Majority of office workers want to continue working from home

As many as 97% of employees who are working from home have said that they would prefer to keep working remotely, even when their offices are open.

The research from Nyenrode Business University, Open University and Moneypenny, revealed that nine per cent of those surveyed want to keep working from home full-time, while 88% would prefer a hybrid 50-50 model.

Although many workers are still missing real life formal and informal contact moments with colleagues, this number has not increased since November.

In fact, many employees are becoming concerned about the possible obligation of having to be physically present in the office again, especially to sit in on meetings.

Dr. Martine Coun from the Open University, commented, “From the three psychological basic human needs – autonomy, competence and connection – the latter is most under pressure when people work home for such a long period of time as during the corona crisis.”

Susan Smulders, homework expert at Moneypenny, added, “Employees who are working from home seem to accept the fact that going into the office is not an option right now and have developed work and communication patterns they resign in. Early in the second lockdown, we saw the social cohesion figures in our research decline fast.

“Most people had managed working from home at that point, but the lack of contact put a strain on the cohesion within teams which was felt strongly. People also indicated to experience less work pleasure. Now we see a stabilization. We still miss each other, but it has not worsened in comparison to back in November. In fact, work pleasure has even made some sort of a comeback. On the one hand this can be explained by the fact that we are ‘tired and done fighting’, but also because we see some light at the end of the tunnel.”

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