Only 10 percent of home-based workers want to return to office full time: FNV

Only 10 percent of employees want to return to the office full-time after the coronavirus pandemic, a poll by trade union FNV showed. 70% of those surveyed indicated they would prefer to work in a hybrid regime of partly at home and partly at the office in the future.

20 percent of the respondents stated they wouldn’t want to return to their physical workplace at all after the crisis but rather carry on working from home.

Some 5300 people in total participated in the poll. The survey only included those who were able to do their jobs from home. From this week, the government's advice to work from home was lifted and replaced with the advice to spend up to 50% of the work week in the office.

"About half of the working population was able to work from home during the corona pandemic. These members are anything but tired of working from home, three in five are even more positive about it than a year ago," said FNV chair Kitty Jong.

Respondents commonly answered that they preferred working from home for daily work. The office, on the other hand, was more suitable for activities such as team meetings, consultation, contact with colleagues, training courses, presentations, and the induction of new colleagues, they said.

"We do see that the vast majority of people want a variety of working from home and working at the office. We would therefore like to make agreements about this," said Jong.

Furthermore, it appeared that almost a third of employees have no say in where they work. More than a third have very little control over it and only 35% are fully able to express their preference.

63% of poll participants therefore advocated for a stronger position for employees to determine where they work, which they think should be regulated by law.