Although lockdown threw some major curveballs our way, the business world just kept on turning. We traded our suits and ties for jogging bottoms and slouchy t-shirts, overcame technical difficulties such as finding a room in the house where your children couldn’t be heard screaming and yet still managed to get all our work done (ish). But is this going to be the new normal for businesses across the world? Or will we simply go back to our morning commutes and desks?
According to Buffer, in the US 90% of remote workers plan on working remotely for the rest of their careers. Although 21% of workers say that their biggest struggle with working from home is loneliness and another 21% said that they struggled with communication and collaboration within their business [Buffer].
Saying that, 75% of workers said that they work far more productively from home as opposed to an office [FlexJobs]. The ‘WFH’ movement has been particularly popular with millennials with 77% of them saying that flexible work boosts their productivity [Regus]. As well as this a total of 2/3 employers reported increased productivity with their remote workers compared to their in-office workers [TECLA].
So there appears to be two sides to this coin, one side saying they enjoy working from home with their productivity increasing and the other side claiming that this new working environment is causing them social problems as well as negatively impacting their mental health. What do you think?