- San Francisco remains firmly at the bottom of US rankings when it comes to office attendance.
- The city has famously cool summers, so workers don't need office A/C as much as other cities.
A tech industry source was in Tokyo this summer, and they came back with an interesting story: More workers in the city are heading back to the office because it's so damn hot there. When the company is paying for air conditioning, why not go in and stay cool?
This got me thinking about San Francisco's infamous "doom loop." This is the cycle where workers stay home and downtown remains relatively empty, hurting businesses that then close, making the location even less inviting.
This week, in the middle of summer, it was in the 90s and humid in Tokyo. In San Francisco, it was 65 degrees fahrenheit. When it's this cool, you can comfortably work from home without A/C.
It's probably another reason why San Francisco remains firmly at the bottom of the rankings when it comes to office attendance by employees.
Placer.ai tracks this stuff. Its report for July 2023 shows visits to office buildings in San Francisco are still almost 50% below 2019 levels. That puts it firmly last among major US cities.
What's the top city in terms of office visits? Washington DC, which is forecast to be 99F on Tuesday. It's muggy as hell in DC in the summer, too. I know, I lived there for 3 years. And I recall that the A/C was particularly refreshing in the office where I worked back then. No way was I going to sit at home in my small apartment without A/C and sweat all week.
Tokyo's office attendance stats are pretty good, too. According to a survey earlier this year, 49% of organizations in Japan's largest city reported that more than 80% of their employees had returned to the office in 2022.
It's even happening in the UK, a formerly cold and rainy place that has become blisteringly hot during recent summers. There's not a lot of A/C there, and many British office workers are yearning for any source of cool breeze, according to Heating & Ventilating Review.
This HVAC industry publication reported on a recent survey that found Brits are spending an extra 9.2 days per month in the office this year, compared to 2022. Almost half (46%) of those surveyed planned to take advantage of office air conditioning, and 35% said they go into the office when the weather is hot to make use of the A/C.
More CEOs are keen to get employees back to the office now, including several leaders of tech companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. If the city weren't so cool during the summers, they might get their wish.
Although, that would mean more energy use for A/C, yet another example of how the RTO craze is bad for the environment.