money Almost one in four want to work from home forever
Almost one in four workers hope never to set foot in the office again, with 7.5m people keen to permanently work from home every day of the week.
At the same time slightly more (28pc) are desperate to get back and hope never to have to turn their kitchen or spare bedroom into a home office, according to a new survey by Deloitte.
It underlines the stark split in the nation’s workforce, divided by their experiences of lockdown and their hopes for the future.
Just over two-fifths (42pc) want a balance between the extremes, with at least two days at home each week.
Most under-35s find home working challenging, indicating the difficulties involved in a short-term pandemic measure becoming a permanent state of affairs.
Will Gosling of Deloitte said: “Those coming into the workforce, in their early careers, are sponges. They can learn technical stuff anywhere, but what gives them the edge and what makes work interesting and exciting is the stuff you cannot learn in a textbook or an online course.
“It is how people work and interact. It is observing how more experienced people handle different situations. You cannot teach that directly. People in the early stages of their career know that, and they are yearning for it.”
Two-fifths of workers said they were more efficient at home, while a third were more relaxed. Just over 40pc said they like not having to commute, as it gave them more time and reduced costs.
On the downside, almost a third of under-35s said they did not feel confident using technology in their jobs, compared with a fifth of all workers, indicating youth was no guarantee of a seamless shift to digital home working.
Split working will pose challenges for managers who need to get used to a long-term change in how to get the best out of their staff.
“We have years of ingrained behaviour of presenteeism, associating performance with being present, and hard, heroic work,” said Mr Gosling.
“In this new world there is much more emphasis on creating the conditions for people to be successful wherever they are and judging them on the outcome. That is quite a mindset shift for managers.”
There was a “hierarchical tension” between workers happy to stay at home and some bosses who want to want to be able to “check up” on their charges, he said, which needed to be addressed in this new world of flexible work.
“You are starting to see some big pronouncements made about the future of work quite early on in the pandemic, about shutting offices or moving to remote working, being wound back. Shareholders are starting to express some nervousness about how the workforce will be managed to maximise the opportunity of this upturn, and if everyone is working whenever they want and wherever they want, there is a fear that performance may not hold up.”
Figures from the ONS indicate almost half 49pc of business workers are at their usual place of work, while 53pc travelled to a workplace in the second week of April. Meanwhile, 17pc are still on furlough, with their own future work prospects still uncertain.
