If the big surprise for employers in the first half of 2020 was how entire workforces successfully embraced working from home amid an unprecedented crisis, the lesson of the second half has been how many wish to continue doing so when life returns to normal.
Some companies almost intuitively grasped the seismic change occurring (Twitter led the way in May when it said employees could work from home ‘forever’), but others appear to have been in circling mode until a more solid evidence base accrued. A raft of recent surveys, both nationally and internationally, is now bringing the landing zone into sight, and confirms a fundamental shift in employee thinking and expectations.
While the end of the office is far from nigh, and employees are acutely aware of downsides to working from home, flexibility and the ‘hybrid solution’ look set to become as standard to future working conditions as holiday and sick pay currently are.
More productive
Setting the framework for long-term change, a Korn Ferry survey of global professionals in October found that 58% of respondents think they are more productive when working virtually, even with the distractions of a spouse and children taken into account. While a similar percentage (57%) reckon that camaraderie with colleagues is what they most look forward to when they do return to the office, a striking 23% say there is no aspect of office life they miss. Reflecting the change wrought in just six months, only 14% expect a return to the office on an everyday basis to be mandatory.
Also released in October, a survey from EU agency Eurofound identified Ireland as having one of the highest rates of employees working exclusively from home in the EU during the pandemic, at 47%. Only Belgium, at 52%, ranked higher.
While the relative smoothness of the mass transition to working from home has often been commented on, the Eurofound survey also indicates the role that employee forbearance has played in this. Only 47% of respondents say their employer supplied them with all the necessary equipment to do work from home.
Life decisions
Such quibbles aside, a closer look at the Irish experience indicates not only that a majority have adapted well but that a sizable number are already making long-term decisions that pin their future on remote working.
A report from the Whitaker Institute at NUI Galway and the Western Development Commission gathered responses from more than 5,600 employees six months after lockdown. It found a whopping 94% in favour of working from home on an ongoing basis. Of these, 54% say they would like to work remotely several times a week while 27% would choose it a full five days a week. The 27% figure is more than double the 12% who expressed such a preference in a similar survey in April.
In Ireland, a sizable number of employees are already making long-term decisions that pin their future on remote working
The survey also threw light on the extent to which working from home is already informing major life decisions. Almost a quarter (23%) of respondents say they would now consider relocating within Ireland based on their experience during the pandemic. Perhaps more surprisingly, 7% say they have already done so, with the west, south-west and mid-west being the beneficiaries of these moves.
Against that, just over half (54%) of respondents say they would not consider relocating. Professor Alma McCarthy of the JE Cairnes School of Business and Economics at NUI Galway, says the findings point to ‘resounding demand from employees to continue to work remotely post-crisis’, adding that this ‘presents a game-changer for how many organisations will manage their workforce into the future’.
While such surveys provide evidence of changed employee expectations, many also shed light on the downsides of working from home. The NUI Galway/Western Development Commission survey found loneliness and isolation, staying motivated, and difficulties with the physical workspace to be the main challenges identified by employees.
Those findings are in line with an October survey of workers in the US, UK and EU by HP, which reported a third of employees feeling that remote working has lowered their morale while less than a quarter think they have received adequate guidance from their employer on working from home. Nevertheless, the HP research, like others, found respondents fundamentally positive about the future of their work environments.
Getting the message
The tánaiste and enterprise minister, Leo Varadkar, was speaking to those changing expectations in October, when he said the government was ‘working out the architecture’ to give people the legal right to request remote working. Although he clarified that the right to request doesn’t mean that permission must be given, the move provides further evidence of the ball moving to the employer’s court.
Workers in Ireland will be happy to see evidence their leadership is getting the message clearer than most. A survey by PwC in September found that 43% of Irish CEOs put the flexibility of their workforce, in terms of working remotely, as one of their top two priorities, as against 29% internationally.
Meanwhile, the financial savings that may accrue to companies from increased working from home were brought into focus by a survey of 400 accounting and finance executives by US-based LeaseQuery. It found that 66% of respondents put cost optimisation as their accounting and finance department’s key priority for 2021, followed closely by greater flexibility (63%).
All of this makes the move to the virtual a virtual certainty, but while mass home-working has survived an extraordinary stress test, it’s worth remembering the much vaunted hybrid approach remains an untested aspiration. The question of the enduring value of the office environment to career advancement and business success is effectively impossible to answer adequately until the current crisis recedes. While there is no going back, only the bravest would say we are certain as to where exactly we are heading.
