CLEVELAND — It’s been nearly five years since the pandemic changed how people work. Now, after learning how to work from home, many companies may use the new year to bring people back into the office.
The question is: How many businesses are considering this shift, and will we see a dramatic change in 2025?
For the last five years, working from home has been the norm for many Americans with traditional office jobs, but in 2024, workers saw a shift.
“It's just that enough time has gone by. I think people have realized that it's just time,” said Sondra Turek, executive vice president for Boma Greater Cleveland.
Sondra Turek with the Building Owners and Managers Association of Cleveland says more employers are focusing on getting staff back into the building.
“They can grow their people better if they're in front of them and you're just having those conversations,” Turek said.
To make the transition appealing, some Cleveland businesses are creating collaborative spaces and offering some incentives to sweeten the deal.
“Companies are realizing that they need to give them other things. You know, they want to be in buildings that have a lot of amenities. There's food in the building, you know, restaurants in the building, there's workout facilities,” Turek said.
So, in 2025, how quickly could 'work-from-home' life go away?
Tracking that data is Downtown Cleveland Inc. They report that in the third quarter of 2024, compared to the workforce before the pandemic, Michael Deemer says 75% of employees are back in the office.
“That's office workers, hotel workers, restaurant workers, everybody return to office was about 58%which is about 4% higher than a year ago,” said President and CEO for Downtown Cleveland Inc Michael Deemer.
Deemer expects that number to increase slowly, adding that once Sherwin-Williams is up and running, it may also help bring employees back to the office.
“The symbolic value of having a Fortune 500 company homegrown here in downtown Cleveland, opening a new office tower, having its workers come into the office every day, I think, sends an incredibly strong signal about the importance of place-based work,” Deemer said.
Deemer adds that more people downtown will help companies and the economy, but it won’t happen overnight.
