In recent months, big tech companies like Amazon, Dell, Ubisoft and others have issued return-to-office mandates. It’s a dealbreaker for many remote or hybrid workers accustomed to the flexibility and work-life balance they’ve been afforded since 2020.
More in-person than other cities
Office vacancy rates can be used to determine how remote the Colorado Springs workforce is and according to Susan Edmondson, president & CEO of Downtown Partnership, the office vacancy rate in the city’s urban center has increased steadily from the 6% vacancy rate of early 2023.
In Q2 of 2024, she says “Office vacancy ticked up slightly to 8.4% overall and 14.3% in Class A. Not great but way better than what some cities are seeing: 2019 had hit a 10-year office occupancy high of 94.1%, thus a vacancy rate of 5.9%.”
Edmondson references The Downtown Colorado Springs Q2 Market Report which also reports that citywide office vacancies were at 9.7% in Q2.
While it seems vacancy rates are climbing, Downtown Colorado Springs is not on trend with other urban centers like Downtown Denver which has seen rates as high as 30%.
According to the 2024 State of Downtown Colorado Springs, downtown hosts over five million square feet of office space, occupied by notable employers like Bluestaq, GE Johnson, Colorado College, and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.
The downtown workforce is comprised of 27,000 people, with roughly 24,000 of them consistently going into their place of business in 2024.
Hybrid models popular in Colorado Springs
Reports indicate a strong in-person work presence in Colorado Springs, but many employers offer the best of both worlds.
“Our economic development team says some companies have embraced the hybrid system and are not fully remote,” says Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC spokeswoman Jayne Mhono Dickey.
A hybrid workforce blends in-office with remote work and could account for the city’s office vacancy rates being lower than cities where many employees are fully remote.
A report pulled by Mhono Dickey’s group shows local companies with active remote job ads. The list includes large employers like Aerotek, USAA, Humana, Lockheed Martin, University of Colorado, El Paso County, The Aerospace Corporation, First American Financial Corporation and others.
Saved time and money = happier employees
Jennifer Emerson, who is a paralegal for criminal defense attorney Matt Werner, recalls an uneasy feeling she had in March of 2020 when everyone at her firm left to work from home.
“There’s no way I can do my job from home. That’s really what I thought,” she says. “The majority of us stayed home at least six months and were not in the office together at all. I found I was just so much more productive. I was happier. I didn’t want to come back to the office and my boss supported me in that.”
Emerson makes her 25-minute commute on occasion, but for the most part uses video conferencing from home to go over cases, deadlines and workloads with her boss.
According to recent findings in a LinkedIn Workforce Confidence Index, on average, 44% of U.S. employees feel well compensated for the work they do, with four out of ten onsite employees reporting satisfaction with their pay compared to about half of remote and hybrid workers.
One large employer in Colorado Springs who offers hybrid work opportunities is Progressive Insurance. The Digest spoke with multiple staff members from the insurance giant and the overarching theme was undoubtedly a high level of satisfaction.
Bill Griffin is an Apps Programmer Lead at Progressive and he works from home five days a week, minus the occasional in-person meeting. For him, the biggest benefit is the absence of what used to be a 30-minute one-way commute.
Griffin says, “It’s just all the traffic and so I really don’t miss the commute at all. You miss the camaraderie a bit, but everybody’s online and chatting all the time.”
He says he has cut his fuel costs and lunch expenses, but that the remote set-up also makes it easier to schedule personal projects, most recently the installation of a house fan that took place while he worked from his downtown home.
“A lot of tech companies have gone back to saying ‘Hey, you’ve got to come in the office’,” he says. “But Progressive is the best place I’ve ever worked in my 64 years of living. The managers do trust people…Everybody pulls their weight and seems to be really happy working for Progressive.”
