In data: working from home

Before: the daily grind

“Pre-lockdown, over half of respondents to our survey said they worked predominantly from the office,” said Pete Watson, CEO of Atlas Cloud, who conducted a survey of over 2,900 workers during the first lockdown. A majority also cited company policy as being the primary obstacle to home working.

During: time on our hands

Cutting out the commute has seen erstwhile office workers regain substantial time. But as well as increased leisure, employees turned out to be willing to give back a chunk of this “bonus” time for work.

After: out of the office for good?

Priorities have shifted. Respondents still rank salary as the top criteria for picking a job, but the remote option jumps in at second place post-lockdown, overtaking flexible working and knocking commuting time out of the top three. If employers are enjoying that “free time” just as much, the change could stick.

Source: “Get Hybrid Working Done” published by Atlas Cloud, 2020. Based on a survey of 2,949 consisting of UK employees over the age of 17 that had worked from home during the coronavirus lockdown. The margin of sampling error is +/-2 percentage points, giving a confidence level of 95%. Where scaling/ranking were not used, all responses were randomised to minimise bias