The location data company Foursquare released new data today documenting the extent to which U.S. office workers are trudging back to the offices that so many major company CEOs want them to re-occupy. Foursquare supplemented survey data with movement data to convey the results visually. 

Foursquare cites “recent survey data” that shows 39% of respondents are going back to the office five days per week. Another 32% are working fully remotely. And yet another 29% are visiting the office between one and four days per week and work remotely the rest of the week.

The Relocation Myth

Here’s an interesting nugget from the announcement.

It feels like countless pandemic-era business stories, not to mention endless Instagram lifestyle hacking content, were telling us the pandemic unleashed a wave of relocations from cities to suburbs and rural areas to escape the murderous McMansion to office tower pipeline. Free at last! Apparently, not so much. 

“Though 32% of employees are working fully remotely, only 11% of respondents report having relocated within the past two years – perhaps due to the ever-changing policies around remote work, or pay cuts for those who chose to relocate to a place without an office.”

Show, Don’t Tell

We reached out to Foursquare’s Emily Owayni, who is the research and insights lead at Foursquare, to understand how Foursquare interprets this data. One key lesson is that you learn more from what people show you than you do from what they tell you. It’s a lesson we often have to relearn. Sometimes over and over again.

“It’s been highly rewarding to not only see our data prove (and disprove) our hypotheses, but also uncover unexpected insights, providing further evidence that location intelligence is an invaluable tool for today’s business leaders,” Owayni told Localogy Insider.

“One of the more compelling insights I took away from our analysis is that observed behavior (location data) offers an undeniable competitive advantage over reported behavior (survey data). Survey data shows that 39% of Americans claim to be heading into the office 5+ days per week. Yet location data shows that only 3% of office visitors were going in more than five days per week in November 2022 (excluding the week of Thanksgiving).”

The Foursquare data also shows that the return to the office also means a return to long commutes.

This is despite the earlier data point showing relatively few workers relocated during the pandemic. 

“Foot traffic data is showing us how and where consumer behavior is evolving in real-time, which can be a powerful indicator of future behavior,” Owayni said. “For instance, as of November 2022, we saw a +45% YoY increase in foot traffic to offices in downtown Washington DC. [This is], in addition to a YoY increase in median commute distance. [This suggests] that DC offices have seen an influx of traffic from people commuting in from surrounding areas this past year.”

Game Changer

Owayni summed it up by making the case for data visualization as a tool for understanding what the near-term future will bring.

“Geospatial analytics is a game-changer. Having a tool that allows you to visualize and analyze large-scale data in real-time is going to change the way we see the world.”