Deloitte Canada would have moved into a newly opened Vancouver office earlier, if not for the pandemic.
But the delay gave the company time to consider how that space should be used.
“We were able to really think about this ‘next normal,'” said Jayara Darras, the company’s culture and people leader, who at Deloitte involves supporting hybrid work arrangements.
For now, about a fifth of Deloitte’s 1,500-strong regional workforce is in the building on a typical business day.
Deloitte Canada’s local staff moved to the Deloitte Summit Tower in Vancouver in June, a process the company’s culture and people leader says was delayed by the pandemic. But the delay made the company think about how it wanted to use the space there. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
“We are reaching about 275,300 people [on a given day]” Darras said, noting that fewer people choose to come on Mondays and Fridays.
He expects that number to increase this fall, but he also doesn’t expect Deloitte to ask for a return.
The pandemic upended long-entrenched office routines, prompting organizations to rethink how work can be done and adopt more flexible arrangements.
More people are being encouraged to physically return to work this fall, but it doesn’t look like the world of work will return to its pre-pandemic state.
LOOK | Demand for flexibility, even when returning to the office:
Workers want flexibility with back-to-the-office plans
With pandemic restrictions being eased across Canada, businesses are preparing to welcome employees back to the office. But many are pushing back and asking for flexible working arrangements, while others are hoping to get back into the office.
“Working from home is clearly here to stay,” Stanford University economics professor Nicholas Bloom, who has been studying the impact of the growing adoption of more work, said by email. flexible
Tentative start of a climb?
Colliers Canada manages more than 60 million square feet of commercial real estate across the country, with office space accounting for more than half of that footprint.
Amy Vuong, vice-president of property management services strategy at Colliers Canada, says many companies started to see people voluntarily return to the office during the spring, and her organization has heard that some companies are now doing so in la – Mandatory presence in the office. (Submitted by Amy Vuong)
Amy Vuong, vice-president of property management services strategy at Colliers Canada, said the company has conducted regular surveys of its tenants during the pandemic.
This year, between spring and autumn, Vuong said Colliers had seen a “4% increase in the number of companies that said they were moving to full-time employment” in the office, with the staff that goes five days a week, with that. number that goes from 33 to 37 percent.
It may seem like a temporary gain, but Vuong said it may be indicative of a larger trend.
“A lot of companies launched theirs [return-to-office] policies voluntarily this spring,” Vuong said.
“We’re hearing that companies are potentially looking to eliminate this voluntary option as we head into the fall.”
Cities and travelers
In Toronto, many office desks are still unused nearly 30 months into the COVID-19 era.
The Strategic Regional Research Alliance (SRRA), an independent research group, has been monitoring the level of office occupancy in Canada’s most populous city.
The Strategic Regional Research Alliance estimates that the percentage of people walking into the Toronto office last month is less than 30 percent of its pre-Covid equivalent. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
The proportion of people heading to these spaces, as of its most recent snapshot in mid-August, is still estimated to be less than 30% of its pre-pandemic equivalent.
SRRA co-founder Iain Dobson expects employers to want to see more people in the office this autumn, if that’s possible.
“We’ve had so many false starts,” Dobson told CBC News in a phone interview.
The Toronto Transit Commission expects a 10% to 15% increase in ridership this fall, after students go back to school and “more people get back to work in the office.”
A file photo shows the exterior of the Côte-Vertu metro station in Montreal. Montreal’s Société de transport expects more people to take transit this fall as students head back to school and more people return to the office. (CBC/Radio-Canada)
This reflects what the Société de transport de Montreal expects.
“We are currently at 65 percent of the pre-pandemic level and expect to reach 70 to 80 percent this fall, mainly due to the return of workers and students,” STM spokeswoman Amélie Régis said in an email .
Many employees will be in the office “more often” than now
Some notable large employers in Canada are pushing for more people to return to the workplace this fall, although depending on their new labor agreements, those employees may not be going to the office every day.
Royal Bank of Canada, which has more than 60,000 employees based in Canada, is looking to see leaders and staff in the office “more often,” with president and CEO Dave McKay arguing that people thrive by working together.
Royal Bank of Canada has more than 60,000 employees based in Canada. The company’s president and CEO has indicated that the organization wants its teams to spend “more time” in the office. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
“We know that not all roles or teams are created equal, and many types of work can be done productively at home or off-site,” McKay wrote in a recent LinkedIn post.
“At the same time, there’s an energy and spontaneity that comes from connecting in person that I don’t think technology can replicate.”
At Canadian Tire, corporate staff working in hybrid roles have “no mandatory ‘office days’ or a set number of days our employees are expected to be on site,” said Christopher Gray, vice president of culture and organizational design of the company. in a statement sent by email.
Canadian Tire corporate staff working in hybrid roles do not have a mandated number of days they must spend in the office, according to Christopher Gray, the company’s vice-president of culture and organizational design. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)
Still, Canadian Tire has invested in “new technology, modern amenities and collaborative spaces” and believes its employees will “continue to meet more often in person,” he said.
The federal government, which employs more than 300,000 public servants, is also intent on seeing more people set foot in its facilities, and the Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada says this process has been developed, to various departments, since the spring.
In an email, the board said “the Government of Canada has been testing new hybrid models with an eye toward full implementation in the fall,” as public health considerations allow.
Unions representing civil servants have expressed concern about the plan.
“No real justification”
Greg Phillips, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, said the government hasn’t made a clear enough case for why more time is needed in the office, and hasn’t indicated there’s a problem with work what public officials are doing. not at home either.
“No real justification is being presented,” said Phillips, whose union represents 23,000 members, including economists, translators and government interpreters.
Stanford University’s Bloom has been part of a larger effort to examine people’s experiences working from home during the pandemic.
And research points to a future where workers want to retain the flexibility they’ve grown accustomed to over the past two and a half years.
A February 2022 survey of more than 20,000 participants worldwide indicated that 15 percent of those surveyed would quit their jobs if they were forced to return to work five days a week.
An even higher proportion of Canadians, nearly 22%, felt this way.
“Canada has, like the US, a very developed economy with a large number of professional jobs that can [be] done remotely, a highly educated workforce and many people living a long commute from work,” Bloom said.