Is Working From Home Here to Stay?
Since the pandemic started, majority of companies were forced to ask employees to work from home. During the pandemic, working from home has allowed more flexibility on childcare, breaks, more focus on tasks, and more time to ourselves. Many companies had to adopt technologies to enable their employees to work from home efficiently. Most companies will now have some kind of technology infrastructure in place to cater for working from home. Gradually more people are being vaccinated in developed countries; companies in all industry sectors are reviewing their work policy.
Here are some stats from the UK to get an idea of how working from home affected the UK population.
Working From Home Statistics UK 2021
35.9% of employed population did some work from home in 2020. An increase of 9.4% when compared with 2019
Sickness absence rate for workers doing any work from home was 0.9% on average in 2020 compared with 2.2% for those who never worked from home in their main job
Across full-time roles, homeworkers work consistently more hours than non-homeworkers. Those that recently worked from home worked the most hours per week on average in both part-time (21.1 hours) and full-time (39.4 hours) roles. For full-time workers, those who mainly worked from home completed more hours in 2020 (35.9) than those who never (32.7) or only occasionally (30.1) worked from home.
The working day of homeworkers is longer but more flexible than those who work away from home, with later (but more varied) starts and more (and longer) breaks. However, homeworkers in the early part of the pandemic (April, Wave 1 2020) tended to keep hours close to typical office hours, perhaps because homeworking was new to many. By September (Wave 2 2020), homeworking schedules had shifted later, although not as late as evidenced in 2015.
What Employees felt About Working From Home?
65% of workers said they would be more productive in a home office than a normal office.
75% of workers say they will be more productive due to reduced distractions.
83% of employees feel they do not need an office to be productive.
Two-thirds of employers report increased productivity for remote workers compared to in-office workers.
30.9% of remote workers say that they struggle with loneliness when working remotely.
22% of telecommuters say that “switching off” after work is their biggest challenge.
62% of remote workers want employers to provide better technology that helps them stay connected with their colleagues.
How Working From Home Helped the Environment?
CO2 emissions dropped by at least 25% in February 2020.
The number of “good quality air days” increased by 22% in February 2020.
Around 77,000 lives may have been saved due to the reduction in air pollution.
Please note: Stats taken from China as no stats available for the UK.
Summary of Findings
From the statistics highlighted above, working from home has created an environment that has allowed employees to be more productive with fewer distractions. However, working from home has meant that people have struggled to switch off and end up working more hours. Many have felt that employers need to invest more in technologies to help to stay in contact with colleagues for collaboration on tasks/projects. Part of this might be because many employers never had an infrastructure in place to cope with the large numbers of the workforce working from home. 30.9% of the workforce felt lonely when working from home as now employees are no longer able to talk to colleagues freely without having to virtually call them. Loneliness is more of a factor for those that live alone.
With a large percentage of the population working from home meant that a large number of the workforce did not commute to work which has resulted in few cars on the road. CO2 emissions dropped by at least 25% in February 2020 contributing to cleaner air.
What Are Big Tech Employers Doing?
Employees at Facebook can continue to work from home as they think remote work is the future. Some roles may be eligible to permanent remote working after the ease of restrictions however will need approval from their manager.
Microsoft
They have decided to allow their employees to decide to work from home or the office. However, they are only allowed to work remotely for less than half of their hours on average. If they seek to work remotely for longer, they will need to speak to their manager.
Twitter has announced that their employees can work from home permanently forever with the freedom to go into the office whenever they need to.
Apple
Apple employees are expected to return to the office three days a week starting in September with the option to work remotely on Wednesday and Fridays. Teams that need to work in person will return 4 to 5 days a week.
Google is going for a flexible approach by allowing employees to work three days per week in the office and two days wherever they chose.
Summary of Working from Home
Throughout the pandemic, we have seen improvements in output from employees with many feeling that they are more productive. However, for some, they have felt loneliness when working from home and have found it difficult to stay in touch with colleagues. Many of the big tech companies have opted for a hybrid approach by allowing employees to have a certain amount of days to work from home and in the office. The idea is to promote and ease collaboration with other employees. They have also allowed employees to work from a different office closer to their home, if needed, to decrease commute time. Working from home seems to be staying and a flexible hybrid approach will be a good way for employers to allow working from home while still making use of the office space that they own or rent. As countries are drawing closer to a safer living environment, companies are reviewing their working from home policies and will be updating their employees soon. The pandemic has opened the eyes of corporate companies that have been against their employees working from home. They will need to review the output stats, technologies available to improve working from home infrastructure even further and what current employees would rather do.