Why the return of 5 days in the office is unlikely for many Minnesota workers

Employers in Minnesota and across the country are calling workers back to the office, an about-face after the flexibility of the pandemic years.

Several Twin Cities companies have dialed back their fully remote policies, including 3M in Maplewood, U.S. Bank in downtown Minneapolis and General Mills in Golden Valley.

Local business leaders and economic boosters say when some of the state's most recognizable companies reverse course, it can create a domino effect. That also mimics the national scene, with President Donald Trump bringing federal employees back in-person full time and CEOs at large corporations like Amazon and JPMorgan making similar moves in the private sector.

Adam Duininck, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, said momentum has been building for a year.

"Whenever a large employer ... makes an announcement, it has a ripple effect to some of the other employers," he said. "They're reading each other's cues essentially."

This latest push comes as the job market slows with workers feeling less power to negotiate in their current jobs and fewer options if they want to leave.

"It's become more and more of a concern," said 28-year-old Ellie Jordan of Minneapolis, who sees her sales job, which allows for fully remote work, as an outlier. "I really was feeling that this was just the future — hybrid, remote work."

The reasons for such arrangements often revolve around work-life balance: Employees have better ability to pick up kids from school, care for an aging parent and more when they can physically be anywhere and don't have to deal with commuter traffic.

There are also plenty of arguments for being in the office, including better communication, collaboration and productivity.

That's not the only tension in this debate though. Companies want to bring workers back to occupy expensively leased space. Cities, particularly downtowns or other commercial corridors, would like to see some foot traffic to boost vibrancy.

While work policies swayed completely remote in the early days of the pandemic, that's receded some. Yet few seem to think everything will revert to pre-pandemic norms.

"My impression is that there will always be companies that feel strongly about that ... need to be together every single day in a five-day-a-week context; I think there are other companies that will never go back," said Mike Logan, interim president and CEO at the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce. "And so I think it's always going to be a spectrum now."

Minneapolis, St. Paul rely on in-person

Local companies calling workers back to the office five days a week are in the minority, Logan said. From midsized employers to Fortune 500 companies, he said, the more common arrangement is a hybrid schedule with two or three days a week in-office.

In calling workers back, Logan said, companies cite the collegiality and collaboration that comes with in-person work and the need to use existing office space. There are also those "with a more civic sensibility" aiming to give the city a boost after the lows of the pandemic, he said.

"I tend to see senior leaders preferring more in-office time for a host of reasons, particularly as it relates to the community of the downtown," said B Kyle, president and CEO of the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce. "Your overall feeling of a city is impacted by how people show up and when they show up."

Boosters from both Twin Cities' downtowns said they continue to see a slow-but-steady increase in the number of people working in offices.

"I don't see any sign of there being a dramatic corner turning in a positive way, but I also haven't seen any signs of tapering," said Joe Spencer, president of the St. Paul Downtown Alliance. "The world keeps taking steps back to the office. But it's not like things are going to go back to the way they were."

U.S. workers reported working about a quarter of their full-pay days from home in February, compared to more than 60% in May 2020, according to data from the WFH Research monthly Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes. Of those whose jobs allowed for remote work — as in, not those that require a shared physical location, such as health care or construction — more than a third are fully onsite, while about 20% are fully remote. The greatest share — nearly 45% — reported working a hybrid schedule.

A handful of the downtowns' largest employers, including Target and the state government, remain largely remote, leaving empty offices that cast uncertainty on the future of some areas. But an increasing number of companies rolling out more definitive policies for office work has bolstered confidence in the commercial real estate market.

Eddie Rymer, a senior vice president for JLL, said the firm's local and national brokers have come to the consensus the office market bottomed out in 2024 in terms of leasing deals and rates.

"There's still some pockets where deals can be had, absolutely," Rymer said. "But I think the pendulum is swinging back toward landlords, and it will continue that way for the foreseeable future."

Employers, employees lean hybrid

In downtown Minneapolis, Brown & Brown surveyed its roughly 380 local employees in late 2022 as leadership considered a move out of the IDS Center, the insurance company's home for more than two decades and downtown's most iconic tower.

They floated the idea of St. Louis Park's West End, said Keith Arnold, senior vice president of business development. But more than half of employees voted to stay downtown — for a variety of reasons, Arnold suspects, including the more central location and a sense of civic obligation to the area.

"I think people come because you're more productive here," he said. "It's easy to build relationships here. We have a lot of young people who, I think, totally got robbed of the fun of working in a corporate environment in their 20s."

Brown & Brown ended up signing a lease for more than a decade at 901 Marquette and spent millions of dollars on building out its new offices. About six months ago, the insurance and risk management company asked employees to start coming in three days a week. Carey Moe, an operations leader, said workers had ample notice to prepare for the change as well as stipends to pay for parking.

"The move gave us a great excuse to really prep people for the whole time we were building out," Moe said. "It's the carrot rather than the stick, right? You're going to want to be in this space."

Survey data showed workers would prefer more work-from-home days than employers are offering, and a WFH Research analysis of job postings revealed opportunities for remote work did grow. About 3% of jobs advertised in Minnesota in January 2020 offered remote or hybrid work arrangements, with that number reaching about 10% midpandemic and more than 13% at the end of 2024.

Kyle, of the St. Paul Chamber, said she doesn't anticipate a widespread, five-day-a-week mandate in the near future. If employers want that, she said, they need to consider the value proposition beyond just productivity, given that workers have shown they can deliver remotely.

"The question has to do with why you want five days in office, what that looks like and how you want to implement it," Kyle said. "We've got to think about why we're doing this, toward what end, so you can shape something that makes sense."

Paul, who asked to be identified by his first name in order to speak candidly, works in sales at a Fortune 500 company with an office in downtown Minneapolis. He said his employer has required three days a week of in-person work since 2023 after a gently encouraged two days a week failed to take hold. The 42-year-old Minneapolis resident said the policy "was really about wanting to have teammates be able to be more productive at tackling problems together."

But often, Paul said, he spends his in-office days attending virtual meetings.

"I come in because I'm told I need to," he said, "but the reality is, I'm pretty much on my computer on Teams calls or Zoom calls because everybody's throughout the entire country."

Jeph Novak, who works in marketing at a construction company, is required to work from the office at least two days a week. The 27-year-old of Brooklyn Park said there are personal benefits to working from home — particularly when his family is caring for a foster child, as was the case last year — but he also likes going to the office.

There's always activity Monday through Thursday, he said, and the company is even looking to expand its footprint after a busy summer construction season.

"If there's a business need to be in the office, people like to be there, and there's a good community," Novak said. "It's just knowing that it's not required — there are other options."