Report: Only 11% of Bay Area workers fully remote

Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, said the results align with many residents’ own observations, especially surrounding traffic patterns. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the most popular office working days, while Mondays and Fridays were when many employees on a hybrid schedule worked from home.

“The overall takeaway — that the number of days spent in an office among these employers is incrementally going up, particularly in the last 18 months — is not necessarily surprising to me,” Bellisario said. 

What’s been more surprising, he said, is that more than 90% of surveyed employers found that their in-office and hybrid models were somewhat or very effective in achieving desired outcomes. 

“It does cut against some of the narrative out there, that companies are putting these mandates in place but employees are not necessarily following those requirements, which doesn’t really seem to be the case,” he said. 

The survey helps inform transportation patterns, which has been particularly salient for transit agencies, including MTC, as they contemplate funding mechanisms and measures to help narrow large deficits from major operators like Caltrain and BART, many of which have failed to meaningfully recover ridership since the pandemic. The former’s ridership, for instance, still hasn’t reached half of its pre-pandemic weekday average. 

“There is no massive new bump of ridership that we would expect to come from return-to-office mandates. The massive bumps would be from the vacant office space being sold up by new companies or growing companies moving in and not really the call back to the office,” Bellisario said.

There were also clear differences among small and large employers. Of firms with more than 10,000 employees, 40% intend to increase the number of in-office work days over the next six months, while just 10% of businesses with 25 or fewer employees are doing so, the report said. 

While the study didn’t break down results by county, Bellisario said it’s more likely that employers on the Peninsula have stronger in-office policies compared to places like San Francisco. 

“In San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, there is much more of a campus footprint for many of these employers, especially the largest ones. Given the amount of money invested in those types of campuses … there is a stronger desire to have people in those places and working face to face,” Bellisario said. 

While the trend toward more in-office work days is clear, Bellisario said he still does not anticipate a five-day-per-week return to office any time soon.  

“Our region is very much dependent on the tech economy, and the tech economy has gone to greater levels of remote work compared to other areas,” he said.  “I think there is a hesitancy to call folks back because the economy has not totally broken, and our companies are still innovating, so there is some sweet spot that is less than five days per week going forward.”

alyse@smdailyjournal.com

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