“I think there are some strong opinions that workers, especially ones in their 20s and 30s, need to be in the office more than they realize,” he said.

“Employees still have more leverage and just a bit more say.”īut young people and new hires are likely to be required by many corporate leaders to spend more time in the office, Adler said. “We’re in this strange place where even though we’ve had high inflation and rising interest rates, employment is still high, so it’s very hard to find people,” Francis said. And with so many employees loving the freedom of working from home and skipping long commutes, whether companies can successfully lure people back is still unknown. The tight job market means employers have good reason to be accommodating, for now at least, said Cassandra Francis, principal of Kariatid, a Chicago-based real estate planning and management firm, and a member of the Counselors of Real Estate. “And they told me the first question from every job applicant is what the hybrid schedule looks like.” “I was with a financial client yesterday who has 60 positions to fill,” Adler said. JLL also forecasts that more than half of companies will offer remote working to all employees by 2025. That’s a big shift from early in the pandemic, when 36% of those surveyed said they chose to work at home, with the remainder doing so simply because their offices had closed.Ĭommercial real estate firm JLL surveyed office employees this year and found that most want jobs with work-from-home options, with technology and finance workers stating that such flexibility is the equivalent of a 10% salary increase. The insurance company now uses other offices in Northbrook and Chicago’s Merchandise Mart and River Point, and also bought a ten-story building in Chicago’s Loop, because so many employees were working remotely.Īccording to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 61% of those working from home now prefer it over their office jobs. In 2021, company officials announced they were selling Allstate’s 2 million-square-foot headquarters in suburban Northbrook for $232 million. “Employees are expecting that level of flexibility from their employers.” “Post-pandemic, it’s just how we work,” Rock said. Remote working has been largely successful for Zurich, with high productivity, so leaders will be content if employees starting after Labor Day return more frequently over an extended period as their comfort increases, eventually forging new routines, with working hours split between work and home. Zurich isn’t setting hard deadlines for office workers who don’t show up often, Rock said.

The headquarters uses a hybrid strategy where most people only come in a few days per week. People hang out in the coffee shop area of Zurich North America in Schaumburg on Aug.

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