Several surveys suggest about one-third of U.S. private sector employees are remote; however, amid employee pressure, corporate leaders are increasingly more accepting
by Intelliworx
A recent report by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) put out some numbers describing the scope of teleworking for federal civil servants. The widely reported document surfaced two interesting statistics about telework that stood out to us:
- Only about half – roughly 50% – of civil servants serve in roles that are eligible for teleworking. The U.S. government employs approximately 2.5 million civil servants, so in real numbers, that means ~1.25 million are eligible to telework; and
- Of those federal employees who are eligible to telework, “approximately 60 percent of regular, working hours” are conducted “in-person, at agency-assigned job sites.” Citing figures from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the report says, “The federal workforce has telework rates generally in line with the private sector.”
That sounded low for the private sector. We hypothesize that remote work – the more commonly used term for telework in the private sector – is much more prevalent outside of government work.
That said, we approached this piece with an open mind: this was a true fact-finding mission. Below is what we found in chronological order, according to the date of publication. We’ve included links to the originating source for those interested in more detail.
March 2024: About 20% of U.S. are remote or hybrid (but…)
“In 2023, about 143 million people in that age range were working in the United States,” according to The New York Times and “a monthly survey of 60,000 U.S. households conducted by the Census Bureau.”
Of those, 15 million (~10%) are entirely remote and another 14 million (~9%) are on a hybrid schedule. So, overall, ~80% of U.S. workers are “in the office” and ~20% are remote at least some of the time.
We put “in the office” in quotes because some of these roles are not remote-eligible. For example, plumbers and electricians cannot work remotely. As reported by the Times, college-educated workers are far more likely to work remotely or on hybrid schedules.
This is also true of federal workers. It’s simply not plausible for most civil servants with physical duties. For example, those working in federal security or law enforcement can’t work remotely by virtue of their role.
Read more: Who Still Works From Home? by The New York Times
October 2023: Of remote eligible workers, 29% are remote and 52% are hybrid
Gallup has been running polls on work environments since before the pandemic – and increased the cadences after 2020. Since then, it has polled, “200,000 employees in total, and we continue to survey approximately 18,000 employees every three months.”
More specifically, their surveys have looked at just those workers that are “remote capable.” It found of those that are eligible 52% are currently working under hybrid arrangements while 29% are fully remote. Both numbers have grown over time – while fewer remote eligible workers have opted to remain entirely in office environments.
This is a stark contrast to the pre-pandemic period according to Gallup: “In 2019, 60% of remote-capable employees spent their week working fully on-site, whereas that figure has fallen to just 20% in 2023. In contrast, only 8% worked exclusively remotely in 2019, compared with the 29% of remote-capable employees who are fully remote today.”
The organization summarized the findings this way: “As a result, these unprecedented shifts in remote work flexibility have reshaped the workplace for remote-capable employees, with the dominant pattern being hybrid:
- Five in 10 are working hybrid (part of their week at home and part on-site).
- Three in 10 are working exclusively remotely.
- Two in 10 are working entirely on-site.”
As the chart nearby suggests, this trend looks poised to grow.
Read more: The Future of the Office Has Arrived by Gallup
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September 2023: 32% of U.S. workers telework some of the time
A survey of “2,000 full-time workers in the United States” by Owl Labs found 32% of employees work remotely at least some of the time. This includes 26% who are employed under a hybrid arrangement and 7% of workers who are entirely remote.
Of those with a hybrid environment:
- 23% are in the office 4 days a week;
- 45% are in the office 3 days a week;
- 24% are in the office 2 days a week; and
- 7% are in the office 1 day a week.
It’s worth noting, that those reporting to the office may not spend the entire day in the office. The report found that 58% of hybrid employees show their faces at the office and then leave. This trend has become known as “coffee badging,” where you show up at the office, swipe your access badge, have a coffee and leave.
Owl Labs fielded this survey annually even before the pandemic. The edition published in 2018, polled 3,028 respondents globally and found “16% of businesses are fully remote.” This has almost assuredly grown post-pandemic, but we are unable to find a more recent comparison (Owl Labs did not ask the same question again).
Read more: The State of Hybrid Work 2023 by Owl Labs
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July 2023: 40% of U.S. employees work from home at least once a week
A non-profit organization called Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes (SWAA) found that “working from home rose five-fold from 2019 to 2023, with 40% of US employees now working remotely at least one day a week.” In an email, a representative for the organization noted for this study, “The sample size in this study was 48,913.”
The representative also said the study is part of an “ongoing monthly cross-sectional survey of between 2,500 to 10,000 US residents between the ages 20 and 64 who earned $20,000 or more in the prior year. It was fielded by market research firms and weighted to be nationally representative.”
In a piece penned for Harvard Business Review in August of 2023, the researchers also noted some ebb and flow over time: “Remote work spiked during the pandemic, from about 6% of full workdays in the U.S. to more than 50% in the spring of 2020. Since then, it’s steadily decreased and since early 2023 has hovered around 28%.”
Many businesses pondered policies requiring employees to return to the office. These mandates proved controversial with many workers pushing back, which is similar to the response from government labor unions.
Read more: The Evolution of Working from Home (opens in PDF) by WFH Research project and the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes
March 2023: 35% of the U.S. workforce is entirely remote
A survey of 5,902 respondents by the non-profit Pew Research found that “roughly three years after the COVID-19 pandemic upended U.S. workplaces, about a third (35%) of workers with jobs that can be done remotely are working from home all of the time.” The survey notes, “This is down from 43% in January 2022 and 55% in October 2020 – but up from only 7% before the pandemic.”
Read more: About a third of U.S. workers who can work from home now do so all the time by the Pew Research Center
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Corporate leaders are increasingly accepting of remote work
The question remains: is the reality of telework among civil servants comparable to the private sector? Yes, it would seem to be a fair statement based on this aggregation of private-sector surveys. There are, of course, caveats. There’s a lot of nuances to these numbers. The tally often depends on how the questions are asked – and who is counting.
The debate in the private sector is also still unfolding. For example, an August 2003 survey by the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI) an independent non-profit research organization had some stunning revelations. Some “47% of employees indicate they would quit a job or begin looking for a new job immediately if their employer mandated a full-time return-to-office policy.”
That will cause employers to consider office-mandates carefully because turnover is expensive. Studies show, that “the cost of replacing an employee can be 1.5 to sometimes three times the position’s annual salary.” We sense that caused businesses to hit the pause button on enforcing such policies.
Indeed a recent piece by the organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry – Remote Work: A Grudging Acceptance by CEOs? – noted “only 34% of CEOs expect workers to be in the office five days a week during the next three years. That’s a precipitous drop from 62% in the same survey last year.” This suggests the number of remote and hybrid workers in the private sector will continue to grow.
Even so, as Intelliworx CEO Rob Hankey argued in an article contributed to Government Executive, the focus on the percentage of people in or out of the office is the best metric. Both private sector and government leaders would be better served focusing on productivity.
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