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Only 19% of companies are planning on resuming in-person operations come fall of 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. 22% of Canadians want to work from home entirely while 40% want a hybrid model that would allow them to blend in-person and remote working. However, studies show that these breaks lead to higher rates of productivity. 81% said they felt well-paid versus 75% of those who still report to work. 66% said they have good or excellent career advancement opportunities versus 58%. And 54% said their contributions at work are more valued by colleagues versus 48%. When 3.9 million employees work from home at least half the time, they reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of taking more than 600,000 cars off the road for an entire year.
Employees that have gone remote full-time make up 18% of the global workforce and in the US that number is 4.3%, which is around 4.3 million people. However, while remote work is expanding, up to 44% of companies do not allow their employees to work remotely.
Instead of being stuck in traffic, they can use this time productively around the house. This, in turn, reduces stress and has a positive effect on workers’ general health. According to data from Owl Labs’ 2017 State of Remote Work report, companies that support remote work lost 9% of their employees, compared to 12% in companies that don’t. This may seem like a small difference right now but it’s a clear indicator of the correlation between these two factors. As more and more companies begin to offer remote work as an option, employee satisfaction and loyalty will increase.
All of this is due to having to spend less on commuting, eating at home, and more. Not having a centralized office can make simple communication between remote work statistics employees far more challenging. If this overlaps with the issues seen from the remote work isolation statistics above, there is cause for concern.
This also implies that telecommuting is becoming more popular even in various industries across the globe. Employees are willing to make certain sacrifices if they are given the flexibility to work from home. Meanwhile, 16% of workers are even willing to give up retirement contributions by the employer. This can be a win-win situation as the employer gets to save money. With more companies embracing these remote work trends, we expect a complete transformation of the work landscape in the not-too-distant future. CNBC reports that remote workers are more satisfied with their jobs compared to in-office employees. 57% of the remote workforce said they are very satisfied with their job while only 50% of office workers said the same.
Working remotely isn’t just a practical thing, remote work is part of employees’ identities now. When hiring for important roles, don’t close your mind to employees who work remotely, or remote advocates will close their minds to you. The remote work market is booming, with 56% of respondents saying they worked remotely for less than a year, 21% for less than five years, and 14% for less than ten years. If you’re not already offering some form of remote work or flexible working, you absolutely should be. As working remotely becomes the norm, you don’t want to get left behind vs. your competition. Figures show that adapting remote work arrangements has direct financial advantages and savings for companies.
As a result of our digging into the environmental impact of working from home, we uncovered these surprising facts. It would also reduce the amount of oil we use by 640 million barrels and cut emissions by 54 million tons of greenhouse gas. We took a look at what causes stress in the workplace and found that an employee’s personality traits can affect their stress level when working remote. Regardless, results from numerous studies looking into employees who work from home don’t lie. Let’s take a look at more working from home statistics related to productivity. Old thinking believes that employees must be in the office to be productive, but this mentality disregards the distractions that an office environment comes with. Socializing, unnecessarily long meetings and loud colleagues can slow down a productive employee.
56% of FlexJobs respondents say flexibility in their workday is the top way workplaces can better support employee health and wellness. FlexJobs surveyfound 58% of respondents would “absolutely” look for new work if they couldn’t continue working remotely. 42% of employees with the option to work remotely plan on doing so more often in the next five years.
In March 2020, daily traffic to the Zoom.us download page increased by 535%. The shift to remote work temporarily reduced carbon emissions by 17%. This is significant because one in four respondents said that they had to quit a job at one point because of the long commutes to work.