A recent survey conducted by Smartway2, a leading provider of workspace scheduling solutions, revealed that only 6% of employees are interested in working from home full time after COVID-19. The great majority of respondents prefer to split their time between the home and the office. This sentiment is expected to transform the traditional workplace and compel employers to offer a more flexible work environment.
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“We’ve all been participating in a great, unplanned workplace experiment during COVID-19, and we have learned a lot about employee interests, work habits and what it takes to get the job done”
“We’ve all been participating in a great, unplanned workplace experiment during COVID-19, and we have learned a lot about employee interests, work habits and what it takes to get the job done,” said John T. Anderson, CEO, Smartway2. “Organizations have found that employees want the best of both worlds. They want the flexibility of being at home with no commute, and at the same time, they want the collaboration and socialization of the workplace. According to our survey, nearly all employees are interested in a blended arrangement of working from home and office, and forward-thinking companies are already beginning to reimagine ways of operating – with the help of technology – to create this optimal work environment.”
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As part of its global study conducted amid COVID-19, Smartway2 surveyed business decision-makers, primarily in facilities/corporate real estate, HR and IT to uncover sentiments about returning to work over the long term. Findings from the survey reveal:
- Employees find working from home falls short in key areas. Forty percent of workers miss the social interaction in the office, while 37% miss spontaneous collaboration and idea sharing. Respondents also feel effective collaboration in pairs or teams is lacking when working from home (12%) and think the home is not optimized for productivity (12%).
- Yet, they see some pluses to working from home. When it comes to the benefits of working from home, workers cited the flexibility in how they organize their time (45% percent), no commute (30%), fewer distractions (19%) and feeling comfortable (6%).
- Workers are looking for a hybrid work environment. Ninety-two percent of workers would opt to work from home and the office. Thirty-nine percent prefer working from home most of the time, with some time at the office; followed by those who want to spend equal time in each environment (32%), and those who want to work primarily from the office, with some time at home (21%). Only 6% percent of respondents would ideally like to work from home full time and 2% of employees would prefer to return to the office full time.
- The workplace environment is shifting. Seventy-eight percent of employees believe the pandemic has accelerated their organization’s plans to shift to more agile, flexible and autonomous work environments.
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