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Employees work from home on Mondays to avoid beginning-of-week-blues

Monday was the least popular day of the week to book into a local workspace in November. That’s according to data from NearU, the UK tech startup that connects employees to flexible desk space and meeting rooms, which found that Mondays accounted for just 11% of total bookings per 1,000 users on its platform.

The data revealed that mid-week remains popular for workers to book into a workspace, with Thursday coming out on top with over a third of people choosing to head into an office. Following Thursday, Tuesday and Wednesday are similarly split, accounting for 20% and 18% of bookings respectively.

When looking at Friday data, these are slightly more preferable than Mondays for office-work, with 13% booking in before the weekend.

Monday blues

From Blue Monday to the ‘Sunday Scaries’, Monday has long been known to be the most difficult day of the week. From resetting sleeping patterns to a loss of freedom, NearU’s data points to employees wanting to stay in the comfort of their homes for the first day of the week.

Some of NearU’s host providers are also noticing a stark difference from day-to-day. Clara Garcia, Manager at Day Office, a Soho space that hosts via NearU, commented: “We have noticed people choosing Tuesdays to Thursdays as their days to be in the office. Wednesday is a popular day for meetings, perhaps being the middle of the week it makes it a good day for teams to catch up. Mondays and Fridays are very quiet, as people tend to work from home on those days.”

Lesley Main, Centre Manager at the Moseley Exchange in Birmingham, noted some even wider office trends brought on by the pandemic. “Pre-Covid the dynamic of the coworking space was that a guest would come in for an hour or so in and around the office or appointments. Mondays and Fridays were traditionally the quieter days with Wednesday and Thursday peaking,” she said.

James Solomides, NearU co-founder, added: “From the way we’re seeing our clients use the NearU platform, it’s not surprising that the data shows Monday as the least popular day. This is of course not a new phenomenon, with most of us experiencing that ‘Sunday night feeling’ at some point in our careers when faced with a new working week. We have actually been witnessing the gradual shift towards ‘TWT (Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday) culture’ for years now, albeit more so on a Friday than a Monday. The COVID pandemic has only built upon these foundations, empowering white-collar workers to reclaim their Monday morning by choosing to do their work from home, or indeed closer to home.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Lily Jones .