As the world heats up, returning to the office cools down—at least in Austin, home of “weirdos” and Silicon Valley transplants. The city experienced its biggest drop in office occupancy since property management and security firm Kastle Systems began tracking major metro areas in 2020, decreasing from 68% in early March to 57% the week ending July 21.
Just a year ago, Austin was the Emerald City for pro-office CEOs. While New York City execs struggled to get workers back at their desks, bosses in Austin seemed to be doing just fine—the city had the highest in-office rates in May 2022, according to previous Kastle data. So what explains this year's decline? Labor market shifts in the tech sector, workers' consistent desire for flexibility, and the boiling Texas heat, Bloomberg reports.
In the return-to-office debate, bosses are often focused on returning to a pre-pandemic workplace of community and collaboration while workers have touted that flexibility makes them more productive and saves them time and money. But Austin’s declining office occupancy points to another increasingly urgent factor: Lack of flexibility at work could make future commutes that much more miserable as the climate continues to shift.
As the world’s temperature reached the highest level ever recorded, Texas began to simmer more than usual as a heat dome made the weather reach a breaking point. In mid-June, Austin’s heat index (what the temperature feels like based on air and humidity) reached 118 degrees, the highest ever measured in the city. It only makes sense that workers who have the capability to work from home might prefer to cut the commute and work from their AC-blasted homes.
While the Southern state has always been hot, climate change shows how apocalyptic and unbearable it can get. "We know that as we continue to burn fossil fuels, our planet is getting hotter," Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First, Jeff Goodell, told NPR. "Heat waves are the clearest manifestation of that."
As the world heats up, companies may need to offer more flexibility for workers to cope with “uncomfortable” heat levels, new research from the University of Oxford finds. It suggests that employees might have to change their nine-to-five schedule to a six-to-two one in order to stay out of the heat. Places with typically hotter temperatures like Spain have already started doing this, Fortune’s Orianna Rosa Royle reports.
Of course, Austin’s attendance dip isn’t all due to climate change. Austin resident Reuben Swartz, who works in software development, told Bloomberg that it's more about the current state of the tech sector than the heat wave. Austin, which has been home to a developing tech scene since the 1990s, has been trying to build itself as a Southern Silicon Valley as more companies moved their headquarters there during the pandemic. But tech has recently exited its golden age as layoffs in the industry reached the highest levels they’ve been since the dotcom bubble burst decades ago. Plus, Swartz said, these companies just haven't been successful in getting all workers back to their desks.
Of course, the cost of running the AC all day in the Texas heat might be enough to make some workers want to go to a communal space. But commuting in that heat might also make those already resistant to the office even more likely to want to stay home. That gives the case for flexibility at work another point.
Ultimately, whether or not leaders are ready for change isn’t all that important to the warming-up Earth. But it is imperative to the workers, who want to put themselves first and out of the sun’s way.
