The hot office trend? Leaving early

By John Tomase, Editor at LinkedIn News

August 26^th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

Are these things still used?

Working a 9-to-5 used to mean those exact hours, but the post-pandemic time clock has been scrambled. Prompt arrival is a must, The Wall Street Journal reports, yet when to punch out is flexible. It could be “productivity theater” to please an early-bird boss who tends not to notice when later tasks are performed at home. Compared with 2019, workers are leaving the office an average of 13 minutes earlier in New York and 26 minutes earlier in San Francisco, according to commercial real estate company JLL.

Linda O’Neill : My first reaction reading this was: We are sometimes so silly about the things we pay attention to and judge.

Slipping out just a little early – a new trend?

This WSJ piece highlights one of those funny-but-true dynamics in the modern workplace: we’re more comfortable leaving the office early than arriving late. Even if both scenarios balance out in hours and productivity, the optics feel different. It’s a reminder of how much “productivity theater” still shapes our work habits—and how much of it is driven by perceptions, not actual output.

Have you ever caught yourself adjusting your schedule not for efficiency, but for appearances?

At Vigilant we’re still fully remote, so this is not an issue. I’m curious about the experience of others.