“I’m trying to fill office buildings, and I tell JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, I tell them all, ‘Listen, I need your employees in their positions so we can build the ecosystem,'” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said this week. The city, which relies heavily on tax revenue from its massive Midtown offices, recently announced a strict personal work policy for city employees.

“How does it look like city employees are at home while I’m telling everyone it’s time to go back to work?” Mr. Adams added. “City employees should take responsibility for saying, ‘New York can come back.'” “

A fake story we told ourselves

Far from the bottom line, the internal debate is about what kind of culture will prevail as the business world emerges from the pandemic. And for all the power that Mr. Musk, Mr. Damon, and Mr. Adams wield, they may be going through a transformation greater than any single company or city alone.

If the pandemic has taught us anything, more than two years of remote work experiences, it’s a lot People can be productive outside the officeFew are happier doing so. This is especially true for people with young children or long tripsMinority workers who have more difficulty coping with standard office culture, or those with other personal conditions that make office work less attractive.

“We still struggled to let go of the idealized stereotype of workers — even though that person, for many people, professions, and demographic groups in the United States, didn’t really exist,” said Colin Amerman, director of the Gender Initiative at Harvard University. College of Business Administration. “I think with remote and hybrid working, we have the ability to really get away from that and really rethink what it means to be on the leadership path, what it means to be high-performing, and to break away from that association with being in the office at all times.”

Even as the pandemic changes course, there are signs that the trend of working from home is already accelerating. modern one The survey was published in the National Bureau of Economic Research It found that employers now say they will allow employees to work from home an average of 2.3 days a week, up from 1.5 days in summer 2020.

It’s not just an office – it’s also mobility. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that nearly all major cities that experienced the largest drop in office occupancy during the pandemic had average one-way commutes of more than 30 minutes; Most of the cities with the fewest drops had the shortest commute.