Part 1: Return to the Office Series - Predicting the Return to the Office

AMERICAS: U.S.

WHAT’S THE CURRENT PLAN? For the second year in a row, consensus began to swell around a post-Labor Day (September 6) surge back to the office. But the Delta variant quickly ended that optimism. In the last few weeks, a growing list of companies have delayed their return-to-work policies. Some have planned minimal delays, as short as one month, targeting October. Many other companies have pushed their timelines out, targeting January 2022. For example, banking and financial firms mostly fall into the first category, many of them making news in 2021, publicly stating a commitment to in-office work post-pandemic. These institutions have almost unilaterally been communicating a shorter delay and are expecting to resume frequent in- office work in Q4 of this year. Law firms, another sector that greatly impacts many Central Business Districts (CBDs), were largely targeting Labor Day but many have pushed return to office to Q4. Technology firms are all over the spectrum on expected return dates. However, they are the most likely to be targeting early-2022.

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