Time is running out for those still working at home since the pandemic. One of the changes that could be coming with the new year is a return to the office for five days a week. That’s according to recent data and a survey of business leaders. For more, Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: What does this data and that survey say exactly?
Tony Mecia: It's really a combination of factors. There was a survey of business leaders nationally in October. Thirteen percent indicated that they intended to have workers back in the office more days next year, just 5% saying fewer. So that sort of indicates that this trend is continuing. You've seen a number of companies in recent weeks ratchet up the number of days that workers are supposed to be in the office. Truist, locally, they're going back five days a week starting in January. There have been other national companies, Paramount, Instagram, NBC Universal, Microsoft, and others that are sort of moving back either to five days a week or toward five days a week.
Terry: Will there be enough desks to go around? I mean, didn’t many businesses reconfigure and downsize workspace during the pandemic?
Mecia: That's a good question. The answer is ‘yes,’ a lot, at least in Charlotte, have reconfigured those spaces. They have hot desks, where you don't have your own cubicle or your own office. You sort of share them or jockey for them with coworkers. So if there are going to be people back five days a week that are now back three days a week, they might need more desks, they might need more space. That is potentially a limiting factor.
Terry: It feels like we've been having this debate about remote, hybrid, work from home, return to the office, for five years now. Do you think this coming year will mark some kind of conclusion?
Mecia: I mean, these debates have been going on for a while, even before COVID. Obviously, COVID really brought this issue into focus. I think it's going to continue to go on. I don't know that we solve it in 2026, but I would not be surprised to see more companies make five days a week the norm like it was really before COVID.
Terry: Let’s switch over to some health care news now. Some Novant Health patients have noticed a new fee attached to the questionnaire you usually fill out before seeing a doctor. How much and what’s behind this change? Is this their equivalent of airlines charging to pick your seat?
Mecia: Some Novant Health patients have noticed that on their bills, they started getting small charges for $8 or maybe $5, $10 — somewhere in there — for filling out health questionnaires when they go to the doctor: the kinds of things that say do you feel safe at home? Those kinds of health screening questions. Novant is now charging for those. They say most insurance companies do cover it. So, whether it's like picking your seat on an airplane, a lot of businesses deal with this question of do we bundle the services or do we break them out individually.
I think a lot of patients think this is something that ought to be included when you go to the doctor, filling out a written questionnaire. Novant and some other health systems around the country seem to be breaking this out. Some patients that we talked to said that they don't think it's really fair, and that it would discourage people from filling out these questionnaires if they knew they had to essentially pay extra to disclose this information to their doctors.
Terry: Finally, after almost 60 years, Charlotte Magazine published its final issue this month. Why is it calling it a day?
Mecia: Charlotte Magazine’s parent company, Morris Communications, out of Georgia, let the staff there know a few weeks ago that December would be the final issue. They didn't give a lot of details on that. They said it was business reasons, financial reasons, that kind of thing. The Charlotte Ledger ran a piece last week by Charlotte Magazine's editor, Greg Lacour, that sort of looked at the magazine's legacy. He said that it was really a city magazine that held a mirror up to Charlotte, not just food coverage and lifestyle coverage, but also meatier civic issues. Now there's no city magazine for Charlotte, so it's quite a loss.
