Employees want to work from home two days per week on average: Research

A quarter of people currently working remotely said they would prefer to continue working from home predominantly or fully once the coronavirus pandemic has ended. On average people want to work from home for 18 hours per week, accounting for just over two full working days, according to research by TNO.

The top two reasons given in support of working from home were the lack of a commute, and improved productivity. Those surveyed who do not work from home said the nature of their work prevented them from doing so.

Interestingly, a better work-life balance was mentioned by both remote and on-site workers to justify their preference. That most commonly occurred among survey respondents aged 30-49, often with children.

People who indicated they preferred to return to their office said they wanted to be able to work with other colleagues again, and to maintain social contact with them. Being more visible at their workspace and being able to improve their career prospects were also considered important.

The same research also showed that last month more than half of the employees worked entirely on location and 14% combined working from home with working on location. The other 35% of employees worked entirely from home.

When experiencing mild symptoms of Covid-19, 7 out of 10 people said that they often or always stayed at home. Roughly 13% indicated that they never stayed at home when they had symptoms of the disease. The fear of getting infected with coronavirus was highest among participants working in education (31%).

Additionally, about 1 in 5 employees working on location think they have been infected with coronavirus in the past year, and more than seven percent who commute to work daily think they contracted coronavirus at work.