The key to a busy office? More singles

How likely are your staff to want to return to the office? That depends on the demographics of the labor pool around your buildings, new data from real estate analytics company Placer.ai suggests.

Placer looked at office buildings in four major US metro areas—New York, Chicago, Dallas, and San Francisco—that had higher-than-average occupancy, to see what factors might be contributing to their success. They found that the demographics of the buildings’ “labor catchment areas,” or the areas from which their tenants largely hired their in-person staff, might be the answer.

Singles, employees without kids more likely to RTO: The high-performing buildings were located in areas that had disproportionately high percentages of one-person households compared to their metro areas and the national average. And they were also sited in areas where there were fewer households with children. That suggests that “the office buildings seeing the strongest post-Covid recovery are those that serve a large contingent of single employees,” Ben Witten, head of real estate strategy at Placer.ai, wrote.

Managers and execs are making the commute: The outperforming buildings were also located in areas that had higher percentages of managers and executives than was typical for their metro areas. That’s not entirely surprising: Managers may be coming in to the office to see clients, or set a good example for staff, Witten suggested.

Hybrid work is catching on: Office visits rose Tuesday through Thursday in all four metro areas Placer.ai studied, and tapered off on Fridays—a trend that was more pronounced in the overperforming buildings. The weekly distribution of office visits continues a trend Placer.ai reported on in Q3 2023, suggesting more businesses in those metro areas might be adopting hybrid work policies.