Office Usage Has Peaked in North America (sherwood.news) 39
An anonymous reader shares a report: While people in Asia are spending more time in the office, workers in the US and UK are not, according to a new report from XY Sense, a company that uses sensors to track office occupancy in more than 40,000 workspaces. While office space utilization -- the share of used spaces within an office out of all available space -- in the Asia-Pacific region grew 10 percentage points last quarter to 41%, that rate stayed at 28% in North America and declined in the UK. The so-called return to the office has been much slower in the US than abroad, partly because of factors like longer commute times, larger homes, and cultural individualism here.
Office utilization in North America is about half what it was pre-pandemic, according to XY Sense. When people do go into the office, meeting spaces are much more in demand. On average, time spent using collaborative spaces like conference rooms (4 hours a day) was 54% higher than individual desks (2.6 hours), and lack of communal space has become a big pain point for companies. Meanwhile XY Sense found that half of office desks were utilized for less than one hour per day, while 30% were never used at all.
Office utilization in North America is about half what it was pre-pandemic, according to XY Sense. When people do go into the office, meeting spaces are much more in demand. On average, time spent using collaborative spaces like conference rooms (4 hours a day) was 54% higher than individual desks (2.6 hours), and lack of communal space has become a big pain point for companies. Meanwhile XY Sense found that half of office desks were utilized for less than one hour per day, while 30% were never used at all.
I'm forced into the office once a week. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm forced into the office once a week. Optics -- gotta show the flag.
Thing is, none of the other IT teams do. It's just us.
You know what the rest of the teams use their areas for? Teams meetings. They show up whenever, just to join a call, then leave.
We have to sit there for the 8 hours we're chained to our desk, only to listen 8 others jabber on, on Teams or whatnot.
I could be at home listening to Beethoven instead of the latest 20-minute spiel and excuse list from people who don't care about the quality of their work, but only care about how the rest of the outfit looks at them.
Death to the office, may the holders of office real estate lose the shirts they stole off our backs to make their fortunes with.
(but save the Empire, the Chrysler, and the Woolworth buildings. Those are stunning examples of what can be done, unlike the anonymous glass boxes of today)
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What if I listen to King Gizzard And The Wizard Lizard? Does that make me a lizard person?
Re: Does that make me a lizard person? (Score:2)
No.
That's not what makes you a lizard person.
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Nobody listens to Beethoven.
Though some people listen to music composed by Beethoven. However he died before any of his performances could be recorded.
My favourite composer, and musician is Mike Oldfield.
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Nobody listens to Beethoven.
Though some people listen to music composed by Beethoven.
I'm not a card carrying member of the pedant's society (it's made of plastic) and I applaud you.
Re: I'm forced into the office once a week. (Score:4, Funny)
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Well played, Sir.
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We outsourced manufacturing (Score:1)
We out sourced manufacturing.
Next step is we can outsource office jobs.
And finally we can outsource service jobs.
Then we will truly be free, when nobody in America has a job.
Or people are just being hyperbolic and trying to compare two very different regions but are unable to make sense of it. When it can be easily explained by cultural differences in work ethic and management style.
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Long-term the alternative to "free" benefits when nobody has a job and we have food riots and the 21st century repeat of the Reign of Terror.
There's some middle ground between corporate profits and welfare state that we can peacefully compromise on.
Re: your mom (Score:3)
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Coming soon= (Score:1)
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The disruption will come from stupid people being fooled by bad tech. Stupid people will assume all of the hype is true and trust AI to be smarter than themselves. The tech is actually crap and will produce erroneous results, these erroneous results will cause the disruption and the people that created the problem with AI will have no idea how t fix it. You don't have to be a dumbass.
Current AI is nothing more than a parlor trick that fools most people. We are going to find that LLMs and some other generati
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I, for one, am looking forward to AI. Mostly because it will produce crap and be mismanaged. Which means the company I work for will get even more money from fixing things up.
It worked for us when outsourcing was disruptive to the field.
Gas prices right now are roughly equivalent (Score:5, Insightful)
This is despite the war in Ukraine. There's basically two things you can thank for that. First Evs are putting downward pressure on gas prices. And second is work from home.
As someone who works from home I can tell you I fill up my gas tank of fraction of the time I used to.. it's saved me thousands of dollars. It also means the air around me is marginally cleaner. Hell with what I drive substantially cleaner, it's amazing what you can get through emissions testing when it's pushing 20 years old.
Work from home is a win-win for everybody except for billionaires who own commercial real estate. What's amazing is how much work from home got shut down just because of maybe 5 or 10 people that own all the real estate.
When folks talk about why income inequality sucks we usually focus on how it's not fair and not on what it actually means for somebody to have that much power over your life.
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Even companies with RTO policies (Score:5, Insightful)
have mostly empty offices. Vast cube farms have desk after empty desk. There might be a person here or there. Many of those who are there, are trying to escape an unpleasant home environment. A few truly believe in RTO, or just feel they work better in the office. But I've seen this in company after company, both where I've been employed and where others work, those spaces are 90% empty. That's not sustainable, and I predict a lot of companies will simply not renew their leases when they expire.
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Our office is moving to a new suite in the same building with a smaller sq. ft. layout. I went in last week, the first time since lockdown happened, and dear gods the place was a ghost town! At 'lunch time,' where we used to have ~50 employees, we had 10. TEN!
So I cleaned out my desk and took home a few things, and when our desks/IT kit are moved over the next two days I'll have a desk in the new suite...that I'll never use. When I asked about why we're even keeping our desks, since out local
Wasted space (Score:4, Insightful)
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vacant
allow W2s to deduct home office! (Score:3)
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I get time, gas, environmental savings of working from home. Remember that corporates shifted cost to employees (electricity, internet, pc). We should be able to deduct it!
If Congress grants you those deductions, they may look for a way to tax your additional disposable income from not having to buy gas or pants to go to work.
What peak? The trends are still up (Score:1)
Placer.ai survey:
- In July 2024, office visits nationwide reached 72.2% of July 2019 (pre-pandemic) levels – outpacing even June 2024’s record-breaking recovery showing.
- Miami and New York saw office visits rebound to about 90% of what they were in July 2019.
- All analyzed cities experienced YoY office visit growth.”
https://www.placer.ai/blog/placer-ai-office-index-july-2024-recap