BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) – Employees at office companies are transitioning back into an in-person workforce now that the worst of the pandemic appears to be behind us, but the overwhelming sentiment is hybrid working will continue for the foreseeable future.
Still, it’s far from a perfect system.
“What we’re hearing from businesses both large and small, the biggest pain is flexibility and communication,” AJ Baynes, President and CEO of the Amherst Chamber of Commerce, said.
Employers recognized the challenges some employees have at home, such as taking care of a child. But because the pandemic may have allowed some of these employees to work more efficiently from home, they could avoid having their child attend day care.
That’s just one reason why employees may not want to return to an in-person workforce.
“Not every job can be done from home,” Baynes said. “There is a need for collision in the work place. There is a collision of ideas. If you’re not seeing people day-in and day-out in the office, maybe you’re not sharing as many ideas with one-another. Maybe you’re not bouncing things off one-another in a 30 second conversation that you wouldn’t normally call somebody up on a Zoom call or Microsoft Teams call.”
Keybank is one of Western New York’s largest employers. The company employs 17,000 people nationwide, include many locally. Its regional communications manager, Matthew Pitts, said the company already utilized a hybrid workforce before the COVID pandemic hit.
“We keep the lines of communication open with our teammates,” Pitts said. “We encourage regular communication and the goal of that is to have our teammates and their supervisors working with each other on a regular basis to find solutions in terms of their workplace and work environment that work best for Key and work best for them and their clients.”
One of the ways KeyBank continued to engage employees during the pandemic was regular surveys to create a strategy when returning to the workplace.
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Across the country, office buildings in the top 10 U.S.
cities had an average occupancy rate of about 32% in late June, according to estimates from Kastle Systems a security company that monitors access-card wipes at some 2,600 buildings. In Manhattan, just 12% of office employees had returned as of late May, according to the latest survey by the Partnership for New York City, a non-profit organization of major business leaders and employers.
Excerpts from the Associated Press contributed to this report