• Post-pandemic, rush hour isn't what it used to be.
• As commuters settle into flexible working arrangements, a truncated workday has become the "new normal," according to a recent report.
• Some employees are wrestling with return-to-office mandates, studies show, and more admit to "coffee badging."

Young professionals may be falling back in love with the nine-to-five aesthetic — known as "corpcore" — but few are logging the hours at the office to back it up.

Despite the renewed interest in work-appropriate attire (think a corporate take on quiet luxury: tailored suits or blazers and pencil skirts), the standard 40-hour workweek is dead, new research shows — at least when it comes to commuting.

As more commuters settle into flexible working arrangements, the traditional American 9-to-5 has shifted to 10-to-4, according to the 2023 Global Traffic Scorecard released in June by INRIX Inc., a traffic-data analysis firm. Its analysis shows fewer early morning trips and a higher volume of midday trips compared to pre-pandemic traffic patterns.  

The workday is getting shorter

Now, there is a "midday rush hour," the INRIX report found, with almost as many trips to and from the office being made at noon as there are at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

"There is less of a morning commute, less of an evening commute and much more afternoon activity," said Bob Pishue, a transportation analyst and author of the report. "This is more of the new normal."

Commuters have also all but given up on public transportation. Ridership sank during the pandemic, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data shows, and never fully recovered.

The result is a surge in traffic congestion throughout the peak midday and evening hours, according to Pishue.

"Pre-Covid, the morning rush hour would be a peak and then the evening peak would be much larger," he said, describing two apexes with a valley in between. "Now, there is no valley."

'Coffee badging' is the worst of all worlds

"Employees have become accustomed to the flexibility of working from home and may only come to the office when absolutely necessary," said David Satterwhite, CEO of Chronus, a software firm focused on improving employee engagement.

"That means they may jump out early to catch a train home, come in late, or pop in for one meeting and then leave," Satterwhite added.

Also known as "coffee badging," the habit of only going to work for a few hours a day has become widely accepted, or at least tolerated, other recent reports show.

More than half — 58% — of hybrid employees admitted to checking in at the office and then promptly checking out, according to a separate 2023 survey by Owl Labs, a company that makes videoconferencing devices.

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"We used to call it the jacket-on-the-back-of-the-chair syndrome," said Lynda Gratton, professor of management practice at London Business School.

Whether a company has a strict return-to-office mandate or some variation of a hybrid schedule, "organizations need to be clear about what the deal is," she said, "and an individual employee can decide whether they want the deal or not."

However, because most people say they don't want to come into the office because of the commute, coffee badging is the least successful type of compromise, Gratton added. "That is the worst of all worlds, they are still doing the commute but not putting in the hours at the office."

Productivity is suffering

In part, workers are wrestling with employee burnout and their level of commitment has taken a hit.

After mostly trending up for years, workplace engagement has flatlined. Now, only one-third of full- and part-time employees said they are engaged in their work and workplace, while roughly 50% are not engaged, which can also be seen in the rise of "quiet quitting." The rest, another 16%, are actively disengaged, according to a 2023 Gallup poll released earlier this year.

Not engaged or actively disengaged employees account for approximately $1.9 trillion in lost productivity nationwide, Gallup found.

These days, employees are more likely to consider work/life balance, flexible hours and mental health support over career progression, other reports also show. And fewer want to spend any more time at the office than they already do.

If the ability to work from home was taken away, 66% of workers would immediately start looking for a job that offered more flexibility, Owl Labs found — and a bulk of those employees, roughly 39%, would promptly quit.

"What we need to get to is a clearer description of how is it you are at your most productive, and that requires a senior team who are seeing this as an opportunity to redesign work and not simply responding to what happened during the pandemic," Gratton said.

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