- Set of polls finds that the COVID-19 Delta variant has had little effect on most businesses’ plans to resume in-office work
- Several major businesses have delayed their plans to return to the office due to the spread of the virus
- In the latest Morning Consult poll, 19 percent said their company expects to resume office operations in September
Summary by Dirk Langeveld
As COVID-19 vaccine distribution gained steam earlier this year, businesses became more comfortable making plans to return workers to the office. The recent spread of the virus’s Delta variant has posed a new challenge to these efforts, with several high-profile companies delaying their decision to resume in-office work weeks.
However, a recent set of three surveys from Morning Consult suggests that the Delta variant has having a limited effect on most companies’ plans to return to the office. In the polls, which were issued between mid-July and early August and surveyed 1,000 workers each time, the share of people saying they have already returned to the office remained stable.
In the most recent survey, 8 percent of respondents said their company had adopted a fully remote work policy. Nineteen percent said their company expects to resume in-office work in September, consistent with the strategy adopted by many businesses to return to the office after the Labor Day holiday.
