Office attendance is again a hot-button issue in 2024, as some employers have recently reverted to increasingly aggressive in-person mandates.
A poll conducted during a recent CoStar New York office webinar found that employees have fine-tuned their office attendance over the past 12 months. The poll, which topped 350 CoStar users, asked registrants about their in-person attendance goals for 2024.
More than two-thirds of respondents said they are not expecting to meaningfully change their attendance this year. Twenty-six percent of respondents said they would attend at least one more day a week, while 6% stated they would attend one less day a week.
The findings illustrate what has been witnessed across other sources. Foot traffic fell 36.5% nationally last month from the end of 2019, according to analytics firm Placer.ai's National Office Index. The Kastle Systems Back to Work Barometer found that excluding the holiday weeks of Jan. 1 and July 4, its weekly measure of office attendance as a percentage of February 2020 levels has largely kept within the narrow range of 46% to 50% over the past year.
Little change in future office attendance is expected as a majority of respondents noted in a follow-up poll that not much will change their minds.
Fifty-four percent of respondents said nothing could influence their decision to attend the office more often.
Office owners should not be completely dismayed, however, as some respondents noted factors that may influence their decision. Fourteen percent of respondents stated that if their building had improved tenant amenities, such as health and wellness offerings, they would be inclined to attend more, while 12% of respondents said they would want their office space to undergo a significant renovation before going in more often.
Outside factors such as long and expensive commutes continue to weigh on attendance. A CoStar study found that markets with a higher cost of commuting tend to have a larger increase in the amount of available office space. Nearly 20% of respondents said that if their commute times were reduced, they would be inclined to attend the office more.
This has been stated anecdotally by market participants, who have found that quality buildings located steps away from major transit sites, such as Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station in New York City, have received a rising share of tenant interest.