More Britons opting for three-day office week, says IWG

More workers in Britain are opting for a three-day office week as they warm to a hybrid model, data from workspace provider IWG showed on Friday.

The pandemic has upended the way people work, prompting several firms to encourage employees to split time between their homes and offices, while cutting down on the cost of renting largely unused spaces.

Employees favoured coming to the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with the midweek accounting for 23% more visits than on Mondays and Fridays, according to the latest UK footfall, data from the owner of Regus and Spaces brands showed.

The data from IWG's 300 workspaces in Britain covering hundreds of thousand of workers also showed 15% more employees visited their offices in May than in April.

"The data shows there is strong appetite to spend part of the time in an office environment, particularly local flex spaces, and that the era of long daily commutes is well and truly over," IWG CEO Mark Dixon said in a statement.

The workspace provider, which counts Microsoft (MSFT.O), Uber (UBER.N), BT (BT.L) and Deliveroo (ROO.L) among others as its customers in Britain, however, did not specify the impact of the higher footfall on occupancy levels or its income streams.

Tuesday has been the most popular day to be in the office so far this year in the UK, closely followed by Wednesday and Thursday.

"The trend is reinforced by the hospitality industry, whose leaders have said Wednesday and Thursday evenings have become the new Thursdays and Fridays for drinking and dining out," IWG said.