22 Comments - Gruntled University Employee - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:02 am: Even though most all of us are back in the office full time, Zoom meetings have become the norm. - Tony DeKalb - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:12 am: I was 100 percent “traditional” 5 days a week in the office pre-pandemic. I was fully remote but I’ve been WFM 4 days a week with one day in office for more than a year now and it’s great. - Thomas Paine - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:22 am: We should be drilling down into that data. My gut tells me A lot more parents, particularly with younger children, are working from home, and that is a great trend. Everyone who complains about absentee fathers should be joyous. Fathers are spending more time with their kids than they have at any point in my lifetime, maybe since the 19th century. - Papa2008 - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:25 am: Hasn’t changed a bit. 100% at the workplace. Work in supply chain logistics. Not possible for any of the 125 employees to work from home. - JS Mill - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:31 am: Our school district was never fully remote post spring 2020 state shutdown. By the end of the fall 2020 semester we were back in person 100%. Zoom meetings are about 50% of our meetings which is nice. - Rufus T. Firefly - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:43 am: Pre-pandemic, at my office one group was hybrid and another group was in the office daily. Since the pandemic, both groups have been hybrid. - Bean Counter - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:44 am: State gov’t More meeting on zoom, more people have laptops/docking stations and can WFH when circumstances dictate. Having it baked into the schedule is a flat no from TPTB - Lurker - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:44 am: In the office 1 or 2 days a week, with a very few choosing to do more often. But overall, with WFH, productivity is up. - Back to the Future - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:48 am: We went just about completely remote during the Covid lockdown. Fortunately the nature of our business had changed and most firm folks were set up to work remotely. Currently about 20% of the firm members work remotely at least one day a week. Some work remotely up to 3 days a week. Covid along with disruptions in business operations have permanently changed the way and where we work. Zoom has become a way of life in our business and has reduced travel and related travel expenses by half. - Leap Day William - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:53 am: Pre-Pandemic: 100% in office, remote was for extreme circumstances, most every meeting in person with the extremely rare Skype meeting. Post-Pandemic: 2 days WFH and 3 days in-office, regularly work remotely other days when I need it, probably 90% of my meetings are Zoom/Teams, and even most in-person meetings still have some kind of Zoom option for those who can’t make it in. - TheInvisibleMan - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 9:57 am: I’m not a good data point. I’ve been WFH for over a decade now. Currently, my ‘home office’ isn’t even in the state. Haven’t set foot in it a single time. I will say it was interesting watching some people just not be able to adjust to it at all. Mostly management types who were desperately trying to justify why they were still needed. - H-W - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 10:07 am: I am a professor at a regional public university. Since the lifting of COVID restrictions, people have been very slow to return to campus. Ten years ago, it was common to find almost 60 people on my floor at any time (not counting administrators and secretaries). Today, probably a dozen are here at any moment [I am a blue collar guy - 8:00 to 5:00, so my observations may be accurate] - Just Me 2 - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 10:12 am: I have worked for myself from home for 12 years. I used to waste a lot of time every day driving or taking transit to visit clients at their offices, which meant I did my actual “work” in the evening. Now almost all of my client meetings are on-line, which gave me more time to spend with family, and I also had more time to do business development. I had a potential client tell me I had to be in his office a few times a week and I turned him down. He admitted that requirement was making it difficult to hire employees which is why he was hoping consultants would work better. - Pundent - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 10:14 am: My company has moved to a hybrid model but there are variations on that theme. It generally means 3 days in the office. Tues-Thur seem to be the preference of most. The business has done quite well during and coming out of the pandemic. I suspect that a recession could change things for a lot of businesses. Managers may want to have a better sense of what their subordinates are doing and people may value the sense of security that being connected to a physical office affords. - Sangamo Girl - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 10:32 am: Pre-Pandemic was 100% in the office with a lot of travel to in-person meetings. Now we can WFH 80% of the time with many in-person off-site meetings done virtually. Literally thousands of miles less travelling. Good for me and the environment. - PublicServant - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 11:10 am: One of my daughters, a video game level designer, is 100% WFH, although she does live in the city that the physical headquarters is in. There has been no pressure to return to the office, and the job itself lends itself to remote work. My other daughter is a surgical tech, and, obviously has no WFH opportunities. Measure employees on their output, not showing up at the office. Office cooler conversations are overrated. - ChicagoBars - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 11:21 am: My hunch is if some motivated economist looked at CTA data and City parking garage revenue they’d see evidence of a much larger drop in work from office in Chicago than that interesting data. But to the question… With Chicago City Council finally back in person for meetings (and letting the public in) I’m back to work from Central Business District bars and coffee spots 3 days a week. But it’s still real quiet at most of those spots Mondays and Fridays. - City Zen - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 11:46 am: I live in close enough proximity to downtown Chicago to use CTA. Pre-pandemic, I would WFH on a random basis. Now, I consistently WFH one day per week, sometimes two. My spouse went from 20% WFH to 95% and hasn’t skipped a beat. My coworkers who rely on Metra went from 20-40% WFH to 80%. Lack of express trains pushed them to stay WFH and they’re not coming back. Some unwarranted safety concerns as well but that’s how they feel. - New Day - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 11:53 am: We used to be flexible so people would WFH periodically but infrequently. Now I’m lucky if my employees are here three days a week. It is what it is but it’s definitely suboptimal for team cohesion and productivity. - cermak_rd - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 1:21 pm: Before the pandemic I was in the office every day rain or shine. During early pandemic I was WFH and in July 2020 returned for a couple months to M-F in office then back to WFH and in summer 2022 back M-F in office then transferred to a remote position. Now I WFH permamently and since my team is composed of 4 people only 1 of whom live in the Chicago area (me) or near a different headquarter I expect it will continue. If not, I’ll adjust, again. - PublicServant - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 1:58 pm: === suboptimal for team cohesion and productivity === Please cite any studying backing this? Pretty sure people quitting because they’re being forced back to the office is even more suboptimal for “team cohesion and productivity”. - TheGMan - Tuesday, Jan 17, 23 @ 3:10 pm: I’m at a state agency and since the pandemic we’ve gone hybrid, three in the office two WFH. However, if you happen to live in Chicago they will let you be fully remote. As a result we’ve lost about 30% of our staff who see a growing divide between The Capitol and Chicago. Local people have not been permitted to work fully remote with no justification. All about 20 new hires in 2023 have been remote. It is a strange place to be. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.