- In 2020, millions of employees transitioned into remote work in response to the pandemic including State of Michigan employees
- Since then, many have returned to in-person work, but according to the State of Michigan's most recent Remote Work Report, about 50% percent of the state workforce continues to work remotely.
- The Lansing Chamber of Commerce and Choose Lansing's CEO, Tim Daman and Julie Pingston, wrote a letter to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's office in 2020 urging her to enforce the return of state workers and now, they have written a second letter with the same request
- In the attached story, I spoke with Tim Daman and Julie Pingston about their reasoning for their second attempt at asking for state workers to return to the office.
- We also heard from Adam Seyburn, co-owner of the Peanut Shop, about how his business has been affected by the change in foot traffic
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
Millions of dollars have been invested into this very downtown but some local organizations fear that there just aren't enough people living, playing and working downtown to enjoy it.
I'm your Lansing neighborhood reporter Asya Lawrence here with the Lansing Chamber of Commerce and Choose Lansing's plea for state workers to return to work in-person in an effort to revive downtown.
"I still see customers come in and say things like I used to come here everyday," said Adam Seyburn, co-owner of the Peanut Shop.
The Peanut Shop has been a staple in downtown Lansing since 1937.
They've seen plenty of people come but many others go.
"If you go back to 2019 when everybody was still working in their offices, the Peanut Shop was a very very busy place on a day to day basis," Seyburn said.
Shortly after, the pandemic shifted many employees to remote work.
Years later, many of the thousands of state workers who once populated these office in downtown Lansing still have not returned fully.
"State government is our business and so the people that do that work, we'd love to see them back downtown creating that vitality," said Julie Pingston, Choose Lansing CEO.
The State of Michigan's most recent Remote Work Report was from 2023 and it showed that 23,700 employees, of about 50% percent of the state's workforce, continues to work remotely.
In an effort to bring state workers back downtown and boost foot traffic, the Lansing Chamber of Commerce and Choose Lansing's CEO's joined forces to write this letter to Governor Whitmer's office saying in part:
"To fully realize the benefits of these strategic investments, we urge your office to implement a unified approach to bringing state employees back to in-person work."
"It's time now for the state to have a return on their investments and part of that is getting their people back on some sort of a consistent basis," said Tim Daman, CEO of the Lansing Chamber of Commerce.
A suggestion that businesses like the Peanut Shop say would have major benefits as their downtown business carries on.
"I would love to see more people working downtown, more people living in downtown, the more people in downtown, the more people coming in the Peanut Shop," said Seyburn
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