With renewed focus on remote working, more and more workers are opting to move out from the office and work from home.
But is this a move to the new normal? Or is it only temporary?
According to the latest YouGov figures, 57% of workers would like the option to continue working from home once the crisis is over(1). While this is the majority, that still leaves 43% of workers who would rather head back to the workplace, and in fact 39% of those who would like to continue working from home, only wish to do so on a part time/flexible basis.
While workers might know what they want, is this something the bosses can get behind? Interestingly, 92% of bosses said they would continue to allow staff to work from home if they wished to do so(2). In fact, since the start of the pandemic, 1% of businesses have closed their premises, not to be reopened again(2) – 71% of these due to the fact that they have realised there is no need for a premises as work can be completed as efficiently and effectively remotely.
It is clear from these figures that the business landscape is changing, but in order to facilitate these new flexible working styles, business need to make sure they have right infrastructure in place to ensure continued efficiency and productivity. We’re not just talking about the physical infrastructure, but also the support services around these – 37% of people found working from home was in fact bad for their mental health, 27% found the transition challenging and 28% found it was bad for their work life balance(3).
Clearly balance is needed – let’s not write our offices off quite yet!
Our expert’s ‘top 3 tech’ to help your business be more flexible
- Cloud storage – access files and resources from wherever today’s office might be
- Mobile broadband – always connected with fast, reliable broadband from the office, the car, home or the local coffee house
- Unified communications – transition effortlessly between computer, laptop, tablet and mobile phone for calls, emails, video conferences and more
We’d love to know a bit more about how your business is operating in these challenging times. If you could take a few moments to complete our very short survey, we’ll enter you into a prize draw to win an Apple Watch (T&Cs apply).If you would like to discuss how we could help you make your business more flexible, please get in touch with our expert – we’d love to chat!
(3) https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/jmra44d668/Channel5_CoronaWFH_200514.pdf
