Data and links to understand Work Reinvented

Over the last few weeks dozens of people have got in touch with me. ‘I know that you’re saying that the world has changed its views and home-working is here to stay, but my boss doesn’t agree and we’re going back 5 days a week when the vaccines drop’. They normally sign off with something like, ‘Please! What can I send them to make them change their mind?’ I understand the feeling, when I wrote my book I felt there was so much benefit from working in close proximity to colleagues ‘sync’ that remote working all the time would be a bad step.

This page just gives some of the evidence that might help any of us realise that the world has changed.

• [Feb 2021] FT: 65% of workers say their mental health has suffered since Coronavirus
• [Jan 2021] 75% of workers say they’d give up salary to work from home
• [Jan 2021] FT: 50% of UK firms plan to cut office space (if link doesn’t work searching for the headline normally gets FT articles for free)
• Majority of workers want 2 day a week at home in the future (26% want to work at home full time)
• Leesman have published a full analysis into home working (all age groups prefer it)
• 86% of bosses believe home-working is here to stay
• Nice, 69% of CEOs say they plan to downsize the size of the office – and they believe remote working has actually improved communication
• BP have said they plan to halve their office footprint around the world
• A great, detailed study into remote working and productivity. Findings: 88% of those who have worked from home through the coronatimes want to continue in some capacity, an eighth of workers (13%) want to work at home all of the time. 70% of workers say they got more done at home (reminder that the context of this is that many people were additionally dealing with children at home)
• Home-working is more efficient: Home working achieves 16 days more productivity per year than office working
• Resisting home-working will quickly make it difficult to hire the best people: 3/4 of US bosses accept that home-working is now inevitable
• Most people say they feel more effective working from home

There’s lots of evidence that workers won’t accept going back to a 5 day commute:

• 1500 people survey – 98.5% of people don’t want to go back to the office full-time
• 6000 people survey – “75% don’t want to go back”
• 2000 people – 57% don’t want to go back to their old hours (more on the same survey)
• 100 firm survey

And faced with all of this evidence more and more firms are announcing they recognise that a mixed economy of remote and office based working is the right solution:

• PWC & Shroeders say remote is here to stay

What could come after this? We’re likely to see the hotelification of office space. Smaller offices set for specific purposes.

Check out the latest @Leesman_Index home working experience stats (and the office-based figures if you’re after comparisons). Heaps at https://t.co/dL7xH01aRF (based on 50,000 employee responses, next data release 15.09.20 looking at ~125,000 respondents). 🙌 pic.twitter.com/Eei0enFNVj

— Esme Banks Marr (@EsmeBanksMarr) August 28, 2020