Employees are taking advantage of having to work from home during the Corona virus: more time with the children, the opportunity to prepare a meal from scratch, no rush-hour commutes and - perhaps most importantly - being trusted by their bosses to do what’s required on the work front.
As many as 75 percent say they believe their manager trusts them to be productive from home and fewer than a third (31 percent) said their employer has enforced new processes to check up on their output, according to research commissioned by people analytics provider, Visier.
However almost half (47 percent) of the UK workers surveyed say their employers will probably ditch remote working and return to the status quo, reversing this positive change and reverting to their previous policies once the pandemic has passed.
The survey analysed the remote working experiences of more than 1,000 people who are either not normally allowed to work from home or who do so no more than once per week on average.
Results indicate that remote working has had a positive impact on staff who are working remotely for the first time. Nearly seven in ten workers (68 percent) feel they are either more productive or equally productive working at home, which is particularly significant given the unique challenges many workers face with juggling childcare and homeschooling.
The survey also found that 77 percent of employees feel that their employers are doing a good job handling the remote work transition while almost a third (31 percent) say that their work life balance has improved since isolation began.
Says Jan Schwarz, co-founder of Visier: “Covid-19 has prompted the world’s biggest home working experiment. Companies who may have resisted working from home previously have had their worlds turned upside down, yet managed to transform themselves overnight and tackle major cultural and technological obstacles.
“The worst thing that companies can do now is to ignore what they have learned about their workforces and how people feel about remote working. This means that there is a real opportunity for HR leaders to help businesses to continue their digital transformation, with a focus on listening to employee feedback and understanding how working from home can benefit everyone concerned.”