Compared to two years ago, when 78% of Fortune 100 companies were hybrid and 5% were fully in-office, those firms are now 41% hybrid and 54% fully in-office. The stark shift comes as the companies require workers in the office an average of 3.8 days a week compared to 2.6 days in 2023, per the report.
Office vacancies, however, continue to persist, hovering above 22%. Inventory declined by 700,000 square feet in the last quarter, indicating demolitions or mixed-use and residential conversions are outpacing office construction.
Though the U.S.’s largest 100 companies by revenue are reveling in bustling office spaces swelling with workers, the story of the rest of the country’s return-to-office push is much less dramatic.
According to Mark Ma, associate professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh, Fortune 100 companies are leading the RTO push simply because they can afford to do so.
“Amazon can lose 1,000 talented IT workers with no problem,” he told Fortune. “There is still a lineup of young college graduates from maybe Carnegie Mellon or other excellent universities who still want to work for Amazon because that’s the Magnificent Seven.
“But the smaller firms, it is harder for them to do it because once they lose some important employees, maybe no one else in their firm can do the job,” he continued. “It’s a completely different story for smaller firms.”
“In the long term, with the younger generation taking over, I think the CEOs will be willing to [give more] flexibility,” Ma said.
