After four years of workers embarking on a leisurely workweek in their pajamas, on the couch and with their laptops at the ready, Mondays in the office are making a comeback.
That’s the result New Research This marks an increase in professionals being called back into their office spaces at the start of the week.
Popular water cooler company Bevi compared office usage of its machines to 2019, when most workers were at their desks five days a week, and found that the work week is closer to pre-pandemic conditions than ever before.
“Hybrid work is here to stay, with 2024 gradually moving closer to a five-day workweek, with more employees attending on Mondays and Fridays compared to 2023 (though these days will still be relatively low compared to 2019),” Bevy CEO Sean Grundy wrote in the report.
The data shows that office attendance on Mondays is up 8% from last year and now stands at 58% of pre-pandemic levels.
Fridays are also becoming busier, with office employee numbers at 47% of pre-pandemic levels (up from 44%), but it is still the quietest day of the week.
By contrast, Tuesday through Thursday was largely back to normal, with offices operating at about 75% of pre-pandemic occupancy levels.
Bevy found that Mondays and Fridays remain the most popular days for working from home, but data Office cafeterias in the US and UK were found to be just as busy on Mondays as they were on Thursdays.
Compass Group, the world’s largest food catering company, recently reported a surge in revenue and profits as more employees returned to the office (and bought lunch at work) on Monday.
But the company reiterated that Friday was lagging behind compared to the first four days of the week.
Office work is on the rise, but the traditional 9-to-5 job is on the way out
Bevie said attendance rates have “consistently and undoubtedly” risen over the past four years, despite worker resistance to being required to be in the office.
“We had assumed that in 2023, hybrid working would finally reach equilibrium, with people attending the office around 2.7 days per week, but in fact we now expect attendance to increase further in 2024, to an average of over 3.0 days per week (and growing),” it added.
That being said, the traditional 9-to-5 workday seems to be disappearing.
Employees are still commuting fewer days per week than they did before the pandemic, and, even when they do go to the office, standard work hours are longer and shorter, according to Bevy’s data.
In 2019, 87% of office attendance at Bevi took place during normal 9-to-5 working hours, while 13% were registered outside normal working hours, i.e. between 5pm and 9am.
Workers have since become accustomed to working during their most productive hours and, despite being asked to return to their office desks, are not likely to give up their pandemic habits anytime soon.
So far this year, nine-to-five attendance has fallen to 80 percent, while off-peak attendance has risen to 20 percent.
Companies are making Mondays mandatory.
The increase in Monday attendance comes as companies are becoming increasingly specific about which three days they want employees to come to work.
While the average company will likely have employees working in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, a small but influential group of companies are using hybrid policies to eliminate long weekends spent at home.
Take L’Oreal, for example: After more than a year of employees at the 114-year-old French cosmetics giant working three days a week in the office, CEO Nicolas Hieronymus decided to change that.
The company’s 88,000 employees now have to come into work on Fridays instead of Wednesdays, but it’s unclear why.
Meanwhile, Publicis Groupe, the world’s third largest advertising and PR company, Mandatory on Monday Last year at the office.
And Deutsche Bank imposed a blanket ban on working from home on Fridays and Mondays in an effort to “distribute employee presence more evenly throughout the week.”
