Work from home still popular; 20% don't have firm agreements about it: TNO

One in three Dutch people still regularly work from home. This mainly concerns hybrid working, a mix of home and office, This was reported by the knowledge institute TNO, which conducted research among 6000 workers in the Netherlands.

Almost 2 in 3 employees will be working entirely on location by mid-2023. By mid-2023, 65 percent of employees worked on-site every day, a decrease from 71 percent before the pandemic. While most employees combined on-site and remote work in 2023, only 6 percent worked exclusively from home.

The number of hours working from home has risen sharply: from an average of 2.6 hours per week in 2019 to almost 7 hours per week in mid-2023. According to TNO, this means that more employees began working from home by 2023, but also that those who were already working remotely before the pandemic increased their home-working hours.

One-third of employees indicated they can decide where or when they work, yet not all have formal arrangements in place. For 20 percent of them, no hybrid working agreements exist. Almost half of them have informal agreements, often in consultation with their manager, while in one-third of the cases, hybrid working terms are formally recorded.

Remote work often leads to decreased physical activity. Average daily screen time increased from 4.6 hours in 2019 to 5.6 hours in 2023. TNO also reported that 7 percent of workers are grappling with long Covid. The most commonly reported symptom is fatigue (72 percent), followed by concentration problems (48 percent) and memory issues (41 percent). The percentage of employees with post-Covid symptoms is highest among those working full-time on-site.