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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.
Good Friday Holiday Brings Down Friday Occupancy
The office occupancy peak day on Tuesday held fairly steady at 59.7% this past week, according to Kastle’s Peak Day Hybrid Index, dipping from 60.4% the prior week. Across the country, the Good Friday holiday on March 29 brought occupancy rates down to 25.4%, compared to the typical Friday occupancy rate of 33-34%.
The 10-city weekly average fell 3.2 points to 48% — most likely due to the lower office occupancy on Good Friday — according to Kastle’s Back to Work Barometer. All 10 tracked cities saw drops in occupancy, with the greatest declines in Austin, Texas and San Francisco, Calif. Austin fell more than five points to 61.4% and San Francisco fell 4.7 points to 41.8% occupancy.
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’re ready to continue helping 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 workers return safely to their office buildings. We have a comprehensive system in place that integrates technology and new safety protocols — both for the building and tenant spaces. We’re keeping a close eye on this data as part of our KastleSafeSpaces framework, which we designed to help office buildings throughout workplace transitions.
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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