Office model is far from defunct

New York

IN July, roughly 25 per cent of managers and professional workers teleworked at some point because of the pandemic, the lowest since the government started tracking the data in May 2020. It is a clear sign that the age-old work compact is mostly intact, and that the office model is far from defunct.

The July number is down from 41 per cent in January and 57 per cent in May of last year, showed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which tallies the number of employed who teleworked or worked at home for pay at any time in the month because of the novel coronavirus.

For the overall workforce, working from home (WFH) has dropped to around 13 per cent, also the lowest since May 2020.

The latest figures may surprise you. Surely, you insist, it must be much higher. But the BLS works with hard numbers, and the numbers show that in July, 15.8 million of the 64.2 million people in the category encompassing managers and professionals worked at least one day from their abode.

Granted, the July statistics may not fully capture the explosion of the Delta variant and the decision by some companies to delay return-tooffice plans.

Workers who went to the office in 10 of the largest US business districts fell in the week ended Aug 4, showed data from Kastle Systems, a firm that provides security to more than 2,000 buildings and 5,800 businesses in the 10 metro areas.

But at the very least, the government data till July put a significant dent in one much-touted hypothesis of the past year: That cities are finished, the city-office model is broken, the suburbs have triumphed and everyone is working from home, now and forever.

The breakdown of the data is telling. About half of all those in "computer and mathematical" occupations worked from home; 37.9 per cent of all those in business and finance worked from home; and almost 37 per cent of all those in law worked from home. No other categories come close.

So if you are a programmer, a banker, or a lawyer, it may seem to you like everyone is working from home, even though it is fewer than half, and of course, some of these may be working from home a day or two a week, not every day; the BLS is not specific on this point.

And it is important to keep in mind that the finance and legal professions are not "everybody". Finance accounts for around 6 per cent of the working population, and the law around 1.2 per cent. Those in computing and mathematics account for another 4 per cent.

The largest single group working from home, said the BLS, is managers, an omnibus group that includes everyone from chief executives to marketing and sales managers, funeral home managers and postmasters. Of the almost 19 million managers, 4.3 million worked from home in July, 22.5 per cent of the total.

It is fair to assume that when the boss announces that henceforth work will be done in the office, all those for whom the financial imperative dictates daily behaviour will go to the office. This is good news for cities with high concentrations of bankers and lawyers.

That WFH is popular, there can be no doubt. But I do not think this popularity represents a fundamental shift in "the model" or "the meaning of work".

The basic compact is the same now as it has always been. You dress up in relatively restrictive garments and go to a place called the office, where you do things you may potentially find unpleasant. In exchange, your employer hands you money. As you get older and work your way up the ladder, or master the business at hand, the number of unpleasant things you have to do lessens.

Of course, if you are lucky, you love what you do and you are good at it, and the unpleasant parts of the job are never so unpleasant.

This is the compact, and I do not think it is going to be rewritten by the pandemic. If there has been a rebellion against returning to office (RTO), I think we can ascribe it chiefly to commuting. The more soul-killing your commute, the more you want to WFH. Companies seem to be granting flexibility, but if you want to WFH on a permanent basis, maybe you should get a job closer to where you live.

The city office model is not "broken," and does not need to be fixed or even re-imagined. It will probably take a couple of years for this WFH/RTO situation to stabilise, and it might even include some very limited flexibility in location.

But if cities cannot handle 5 per cent or 8 per cent of employees WFH a day or so a week, they are a lot less resilient than we have been giving them credit for. BLOOMBERG

• The writer's opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg and its owner, and his observations are not intended as investment advice.