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Do Office Leases Prove Hybrid Work Is Ending?

A lease shows a property commitment, not how often employees come in. Attendance and utilization data reveal a more nuanced picture of hybrid work.
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No. A lease signing shows a company has made a real-estate commitment; it does not show how often employees go in. Companies can retain or add space while workers continue hybrid schedules, and a busy office on peak days can still be underused across the week. To judge whether office attendance is changing, look at attendance and utilization data alongside lease activity.

What a lease deal tells you—and what it does not

A lease is evidence of a property decision, not a headcount of people in the office. Renewals, expansions, contractions, relocations, redesigns and flexible-office arrangements can all appear in real-estate activity, but they reflect different choices. A company might keep space to support growth, improve location or quality, accommodate busy days, or provide a better employee experience. Another might reduce space to address costs or adapt its portfolio to hybrid work.

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Those decisions can happen while hybrid schedules persist. Total square footage also says little by itself about how space is configured or shared. A redesign can change the balance of collaborative and private areas without meaning employees have returned five days a week.

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Timing matters, too: a multi-year portfolio plan and a lease transaction are not a real-time attendance measure. A transaction may reflect commitments or planning horizons that differ from the current work pattern. No single deal establishes what is happening across companies or the broader market.

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What recent attendance and utilization figures show

CBRE’s 2025 Americas Office Occupier Sentiment Survey covered companies across the United States, Canada and Latin America. Its results show that attendance expectations and office-space plans can coexist with continued hybrid attendance:

  • Attendance expectations and reported results: 90% of surveyed organizations had specific attendance expectations, and 77% expected employees to be in the office at least three days a week. Employers expected an average of 3.2 in-office days per week; employees averaged 2.9. Seventy-two percent of organizations said they met their attendance goals, up from 61% in 2024.
  • Space plans: 67% expected to maintain or expand their portfolios over the next three years, while 33% expected contraction.
  • Reasons behind those plans: Among organizations planning to expand, 83% cited increased headcount from organic growth. About 19% of respondents cited over-contraction during the pandemic or increased return-to-office activity. Contraction reasons included correcting pre-pandemic portfolio inefficiencies, adapting to hybrid work and reducing expenses.

These are survey responses and plans, not observed transaction totals or proof that office attendance caused leasing decisions. The figures illustrate why “more space” and “more days in the office” are not interchangeable claims. The survey’s findings are reported by CBRE.

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Why peak-day capacity is not the same as everyday use

In CBRE’s 2025 Americas survey, 73% of organizations reported that peak-day utilization was effectively at capacity, but only 34% said average office usage was at capacity. There is no contradiction: people may concentrate their in-office days, filling the office at peaks while leaving substantial capacity unused on other days.

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JLL’s 2025 global Occupancy Planning Benchmark Report provides a separate utilization measure: respondents reported 54% office utilization, up from 49% in 2024. These are JLL benchmark figures, not a direct comparison with CBRE’s Americas survey. JLL respondents most commonly used badge-swipe data (90%); reservation systems (49%) and visual observation (41%) were also used. Only 7% rated their data collection as excellent, underscoring that utilization figures depend on measurement practices and data quality. JLL’s announcement describes the benchmark and its methods.

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Utilization is useful, but it answers a different question from a lease: it estimates how much space is being used, according to a particular method and measurement period. It does not, by itself, establish why employees came in, whether they complied with a policy, or what a company will lease next.

Keep policy, attendance, utilization and leasing separate

Indicator What it measures What it cannot establish alone
Employer policy The attendance requirement or expectation set by the organization. Whether employees follow it or how full the office is.
Reported attendance How often employees or organizations say people come in, depending on the survey’s respondent and method. Office capacity usage or future portfolio decisions.
Office utilization How much office space is used, often by comparing average and peak periods. Whether a lease deal signals a broad return to full-time office work.
Lease or portfolio activity A property commitment or planned change in space. How frequently employees attend or how much of the space is used day to day.

Geography and respondent populations matter as well. CBRE’s results describe surveyed Americas organizations; JLL’s utilization figure comes from a global benchmark. They should not be combined into one trend line. Nor should a survey of employer expectations be mistaken for a count of every worker’s behavior.

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Is hybrid work actually disappearing?

The available evidence points to some increase in on-site work, but not to hybrid work having ended. A May 6, 2025 McKinsey article reports a modest increase in fully on-site work compared with 2022, based on its American Opportunity Survey. The 2024 fieldwork surveyed 9,560 U.S. adults aged 18 and older from August 5–27 using probability-based KnowledgePanel sampling plus supplemental nonprobability panel sampling and weighting. McKinsey cautions that a sampling transition may disrupt comparisons with earlier years.

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The same article summarizes separate McKinsey Global Institute research as finding that workers go to the office about 30% less frequently than before the pandemic. That is a cited global estimate, not a new 2025 census of office attendance. Together, these findings suggest a more nuanced picture than either “everyone is back” or “nothing has changed.”

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How to read the next office-leasing headline

  • Identify the event: Is it a renewal, expansion, contraction, relocation, redesign or flexible-space arrangement? Do not treat all of them as growth.
  • Look for the time horizon: A planned portfolio change over several years is not a report of this week’s attendance.
  • Ask what attendance evidence is cited: A policy, an employer’s report that goals were met, and a measured employee attendance figure are different kinds of evidence.
  • Check average and peak utilization separately: Capacity on the busiest days can coexist with lower average use.
  • Check who and where the figures represent: Note whether the evidence covers employers or workers, a particular region or a global benchmark, and how utilization was measured.

For example, CBRE’s 2025 survey found both that 67% of occupiers expected to maintain or expand space over three years and that employees averaged 2.9 in-office days against employer expectations of 3.2. The coexistence of those findings does not establish that one caused the other. It shows why a lease plan is not a reliable shortcut for answering whether hybrid work is ending.

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