For the past four years, workers have been working one day a week in their pajamas, on the couch, with their laptops in hand, but now Mondays are coming back.
That’s the bottom line New research This shows that professionals are increasingly being dragged into the office early in the week.
Bevi, a popular water cooler company, compared the way its machines are used in offices today to 2019, when most workers sat at their desks five days a week. It found that this week’s work hours are closer to pre-pandemic levels than ever before.
“While hybrid work has taken hold, 2024 will increasingly resemble a five-day workweek, with more Monday and Friday workdays than in 2023 (though still relatively less than in 2019),” Bevi CEO Sean Grundy wrote in the report.
Data shows that Monday office attendance has increased by 8% since last year, now reaching 58% of pre-pandemic levels.
Fridays are also getting busier, with office staff down to 47% of pre-pandemic levels (up from 44%), but it’s still the quietest day of the week.
Meanwhile, operations are back to near normal levels from Tuesday through Thursday, with offices operating at about 75% of their pre-pandemic capacity.
Bevi found that Mondays and Fridays are still the most popular days for working from home, but data It turns out that Mondays are just as busy as Thursdays in corporate cafeterias in the US and UK.
Compass Group, the world’s largest catering company, recently reported a surge in sales and profits as employees returned to the office (and bought lunch there) more frequently on Mondays.
However, the company said Friday still lags behind the first four days of the week.
The number of office workers has increased, but the traditional 9-5 workday has disappeared.
Bevi reported that attendance had increased “steadily and consistently” over the past four years, despite employees resisting directives in the office.
“In 2023, we assumed we would finally reach an equilibrium in hybrid work, with people commuting to the office about 2.7 days per week, but in fact, by 2024, office commuting has increased further (and continues to increase) to over 3.0 days per week on average,” he added.
Despite this, the traditional 9-to-5 workday seems to be disappearing.
Employees are still commuting to work fewer days a week than they did pre-pandemic, and when they do show up, Bebi’s data shows they are working longer hours and their standard workweek is shorter.
In 2019, Bevi found that 87% of office commutes occurred during standard 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. business hours, while 13% occurred outside of traditional working hours, between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m.
Since then, workers have become accustomed to working during their most productive hours, and even when called back to their desks, they aren’t about to abandon their pandemic habits.
So far this year, attendance during the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. time slot has fallen to 80%, while attendance during off-peak hours has risen to 20%.
Companies are mandating Mondays.
The rise in the number of people coming to the office on Mondays comes as companies become more specific about which three days their employees will be in the office.
For most companies, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are office hours, but a handful of influential companies are using hybrid policies to eliminate the long weekend at home.
Take L’Oréal, for example. Employees at the 114-year-old French cosmetics giant had been working three days a week in the office for more than a year when CEO Nicolas Hieronymus decided to change the way they work.
Now the company’s 88,000 workers will have to come to work on Fridays instead of Wednesdays, for reasons that remain unclear.
Meanwhile, Publicis Groupe, the world’s third largest advertising and public relations firm, Mandatory on Monday At the office last year.
And Deutsche Bank has banned its employees from working from home on Fridays and Mondays entirely, with the aim of “spreading our presence more evenly throughout the week.”
