March 13, 2020
Figures released today suggest that the UK is one of the least prepared countries to introduce a mass home-working strategy. Leesman has surveyed more than 700,000 employees worldwide. Of the 139,778 UK workers in its index, 55 percent have little or no experience working from home, compared with 52 percent of respondents globally. More →
May 17, 2019
There are 374,000 more employees working from home than 10 years ago, new TUC analysis published today to mark Work Wise UK’s National Work from Home Day implies. The analysis suggests a 27.7 percent increase in the number of homeworkers in the last decade. But not enough bosses are giving their workers the option of homeworking, which could help people to see more of their family and improve work-life balance. More →
December 7, 2017
Chilly offices mean that over half (57 percent) of office workers say they’d be more productive working from home when the weather gets colder. Their main reason is that too many workplaces (50 percent) do not handle weather complaints effectively. According to Office Genie’s survey of 1,105 British office workers, only 6 percent of employers encourage staff to work remotely in the colder weather. Bosses are also reluctant to let employees work flexibly instead of freeze, with only 16 percent of companies adopting flexible working patterns in the colder months. Even simple provisions such as supplying additional heaters are not in place in 70 percent of offices – failing to comply to the government’s Health and Safety Executive’s advice. Of the 1,105 office workers we surveyed, 50% said complaints about office temperatures aren’t dealt with effectively by management. And while HSE guidelines state workplaces shouldn’t dip below 16°C but when we asked workers their ideal office temperature, 20°C was the resounding answer.
September 14, 2017
The idea that the younger generation of workers would be big drivers behind a trend for home working is easily debunked as just another millennial myth. A sizeable number of people under 35 who struggle to buy or rent their own home would find the workplace much more appealing when faced with the prospect of working from cramped, often shared accommodation. Of nearly one-third (31.4 percent) of British office workers who avoid working from home, according to a survey by Crucial, those 45 years old and above have a significantly more positive view on the option than millennials (18- to 34-year-olds). While 40 percent of the 45 and above age group said nothing would keep them from working from home – only 11 percent of millennials felt the same way. The survey of 2,000 British office workers found that the most common reasons UK workers avoid working from home are the lack of human interaction (21 percent), the inability to connect to their company’s IT system (21 percent), having their children at home (18 percent) and a slow or old home PC (18 percent).
April 28, 2017
The UK’s appetite for remote and flexible working is being hampered by prohibitively slow broadband speeds and poor mobile coverage, according to new research from uSwitch.com. A quarter of employees (25 percent) have experienced issues with their telecoms services over the last year, resulting in a staggering four million being prevented from working from home. In the last 12 months, 43 percent of UK employees have worked from home at least once as people are taking advantage of the increasingly flexible work environments offered by businesses – a figure which rises to 55 percent amongst 18-34 year olds. Yet six in ten (58 percent) have fallen foul of sluggish internet speeds and patchy call quality in the last year alone. The problems have been so severe for half (46 percent) of those with issues that they believe they are no longer able to work from home while these problems persist.
November 29, 2016
Although the vast majority of British people who work from home need a fast internet connection, around a quarter of them are hampered by slow broadband, according to a new survey from comparison website Broadband Genie. The news comes on the day the Government finally announces that BT is to divest its Openreach arm which looks after the nation’s broadband infrastructure. The timing is welcome news for broadband users who have been frustrated for years by the UK’s second rate technological infrastructure. According to the Brodband Genie study the majority of people who work from home believe it has a positive impact on their happiness, work life balance, productivity and motivation. Yet while 90 percent rely on broadband in order to work from home almost a quarter of homeworkers are limited by slow connections.
September 7, 2016
It’s always good to see academic research supporting ideas that would appear pretty obvious but go against a widely accepted narrative. So we should all welcome the results of a new study from researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science, which found that the perceived benefits of working from home disappear over time for both employees and organisations when homeworking is a full-time arrangement. The report concludes that while previous studies have demonstrated how home workers are more productive than office-based workers, the LSE study of more than 500 employees shows that on a long term basis, there are no differences between home and office workers. The reason, according to Dr Esther Canonico from LSE’s Department of Management, the lead author of the report, is that employees no longer see home working as a discretionary benefit or a privilege when it becomes the norm in an organisation.
June 17, 2016
Most workers now look for flexibility in where and how they work finds a new survey from the British Council for Offices. But this doesn’t mean homeworking; as less than a third (28 percent) of workers now say they would prefer to work from home, a figure that has dropped from 45 percent in 2013, when the research from the BCO and Savills was last conducted. Over three-quarters of respondents (77 percent) said that they currently work in a traditional office, with the majority (60 percent) choosing to work from a dedicated workstation compared to only four percent that are asked to share desks with colleagues. This desire for a dedicated desk has increased over the past three years, rising from a figure of 41 percent in 2013; but despite demand for a dedicated desk, most workplaces (70 percent) now also include a communal environment to work from, providing a space for more dynamic working.
May 26, 2016
Flexible working may be growing in popularity among employees but there is evidence of a gap in expectations between employers and employees on where work should take place. A new report from Randstad found that only around a third of UK employees (35 percent) still want to work in the office every day of the week, with a majority (62 percent) wanting the option of working from home. Employers it seems feel very differently, as a report by Cornerstone OnDemand and IDC reveals that cultural attitudes are a major obstacle for the full acceptance of flexible ways of working, preventing employers from viewing it as a legitimate work practice. Two in five line managers (40 percent) admit that they do not want their employees to work from home, and crucially, even if a company facilitates remote working, bosses’ attitudes are keeping their employees in the office, with just 13 percent of employees actually choosing to work from home when given the option.
October 1, 2015
According to an analysis of the just-released 2014 American Community Survey (ACS) conducted by GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com, approximately 3.7 million US employees (2.5 percent of the workforce) called home their primary place of work in 2014. This represents a 6.5 percent increase and the largest year over year growth in the number of people working from home since before the recession. The ACS data is based on a nationwide survey of answers to the question “What was your primary means of travel to work during the survey week—’Worked at Home’ is one of the choices. The count only includes those who work at home at least half of the time. According to Global Workplace Analytics far more people work at home on a less frequent basis and many work in “third places” such as coffee shops, co-working facilities, libraries, and just about anywhere there’s an internet connection.
September 28, 2015
More and more British workers are working remotely, from home and other locations, but they are growing increasingly disconnected from their colleagues. Those are the findings of two studies into new ways of working conducted independently by Plantronics and Regus. According to the Plantronics survey of 2,500 staff, flexible working was given another boost over this Summer in response to the (intermittent) good weather and industrial action by London public transport staff. During August, more than half (55 percent) of the workforce chose to work from home or remotely more convenient to them, the audio communications firm’s study found. On the flipside, the survey of 4,000 workers by serviced office provider Regus claims that almost two-thirds of employees who work from home miss mixing with colleagues and can feel lonely as a result.
May 16, 2019
Working from home and the future of work. How quaint 0
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Property, Technology
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