Another remote-work year looms as office-reopening plans are delayed

One of the hardest questions for American corporations to answer: When should offices reopen? Many companies are pushing workplace return dates to September—and beyond—or refusing to commit to specific dates, telling employees it will be a wait-and-see remote-work year. Shipping giant United Parcel Service Inc., based in Atlanta, and financial-services firm Fidelity Investments Inc., based in Boston, haven’t announced return dates, instead telling workers signing on from home that the companies are monitoring the coronavirus pandemic and will call workers back when it is safe. A new survey of 2,200 U.S. workers by the Conference Board, a research group, found that 44% of employees polled didn’t know their company’s plans to return to the workplace. “Sometime in 2022 is where I’m thinking" all staffers will feel comfortable coming back, says Khalid Parekh, chief executive of Amsys Group, a Houston technology company that employs about 350 people.