1 million American workers face new return-to-office mandates after Labor Day. But employers would be ‘naive’ to expect all of them to comply

The post-Labor Day return-to-office push has practically become an annual tradition.

This year, over 1 million employees at companies including FedEx, Zoom Communications, and Lyft will be called into the office at least part of the week for the first time beginning in September, according to research from real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).

Office attendance, as measured by property management and security firm Kastle Systems, has hovered at 50% in 2023, the highest rate since the pandemic began. If everything goes the way bosses want it to, the post-Labor day RTO mandates could push that rate up to between 55% and 65% by the fourth quarter of this year, according to the report from JLL. And most popular midweek days, like Tuesdays and Wednesdays, could see attendance rise to as high as 80%.

Courtesy of JLL

But reaching the upper end of that spectrum would rely on high employee compliance with the new office mandates—a tall order these days. Instead, John Gates, CEO of the Americas Markets at JLL, sees rates continuing to rise steadily over time. 

“You won’t get consistent reactions from your people. They’re human beings,” said Gates. “A surge would be a naive view in my opinion. Maybe in some cases, you will have a surge at a company because they’ve said [return or else] ‘everybody’s fired.’” 

Successfully pulling off RTO is certainly not a piece of cake. Seventy-three percent of companies report struggling to get workers back in the office, according to a survey of 185 human resource executives conducted by the Conference Board, published earlier this month. And many employees are willing to vote with their feet when it comes to return-to-office mandates: Around 42% of companies that mandated workers come back to the office reported a higher level of employee attrition than anticipated, according to a May report from workspace design firm Unispace.

Even JLL is trying to shrink its own headquarters in Chicago’s Aon Center skyscraper by more than 61,000 square feet. The decision came partly from employees opting to work from JLL’s suburban offices or an office near a train station, which provide an easier commute.  

“What we see are people going to other offices that we had. And if you have space you’re paying [for that] you never go to, well, that’s expensive,” Gates says.

As such, it’s becoming crucial that HR is involved in companies’ decisions around office space investments and RTO plans, according to Gates, who says successfully bringing employees back without losing them sits “squarely within the HR mandate.”

Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion

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Bank statement backfires. The CEO of a regional bank in Australia is in hot water for claiming that her return-to-office order was in service to the mental health of her employees. “I don’t doubt that you can be productive, so it’s not about productivity. This is about our own mental health,” said the CEO. —Orianna Rosa Royle

Remote places. Pret A Manger CEO Pano Christou doesn’t think return-to-office mandates will catch on, and he’s betting the future of the coffee shop chain on it. Christou recently disclosed that the company is turning its growth focus away from metropolitan areas, instead opening up more locations in the suburbs and towns where remote workers live. —Prarthana Prakash

A.I. gold for Goldman. Goldman Sachs remains confident that A.I. will not only cut labor costs through employee replacement, but make remaining employees more productive. Chipmakers and big tech firms, Goldman predicts, will be among the first to reap A.I. rewards. —Will Daniel