According to new research from Atlas Cloud, an IT services company, 49 per cent of office workers - equivalent to 7.42 million - would look for a new job with a different company if they are not allowed to work in their preferred locations after the lockdown finishes.
Recent ONS statistics show that 46.6 per cent of employees worked from home during 2020 and by June 2021 many of them will have done that for over a year, since the first lockdown commenced in March 2020.
Employer preferences show, however, that 8.7 million people - or 57 per cent - of current home workers are not expected to be able to work in the way they wish and based on the research results, it is predicted that approximately 4.65 million employees will soon be searching for a new job - as of the employees surveyed - only 11 per cent believed that they would be given an option.
It was found that two-thirds of workers wish to undertake hybrid working, a combination of home and office, but only 44 per cent envisage their employer sanctioning that.
Of office workers surveyed 48 per cent stated that they had exclusive access to workspace in their home - space that is dedicated to work only; 33 per cent share their space with at least one other person and 19 per cent have no dedicated workspace at all.
Regarding expenses, it was found that £215.55 has been spent on furniture and technology for home workstations and 63 per cent of home workers stated that their household bills had increased as a result of home working. However, commuting costs of approximately £105.67 per month were saved, giving office workers an average saving of £1,268 per annum whilst working from home between March 2020 and February 2021.
After the pandemic, 7 per cent of employees want to be based in the office full-time, whilst 29 per cent want to work from home full-time, with 51 per cent saying they would consider using remote working hubs nearer to home, if made available by employers.
Seventy-three per cent of employees reported that being given the opportunity to work from home was beneficial to their mental health, with the best aspects being given as time saved from commuting; safety whilst working from home and an improved life balance. Some, however, cited both isolation and distractions as the top challenges they had to meet.
Pete Watson, CEO of Atlas Cloud, said:
“The pandemic has expedited the biggest change in working patterns that the world has ever seen. Throughout the past year, we have invested in multiple pieces of research to truly understand the opportunities and challenges businesses are experiencing at this historical turning point. The most striking and consistent finding throughout each lockdown has been that employees do not want to go back to the traditional full-time office arrangement – but they don’t want to lose offices as a working environment and place to meet with colleagues, either. Instead, the findings point again to the future of hybrid working – a blend of office, remote, and home working. With the health crisis ongoing, it is impossible for any business to truly implement hybrid working, because a key factor is giving employees the choice to work from where is most convenient, comfortable, and productive for them, and right now we are all under Government guidance to work from home where possible. This unfortunately makes it more difficult to overcome the difficulties faced by those working at home – isolation, for example, was highlighted as a key issue in this study. However, companies should now be building agility and flexibility into their workplace policies, to avoid being left behind when hybrid working becomes the norm. These findings clearly show that any business refusing to take employee preferences into account are at risk of losing staff and will likely struggle to attract the best talent to replace them. Businesses must consider how much they value strict traditional working patterns over the benefits of a hybrid working model, which can boost efficiency, productivity, recruitment and retention, and importantly, staff wellbeing. Coronavirus has been a challenging time for many and has put into perspective for us just how crucial wellbeing is for a thriving society. Now more than ever, we need to seize this opportunity to embrace hybrid working and create a better work-life balance for millions of people.”
