There are key demographic differences between workers whose jobs can and cannot be done from home. Among those who say the responsibilities of their job can mainly be done from home, some groups are teleworking more frequently than others.
survey on working from home
College graduates with jobs that can be done from home (65%) are more likely than those without a four-year college degree (53%) to say they are working from home all or most of the time. And higher shares of upper-income workers (67%) are working from home compared with middle- (56%) and lower-income (53%) workers.
The reasons workers give for working from home when they could otherwise go into their workplace have changed considerably from October 2020. Today, a preference for working from home is driving these decisions rather than concerns about the coronavirus. Fully 76% of workers who indicate that their workplace is available to them say a major reason why they are currently teleworking all or most of the time is that they prefer working from home. An additional 17% say this is a minor reason why they are working from home, and 7% say this is not a reason. The share citing this as a major reason is up significantly from 60% in 2020.
A smaller but growing share of workers (17%) say relocation to an area away from their workplace, either permanently or temporarily, is a major reason why they are working from home. An additional 8% say this is a minor reason they are working from home, and 75% say this is not a reason.
Among teleworking parents whose workplaces are open and who have at least one child younger than 18, 32% say child care is a major reason why they are working from home all or most of the time, down from 45% in October 2020. Some (15%) say a major reason why they are currently working from home is that there are restrictions on when they can have access to their workplace, similar to the share who said this in 2020 (14%).
When it comes to having more opportunities to advance at work if they are there in person or feeling pressure from supervisors or co-workers to be in the office, large majorities say these are not reasons why they rarely or never work from home. Only 14% point to opportunities for advancement as a major reason and 9% cite pressure from their colleagues.
For those new to working from home, the pandemic-related shift to telework has changed some things while leaving others relatively the same. For example, among employed adults whose job can be done from home and who are currently working from home at least some of the time but rarely or never did before the pandemic, 64% say working from home has made it easier to balance work and their personal life. Two-in-ten of these adults say balancing work and their personal life is about the same, and 16% say it is harder.
Most workers new to telework (72%) say their ability to advance at work while working from home is about the same as it was before. Fewer than one-in-five say working from home has made it easier or harder to advance.
Assessments of how working from home has changed some elements of work life vary by gender. Women are about twice as likely as men to say working from home has made it easier to advance in their job (19% vs. 9%). And while about half of women who are new to telework (51%) say working from home has made it easier to get their work done and meet deadlines, 37% of men say the same. Men and women are about equally likely to say working from home has made it easier for them to balance work and their personal life.
About a quarter of workers who are not working exclusively from home and who have at least some in-person interactions at work (26%) say they are more concerned about being exposed to the coronavirus at work than they were before the omicron variant started to spread in the U.S. in December 2021. The same share (26%) say they are now less concerned than they were before the new variant started to spread. About half (48%) say they are about as concerned as they were before.
Most workers who are not exclusively working from home (77%) say they are at least somewhat satisfied with the measures their workplace has put in place to protect them from coronavirus exposure, but just 36% say they are very satisfied. These assessments vary considerably by race and ethnicity, income and age.
About one-in-five workers who are not working exclusively from home (22%) say their employer has required employees to get a COVID-19 vaccine. About three-quarters (77%) say their employer has not required vaccination (47% say their employer has encouraged it and 30% say they have not).
Views on COVID-19 vaccination requirements vary widely along party lines. Some 47% of Democrats and Democratic leaners who are not exclusively working from home think their employer should require employees to get a vaccine, compared with just 10% of Republican and Republican-leaning workers. In turn, 53% of Republicans say their employer should neither require nor encourage employees to get vaccinated; only 10% of Democrats say the same.
Abstract:The virtual way of working is becoming increasingly popular due to its potential for cost savings; it is also a way for an organization to be more agile and adapt to crises such as global pandemics. This innovative way of working brings new challenges to organizations that suddenly have to switch to telework. In fact, telework raises quite a few issues for employees, related to communication, collaboration, and the application of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies). This study examined the evaluation of telework through a questionnaire by different conditional groups of 436 teleworkers in Lithuania. Through a correlation analysis between the study variables, the findings suggest that there are differences in the evaluation of factors affecting telework efficiency and qualities required from a remote worker, depending on gender, age, education, work experience, and experience of telework. The results are discussed in terms of the characteristics of the most satisfied and the most dissatisfied teleworkers.Keywords: teleworking; telecommuting; application of ICT; human resources; COVID-19 quarantine period
Fully remote work arrangements are expected to continue decreasing from three in 10 remote-capable employees in June, down to two in 10 for the long term, despite 34% wanting to permanently work from home.
Fully on-site work is expected to remain a relic of the past with only two in 10 remote-capable employees currently working entirely on-site and about the same number expecting to be entirely on-site in the future -- down from a whopping 60% in 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a large and lasting shift to working from home among educated workers around the world, finds a new survey presented at the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) conference on September 9.
Workers report that their employers plan an average of 0.7 work-from-home days per week after the pandemic ends. The paper cites several reasons why working from home ultimately will settle at higher levels than suggested by the survey, including separate U.S. data showing a steady rise in work-from-home plans since early 2021 and a surge in patent applications for technologies that support remote work.
These preference differences present employers with important strategic choices, the authors write. By accommodating a range of preferences around working from home, employers can broaden their recruitment pools, reduce turnover, and moderate employee compensation. But, they note, that comes at the cost of greater operational complexity and less in-person communication and collaboration. Returning to five days a week onsite for all employees (as at Tesla) or moving to a remote-first policy (as at Yelp) involve distinct costs and benefits.
The paper cautions against government policies that push employers to offer work from home (as proposed in the Netherlands) and also against policies that make it costlier to work from home (as in Mexico).
Even though only 44% said they preferred to work at home, a whopping 89% of those surveyed still thought that most of their colleagues wanted to remain in a WFH situation. That percentage was virtually unchanged from 2021.
And finally, 54% of our 2022 survey-takers said that they would prefer a 4-day workweek in the office over a fully remote 5-day workweek at home. While remote working is great, a 4-day week looks really enticing to workers even if they have to be in the office to achieve it.
Some companies have threatened pay cuts for those that refused to return to the office. In 2021, 61% of our survey-takers said they would take a pay cut to maintain remote working status. This dropped quite a bit in 2022, as just 45% said they would take a pay cut for remote work.
Even if pay cuts for remote working did not materialize, 84% of American workers surveyed think that they might be overlooked for promotions and pay raises in favor of people who worked in the office. This was certainly an overwhelming concern among American workers.
That said, a lot of interaction and socialization occurs at the office. During the pandemic when most everyone was working remotely, tedious Zoom interactions and mandatory employee engagement activities were the rule. Now, in 2022, 59% of remote workers worried or were at least undecided as to whether they would be excluded from important team meetings and projects if they worked remotely rather than in the office. 41%, however, did not have the fear of missing out.
Respondents indicate a clear financial motive in working remotely, with the largest group of remote workers (30%) reporting savings of as much as $5,240 per year simply accounting for expenses. Half of the remote workers surveyed also say being able to work remotely at least some of the time makes them much more likely to stay with the company.
What employees say they require has changed over the course of the pandemic. In the JLL survey of 3,300 employees conducted in March, people said they want to work from home 1.5 days a week. This was down from 2 days in a similar JLL survey conducted last April. 2ff7e9595c
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