Hybrid work patterns reveal occupancy varies throughout the week with Tuesdays typically being the highest day of the week and Fridays being the lowest. The chart below tracks Tuesday occupancy over time in ten cities and provides a new dimension to the weekly Barometer report. The Peak Day Hybrid Index will now be published weekly, offering a wider aperture into the full picture of workplace occupancy.
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Office Occupancy Rises as Winter Weather Abates
Peak day office occupancy was 64% on Tuesday last week, up 3.2 points from the previous week. Dallas and Washington, D.C. experienced single-day record highs on Tuesday at 74.1% and 63.1%, respectively. And Wednesday occupancy in Dallas rose nearly 23 points from the previous week’s winter weather, up to 72.6%. The average low was on Friday at 35.2%, up 2.7 points from last week.
The weekly average occupancy rose nearly two and a half points to 53.9% last week, according to the 10-city Back to Work Barometer. Every tracked city experienced an increase except for Houston, which held steady at 63.9%. Dallas had the largest increase, rising 5.8 points to 63.1%, a new record high. Occupancy in Washington, D.C. increased 1.7 points to 52.8%, the third record high in the nation’s capital since the new administration began.
Occupancy among Class A+ buildings continues to tick higher as well. Last week, average occupancy among the Barometer’s Class A+ buildings was 74%, compared to 72.3% the previous week. Class A+ peak day occupancy last Tuesday reached 92.1%. We will continue to provide insights from this subset of over 100 buildings within the Barometer dataset, which have been categorized as Class A+.
Methodology
To provide some clarity on the issues facing American businesses, Kastle has been studying keycard, fob and KastlePresence app access data from the 2,600 buildings and 41,000 businesses we secure across 47 states. We’re analyzing the anonymized data to identify trends in how Americans are returning to the office.
We have tracked and published U.S. office occupancy status in Kastle-secured commercial properties since the beginning of the Covid crisis in early 2020. We continue to seek to help companies navigate the ever-changing workplace landscape and adjust to the ‘new normal’ of office occupancy. Whether full-time hybrid or in-person, our commitment remains to helping American businesses understand how average workplaces are being attended weekly, monthly, and annually.
Kastle’s reach of buildings, businesses and cardholders secured generates millions of access events daily as users enter office complexes, and individual company workspaces. The Barometer weekly report summarizes access control data among our business partners in ten major metro areas, not a national statistical sample. Charted percentages reflect unique authorized user entries in each market relative to a pre-COVID baseline, averaged weekly.*
*On March 22, 2021, Kastle moved from daily to weekly data reporting to provide a more robust and comprehensive picture of office occupancy. We have also recalculated data back to the start of the time series for consistency. This has only a marginal impact on most cities and the national average.
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