Return-to-office plans are disrupted again: ‘It’s challenging for all of us.’

In the nearly 18 months since the pandemic first forced companies to send their employees to work from home, the date companies have planned to bring workers back to offices has changed again and again. First it was January, a full year after the coronavirus first surfaced in China. January slipped to July, as tens of millions of people lined up across the country to be vaccinated.

But then the surge of vaccinations peaked, and the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus drove another surge in cases. For many companies, September became the new July. Now September is out as an option, and it’s anybody’s guess when workers will return to their offices in large numbers.