Health

Boston office space to reopen Monday at 25% capacity

BOSTON — It will be back to the office for some workers in Boston Monday but one expert says many workers will opt to stay home.

“Just because the offices are open, doesn’t necessarily mean that there are going to be people in them starting tomorrow,” said David Lewis the CEO of Operations Inc., a human resources consulting firm based in New England.

Boston is a week behind the rest of the state and will allow offices to have 25% of its workers inside.

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“There are a lot of companies that have determined that this whole remote work thing is working out well and why put your people through the risk of coming in when they can be just as productive from home," said Lewis.

Safety is still clearly on the minds of both workers and their employers.

“We are finding that people have a lot of obstacles and strong concerns about the public commute and the safety of that commute and number two it’s about their own concerns about their underlying health conditions or the health conditions of those with whom they live and not wanting to bring COVID-19 back into their household and number three is childcare," said Lewis.

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Mayor Marty Walsh said that people should still expect to see more drivers on the road Monday morning and slowly more every day after that.

“The other piece that you can’t miss is that organizations have really struggled to perform at the same level as they did before COVID-19 by having people not physically in the same location," said Lewis.

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