Insider reporting on a potential end to the era of remote work.
According to a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that 72.5% of private-sector establishments surveyed from August 1 to September 30, 2022, had little to no telework. That’s a giant leap from 2021, when just 60.1% of establishments surveyed from July to September 2021 reported little to no telework.
11.1% of these establishments had everyone teleworking all the time based on the August to September 2022 data. That’s higher than the 10.3% share for July to September 2021.
BLS data shows the information sector had a relatively high share of establishments where workers worked all the time remotely, at 42.2%.
I’ll layer in something else – Axios considering the impact of office occupancy on the larger office property market and, by extension, the broader economy. According to Trepp, delinquencies on commercial office mortgages hit 2.4% in February, up from 1.5% six months ago.
Then again, According to a Gallup survey of more than 15,000 American workers, just 32% of people felt engaged in their jobs at the end of 2022, and the number of workers who reported being actively disengaged climbed during the pandemic. Most importantly, just 30% of workers surveyed by Gallup said they had “received recognition or praise for doing good work” over the past week. Another survey by the HR software company Workhumanfound that more than half of the workers they spoke to didn’t feel valued by their employer. And this epidemic of neglect is driving employees away. A 2021 study by the global management-consulting firm McKinsey found that the top-two reasons people quit their jobs are because they don’t feel valued by their company or manager.
New Fishbowl data supports this – 71% of professionals are uncomfortable discussing mental health with their managers. In technology, 34% of tech professionals specifically would be comfortable talking to their managers about mental health.
A listener called me out as wrong on remote work – and I could well be. I think 42% of work done all the time remotely seems like a pretty significant number.
Two things – first, anyone involved in office space itself and related industries should be considering their next moves. And second, I want to highlight the second-order effects happening… disengagement by employees and an unwillingness to discuss important matters like mental health. Sure, the solution might be pulling everyone back… but I don’t think it’s that simple, and it would encourage businesses to tackle the more nuanced answers.