Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Companies are renewing efforts to get white-collar workers to return to the office post Labor Day. Facebook parent company Meta is requiring three days in the office starting this month. Zoom of all companies is demanding workers come in twice a week, which prompted a lot of people asking, “Wait, Zoom has offices?” Even President Joe Biden is urging federal workers to get back to the office this fall.

Some employees have found a loophole. Sure, they'll come in, but it probably won't be a nine to five workday anymore. This continuing national improv, we might call it, over office workers’ days and hours and locations is impacting employers’ ability to track productivity and employees' flexibility in their lives. It's also impacting other things. Peak commute times, as many of you know are shifting. Dinner reservations have become harder to snag earlier in the day and more.

Joining me now to discuss the latest in remote, on-site and hybrid work and how it's changing, not just where we work, but also when is Abha Bhattarai, Washington Post economics correspondent. One of her latest pieces in the Washington Post is titled Workers Cash in on a New Flexibility: Leaving The Office After A Few Hours. Abha, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Abha Bhattarai: Thanks so much, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: I know reporters don't write the headlines, but what does that mean, Workers Cash in on a New Flexibility?

Abha Bhattarai: As you mentioned, we have all of these companies that are mandating that workers come back into the office for two, three, four days a week, but what's less likely is companies saying, “Okay, you need to be here for a full eight hours. You need to be here all day,” and so workers are fulfilling the demands. They are swiping in however many times a week they're supposed to, but many of them are going in and out as their schedule dictates and are not necessarily going in first thing in the morning and staying until 5:00 or 6:00 PM like they used to.

Brian Lehrer: For example, you write in most of the country, only about half of office visits now last for at least six hours at a time. According to Wi-Fi data from Basking, a workplace occupancy analytics firm, six hours at a time. How does that compare to pre-pandemic levels?

Abha Bhattarai: Well, pre-pandemic, the vast majority of people, 84% of the time we're staying in the office for more than six hours. I think that's something that we are very accustomed to that nobody questioned in pre-pandemic times, that you would just show up in the morning and you would stay until the end of the day. I think now, as there's a lot more flexibility built in, people can often choose what days they go in. They're also able to choose exactly how those days work out. They can maybe take a call from home in the morning, run a quick errand, and then pop into the office, or they can leave a little bit early to pick up their kids and then log back on. All of that has become much more acceptable.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, help us report this story. Are you heading into the office a few days a week, but not really staying the whole time? What's impacting your decisions, childcare, maybe pandemic puppy care, or maybe you just want to head to the gym, or do your grocery shopping when those spaces aren't so packed? Text or call us now at 212-433-WNYC. Do you find your shorter time at the office to be meaningfully productive? Or are you able to connect with your colleagues professionally, collaboratively if people aren't on the same schedules? 212-433-9692.

Employers, you too. If you're pushing people back to the office, is that backfiring on you at all in terms of productivity or retention of your best workers or anything else? Are you noticing that employees are heading out earlier than you expect them to? Does it matter as long as they're getting all their work done? Employees, employers in the office sector, the white-collar sector, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text to that number or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Out of all the facts in your article that are extensively reported, one funny and I guess telling one is golf courses are seeing a fourfold uptick in Wednesday afternoon activity. I thought it was only doctors who take Wednesday off, but that said, researchers don't actually think people work less. What are they looking at that measures productivity?

Abha Bhattarai: It's really difficult to get a handle on, first of all, just a handle on how many hours people are in the office. A lot of companies, they measure badge swipes. They know when you come in, but they hardly ever track when you leave, and so, it's not quite clear. It's very seldom clear cut these days whether you're working from home all day or you're in the office all day. It's more likely a mix of the two. It's really hard to measure productivity anyway, but then you add in this extra new trend of working from all places at all times and it becomes that much harder.

Companies haven't really been able to get a good grasp of when people are doing their best work or even what that workday looks like to a large extent. From the workers' perspective, I hear a lot of them saying they feel much more productive if they're able to do the things they need to do when they have to and then work around that. They say they're much happier at their jobs. They feel like that flexibility really affords them better work-life balance as well.

Brian Lehrer: What about retention? Crain's New York business did a survey last year that we did a segment on. They discovered that the New York companies with the most job satisfaction during the height of the great resignation were the companies that had the maximum flexibility for remote work. Is that becoming an ongoing issue?

Abha Bhattarai: Absolutely. We've seen this play out for well over a year or two in that there's this constant tug of war here. Employers most of the time want their employees in the office a lot more than they're seeing them, and on the flip side, employees are saying, “I really like having this flexibility. It really makes it much easier for me to get my work done and handle everything else at the same time.” That's become a really prized characteristic of work.

Brian Lehrer: Why do employers care if the work is getting done and employees are happy and happier with remote work in cases where they can get the work done? It seems like employers caring about bringing people back to the office is almost detached from the results, or is that unfair?

Abha Bhattarai: I think it varies. A lot of the employers that I spoke to said that they really want their employees to see each other and have these serendipitous moments at the water cooler where they're running into each other and having these conversations and getting to know each other. That is much harder on Zoom and in many cases, maybe not even possible. There is a sense that they want people to interact with each other in person.

There were fewer-- Not as many told me that they actually cared whether their workers were there from 8:00 in the morning until 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening. They felt like as long as there was that camaraderie and that in-person rapport, that it was okay with them that people were floating in and out as they needed to, and in many cases, the executives themselves were skipping out at 2:00 PM for a dentist appointment and then logging back on from home.

Brian Lehrer: Laura in Basking Ridge, you're on WNYC. Hi, Laura.

Laura: Hi there. I just wanted to share perspective for you from someone who is actually in the job market looking for a position and that is that-- and I also work in human resources, so I have some other thoughts as well. From the job search perspective, I can tell you when you're looking at LinkedIn or other tools and you see that a job is remote, what you can see is that there are exponentially higher numbers of applicants that are going to apply for that job. It could be like 10 to 1, versus when you put a job out there that is a either a hybrid or an on-site position.

I think employers have to think about the fact that they're limiting their talent pool when they decide that the job has to be on-site for whatever their reason, so it matters. It matters to people who are seeking jobs. They want the flexibility and it certainly will matter to employers as the war for talent continues to heat up.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. That perk, if we call it a perk, is determinative in many cases of the quality of applicant to the particular job. Very interesting report from the front. Laura, thank you. Joella in Ardsley, you're on WNYC. Hi Joella.

Joella: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Hey there.

Joella: I just wanted to just give my experience. I am an associate at a major law firm. The office is in Manhattan and I've heard a lot of feedback from the partners saying that the associate work product has declined since the pandemic because on-site training is so important, and I definitely believe that. I have a two-year-old and there's just no way I would've- -survived in big law this long had it not been for the flexible schedule.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting and interesting tension that you lay out Joella. Interesting in the article too that you spoke with a bunch of workers who cited the main reason they want flexibility is because of their kids. At the same time, you report an estimated 70,000 childcare centers are expected to close as federal funds dry up. Can you talk about that dilemma from an employer's perspective as Joella is laying it out, and also from public policy perspective with dial care?

Abha Bhattarai: Yes, absolutely. A lot of the human resources experts I talked to said that it's really working parents that are leading the charge here for more flexible work arrangements, and we're seeing that really pick up. At the same time, childcare has always been very tough to access, and affordable, and that's about to get a lot worse as federal funds dry up at the end of this month. I think that adds additional pressure on parents who are already juggling things. A lot of them have these very intricate arrangements put in place, somebody to drop their kid off in the morning, and then a full day of daycare and then maybe somebody to pick them up and handle the evenings.

They're piecing all of this together. Those arrangements have changed after the pandemic and they're likely to change again. There is a big worry that as funding dries up and childcare becomes even less accessible to families, that many parents and mothers in particular will have to drop out of the workforce to handle all of these moving pieces.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and on that, you have a great quote in your article from Annie Tsai, chief operating officer of Interact, ironically called Interact, a software company in San Francisco who said its employees, 11 employees work at all hours of the day or night, depending on what works best for them.

It says Tsai, who has two children, sometimes spends the afternoon painting murals at her son's school and catches up on work after bedtime. The quote is, "I truly do not mind logging into work after my kids go to sleep. What I do mind though is someone judging me for having to take my kid to a doctor's appointment at two o'clock."

It sounds like that's a very common sentiment, but just to stay on that topic. Congress set aside $24 billion for childcare during the pandemic and it's set to expire this month. You report that an estimated one in three childcare programs could close as a result of lost funding, one in three, causing 3.2 million children to lose care. What are researchers saying about how this could impact the economy and is the political sector in Washington doing anything about it?

Abha Bhattarai: Well, the Century Foundation has a very in-depth and sobering report that says that this could be a $10.6 billion hit to the US economy. We're talking 3.2 million children possibly without care, which means millions of parents are going to be struggling with childcare responsibilities and being forced to pare back their hours or maybe quit their jobs altogether, and that has huge economic ripples, of course.

We've heard from politicians on both sides of the aisle in Washington that childcare and accessibility to childcare is a very important issue, but we're not seeing the legislation that needs to back that up. Right now, Washington is stuck in this classic gridlock. There's a lot of disagreement over what policy should look like, what budget funding should look like, and so it's not likely that childcare funding is going to get sorted out anytime soon.

Brian Lehrer: We're talking with Abha Bhattarai, Washington Post economics reporter who wrote an article called Workers Cash in on a New Flexibility: Leaving The Office After A Few Hours, one of the new things that's happening as more people get asked to come back to the office, at least in part. Sheila in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi Sheila.

Sheila: Hi. How are you? Thank you for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Sheila: I run the Chocolate Factory Theater in Queens since I've been in the art sector for a long time. What I was saying, thinking is how we've been working hybrid forever. In the art sector, to rehearse for performances, people have done it in their living rooms and in rehearsal spaces and so the hybrid environment has always happened. However, getting together in-person is also critical to the creation and the sharing of the work.

I see people not wanting to come into the office five days a week. I'm enjoying not having to go into the office five days a week, but the work happens all the time. In some ways, people are being more productive because they're able to step out, and not just childcare. You have increased elder care now, which I went through for a number of years. My mom passed last year.

Being able to step out, and deal with these things, and be trusted to come back in or to sit at your computer later at night and get the work done creates a bond with the staff too and then we can come together over performances or receptions. I see it as a good thing to increase the hybrid work environment and in many ways, I see it as a real feminization. I'm saying it's not just a factory type thing where you come in and you clock in, you clock out. I know there are jobs where you have to work that way if that has to happen, but I don't think it has to happen that way in every position.

Brian Lehrer: Sheila, I'm curious for you who runs a theater, if you see the audiences fully coming back. I know some places have reported that people's habits have just changed in the pandemic. Some of it is explicit fear of COVID still, but also, people just got used to not going out for their entertainment. Are you seeing that?

Sheila: Great question and one that's spoken about a lot in my sector when I speak to peers. Our audiences have actually been pretty solid, but we are a small theater for experimental performance. There's a bit of a niche community and so that's been pretty solid. There is some ebbs and flows when there are peaks in fear of COVID in new [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: [unintelligible 00:16:34]

Sheila: Right. Yes, they're served. Thanks but I think it is effective. People want to go more last minute. I see that.

Brian Lehrer: Sheila, thank you for your call. I really appreciate your perspective. Abha, she used the term, the feminization of the workplace. Would you put it that way? Especially if we're talking about childcare, which even though it isn't right that it should fall mostly to women, falls mostly to women.

Abha Bhattarai: Yes, absolutely. There's evidence that mothers in particular are coming back into the workforce at record rates, are really propping up the labor force right now and in a large part, the overall economy. A lot of that is because of this new flexibility, because they are able to manage all of these different things and get everything done, but on their own terms. They have a lot more flexibility and a lot more just technological ability too, to log in from home. Everything's already set up and it's not a big deal if you need to sort of split your day, whereas before the pandemic, it might've been a bit more tricky.

Brian Lehrer: Brian, in Randolph, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi Brian.

Brian: Hi Brian. Thank you for taking my call. Yes, so I just wanted to a couple things. My hybrid set up for the past 2 years, 20 months, I switched jobs in the pandemic. I was a partner at a law firm, and I went in-house to a financial institution. We are one week on site and then three weeks remote. Every month there's one week on site and three weeks remote.

During that week, you're expected to be there Monday through Friday but there is-- I have a commute as we all I suppose do in this area. There is some flexibility in terms of what time you arrive, what time you leave, but in terms of just setting up your day, getting your calendar arranged for those in-person weeks I think is really helpful to increase productivity, to spend time with people that you do want to spend time with, to help with projects, to really make those weeks as impactful and as productive as possible. I think it's just a great way that this company runs that.

I do want to say though sometimes people talk about, “Oh, we have to come into the office. It’s when the work gets done and all the relationships and we need to have that in-person spark.” I truly believed that for a long time, but since I've been going back, there are those moments where, and I really appreciate all my coworkers and I get along, but there are times that people working in such close quarters with people having to deal. I don't really want to do lunch today. Thank you for asking. They're trying to have to deal with those little personality quirks here and there that I think a lot of us forgot about when we weren't in the office for a while.

Brian Lehrer: You're saying therefore you could be more productive working at home on some days?

Brian: I think I am-- yes, working for wherever. There are days where I'm going through emails, there are days where I have to read, there's days where I'm researching, there's days where it's just phone calls. Depending on the type of work that I have for a day, and some things come up all the time, but you can be very thoughtful and deliberate about what type of work you're doing during a certain period of time in the day and really there's less wasted time, if that makes sense. I think this has given folks, those who employ, workers, employer, like - -less rate wasted time, more of an ability to be focused on how you're using your energy during the day.

Brian Lehrer: Brian, thank you very much. Before I get your reaction to that, Abha, and I definitely want to get your reaction to that different hybrid work schedule that Brian just laid out there. Let's take a call from one other New Jersey commuter. Abby in South Orange, you're on WNYC. Hi, Abby.

Abby: Hello, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Abby: Yes, I can. Hi, Brian. Oh, my God, thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to say that commuting on New Jersey transit is an adventure every day. There's always delays. There just seem to be no improvements being made. I get home sometimes after seven o'clock at night. I also have two small children. Sometimes I'm delayed in the morning, up to over an hour. I think that is the commute rail--

Brian Lehrer: Do you commute by [unintelligible 00:21:03] or mass transit?

Abby: I commute by mass transit. Since I live in South Orange, I'm fortunate to have the Midtown direct train and I can also walk to the train from my house, which is great, but it's still every day, there's something new, some new delay, mechanical issues with the train. I'm always on Twitter checking to see if there's any delays, because there's just never any really good updates at the station or on the app.

It's just such a hassle for everyone coming in from New Jersey. I can't even imagine the people who have to take the bus to the train. I did actually commute by bus for a little while, which was also terrible, the traffic was terrible. Just mass transit options into the city, are super time-consuming. I think that if companies want people to come back into the office, then everybody needs to come together and figure out a solution for mass transit.

Brian Lehrer: Abby, thank you for that story. Yes, that's another tension, Abha, right? Because fewer commuters means less money for the mass transit systems from fares, which means less money to improve the systems to make them more desirable for people to want to come back in in-person.

Abha Bhattarai: Yes, absolutely. Commutes were a big sticking point that I heard about across the board. It's people saying, "I'm wasting all this time on my commute. I'm much more productive without it." It's also what our caller here just mentioned, that commute times have become much more unpredictable for a number of reasons, a lack of resources, and just generally, scheduling questions. Rush hour patterns have changed, peak times have changed, and they change on a daily basis, depending on who decides to go into the office that day, and what time they decide to go in. There's just a lot more uncertainty out there when it comes to commute times.

Brian Lehrer: Talk to me for a sec-- Oh, I wanted to ask you about the previous caller's work schedule. I hadn't heard that one before. A lot of companies that do hybrid ask people to come into the office X days a week. Here his company is doing one week, per month and then you're away from the office for three weeks.

Abha Bhattarai: Yes, I hadn't heard that one before either, but I kind of like it. It seems like an innovative way to get at this problem that everyone's trying to figure out.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you about some of the related economics because you're right, as workers settle into new commutes their spending habits are changing accordingly. They're grabbing their morning coffee later, or their post work beers earlier. I'm just curious how you're seeing these flexible hours impacting all the businesses surrounding office buildings, which I know has been a major concern.

Abha Bhattarai: Yes, absolutely. A lot of the downtown businesses that I've talked to for a long time have said that business has been completely dead on Mondays and Fridays because those are the days that people are typically working from home. Now they're also starting to see a difference in the hours that people are coming in. Lunchtime is much more spread out. People might be grabbing lunch and then going into the office, or they might be wrapping up at the office and then grabbing a leisurely lunch before they head home. There are all of these moving parts and I think these businesses are still very much trying to figure out where things are going to land.

One observation that I thought was funny from this bar that I talked to, they said that people are coming in for happy hours for like office company-wide or division-wide happy hours starting at three or four because they know nobody's going to stick around until five so they get their beers that much earlier.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. Compared to the pre-pandemic era, it used to be that newer businesses, start-ups, especially those in tech would have all these perks, game rooms, pods to take naps in, free lunches, that kind of thing. Are companies still offering those and are workers still enticed by them?

Abha Bhattarai: I think companies are still offering them, but workers really don't care. The reason that companies had all of those perks was to keep workers in the office for as long as possible. You didn't have to go out to grab lunch if there was a fully stocked fridge available at your disposal. Now employees are saying, "Wait a minute, I actually don't need to be at the office and I can play video games from home. I don't need to be in the office to play video games or to play pool or have a beer. I can do all of those things away from the office." All of those perks are holding a lot less weight for employees.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there for today. My guest has been Abha Bhattarai, Washington Post economics correspondent. Abha, thanks so much.

Abha Bhattarai: Thank you.

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