office space last year. With one worker saying “You know, I expected a sense of it being more different, but it’s almost like we’re picking up where we left off.”

“Everyone kind of talks about that camaraderie of going into the office with their colleagues and stuff,” she said. “But everyone got so used to being by themselves that the office is so quiet, even with people there. And then we’re still wearing masks, and everyone’s keeping their distance, and everyone’s in an office by themselves.”

The digital tools people leaned on during the pandemic, messaging programs like Slack and video chat applications like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, are still just as prevalent.

“Everyone has their headphones in and they either call you on Teams from across the office or they go to your office and then they pop in and ask a question and they leave. That’s about it,” she said. “I honestly don’t see the point of going in.”

Miller, the logistics worker in Minnesota, said there are less meetings and less impromptu conversations between co-workers at her company — part of a trend of more distance between people.

Social events have lost their luster, too. The cafeteria is open but more empty than it used to be, she said.

It’s that lack of cohesion that has led some workers to question the point of the return to the office — already an issue of contention at many companies that are trying to curtail the flexible work routines that have flourished over the last year.

“I don’t know anyone who’s actually even enjoying being back in the office now,” the Indiana office worker said.

“My opinion is that working from home really affected people’s mental health,” she said. “There is something about that camaraderie from being around other adults who do what you do and interacting with them in person that is better.”

There are other little changes too: Kastle says some clients noticed during the pandemic that the dress code for skeleton crews working from offices slipped — from business casual to extremely casual. washingtonpost.com

Editor's Note: Great article on what they're running into and what you might expect yourself.