Employees are treating Fridays like a buffer zone between work and home life, and that’s something that building operators can embrace in their occupancy planning, says Emily Botello, managing director of consulting in the Americas at CBRE.
Across nearly two decades of data, Fridays are the lowest-use day of the week, Botello wrote in a December research note. People preferring to work from home on that day is lowering the average of otherwise rebounding utilization rates for many companies, she says. Only 12.4% of weekday office visits are happening on Fridays, compared to more than 23% on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and 21.8% on Thursdays, according to Placer.ai’s nationwide office building index in October. Monday office visits accounted for 17.8% of weekday office visits.
“It’s the one day of the week when … you’re not surprised if your email is met with an OOO response,” Botello says.
Studies find workers appear to have lower productivity on Fridays — by some estimates, a 20% to 35% drop in task completion — compared to the rest of the week. But these kinds of statistics can obscure subtle value to employees of having a more relaxed schedule on the last day of the work week, she says.
Friday is one of the easiest times to schedule a conversation with a mentor or leader, for example, making it ideal for professional development. It’s also a good day for reflecting, planning and housekeeping, or for tasks that aren’t urgent enough to do during the peak of the week.
Shifting demographics may be playing a part, research shows. For many people, work-life balance outranks salary as the top retention driver for employees, according to JLL. “Flexibility, in terms of location and working hours, has become a human need, not a perk,” the firm said in its 2026 global real estate sector outlook. “This means the office must adapt to better support this new orchestration of work and life.”
Friday is a natural time for many people to fit their personal needs into the work schedule, with many choosing it as the day to work from home or take paid time off, Botello said.
Employees still like to gather with teammates in the workplace, so it can make sense to schedule events in the middle of the week, she said.
“Many companies are opting for events and programming on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays — their highest office attendance days — in the hopes of better engaging employees,” she said. As a result, operators should think about Friday differently — not as a representation of lost productivity but of a strategic shift in how employees work, rest and connect, she said.
