Most of the Employees do not Want to Go Back to the Office Full-Time After the Quarantine

Even if companies reopen, it is by no means a matter of course to get employees back to work.

Although the British government has taken small steps to reopen offices to ease the lockdown rules imposed by the coronavirus crisis, official guidelines still begin firmly with the recommendation that people should "work from home if they can". This suits the country's workforce: a strong 75% of UK employees have reported that they do not want to go back to the office full-time.

A new report conducted by access management company Okta among 6,000 office workers across Europe found that only one in four UK respondents is interested in returning to work five days a week.

However, only a minority of employees want full remote working arrangements (17%). The ideal scenario is more of a flexible model where employees could work from home on a part-time basis.

EMEA at Okta, the company has been testing an initiative for "dynamic work", which is a hybrid between distance and office work. Before the pandemic, employees in Okta's London office stayed at home by default and reserved their desk via an app when they wanted to come into the office. In fact, the company's building only provides space for about two-thirds of the employees.

Initially, many people remained attached to the workplace, but as soon as they entered it, they realised that it worked quite well. It became a confirmation that dynamic work is a good idea. Workers want the flexibility to choose the option that suits them best.

Shorter commuting times, less office distractions and in some cases even the prospect of moving further away from the workplace and into less crowded areas obviously convinces many employees, or so it seems.

In fact, remote working does serve some workers well: Okta's research showed that of those respondents who reported that they were "thriving" in their new environment, just over half indicated that their productivity was increased by additional free time during the day. Fewer distractions at home also meant that some workers were able to concentrate better on their work.

Working from home is in some cases associated with less intensive work and lack of supervision, but this view is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Forced to move their employees to distance work, employers have realised that remote work is no excuse for being less productive - at least in the eyes of their employees. More than a third of UK workers reported that the perception of workers not doing enough work from home had improved.

It's not just a perception: a recent survey conducted by the consulting firm Valoir showed that COVID-19-related remote working had only a minor negative impact on productivity. According to the report, labour productivity has decreased by only 1% on average in recent months. However, the figure doubles to 2% for those who work from home with children and jumps to 3% for those who work alone.

How well employees cope with the sudden switch to remote working depends largely on the context. Okta's research found that a number of respondents indicated that they were unable to work well while sharing space and caring for children, for example. In large cities like London, cramped housing and lack of outdoor space can quickly make teleworking claustrophobic and unproductive.

In addition, some workers find it more difficult to achieve a work-life balance when work and life take place in the same space. A separate study by cloud communications provider 8x8 found that almost half of UK employees felt more stressed than in the office and found it difficult to "pull the plug" as the line between office and home life is blurring due to digital overload. A number of respondents (18%) even said that they had been working longer hours since switching to telework.

In many ways, the difficulties some workers have had in adjusting to telework are due to a lack of preparation. More than half of UK workers had never worked from home before the pandemic, and some companies were struggling to provide them with the right tools to carry out their work efficiently.

For example, one in three respondents said that their company did not provide them with the necessary hardware, such as a laptop or a place to put it, and a similar proportion said that at the start of the pandemic they did not have access to essential software and therefore could not work productively from home.

However, the biggest hurdle was cultural. While the majority of employees say they are completely comfortable with virtual meetings, most also feel that communication and collaboration with colleagues has been impaired since the lockdown. For example, almost 60% of the UK employees surveyed by Okta miss face-to-face meetings with their colleagues.

While only a minority of employees would like to return to the office full-time, an equally small proportion would choose to work in a completely remote location. Companies will have to show flexibility to meet the varying needs of their employees when workplaces are reopened.

For Oktas the solution is a mixture of remote and on-site use. He sees the office of the future as a nice place to turn to, but with good reason: you have a meeting, you need advice and so on. It will not be a place you commute to every day.

Facebook recently told employees that most of them could continue working from home until the end of the year - an example followed by real estate company Zillow and insurance provider Sagicor. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, for his part, has already announced that the company's employees would be given the opportunity to continue working remotely on a permanent basis once the offices are fully reopened.

Okta has no plans to return to the office "in the foreseeable future". Although the company's building could be opened if the government gives the green light to the companies, the employees are not expected to return. It will be very difficult for companies to commute five days a week again. They cannot reverse this experiment.

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