Employee Benefits poll: More than half (52%) of respondents provide portable technology in order to encourage employees to work from home.
A straw poll of www.employeebenefits.co.uk readers, which received 58 responses, also found that almost two-fifths (38%) of organisations do not encourage home working at all.
In comparison, 5% of employers have an official home working policy, while 3% advertise it at the recruitment stage and 2% utilise senior role models to promote home working arrangements.
Research by job listing website Monster.co.uk, published in April 2019, found that 47% of employees’ workplaces do not have an official policy on working from home.
The survey of 5,500 staff members confirmed that 59% of employees believe they are more productive when they work from home, with 46% saying they prefer this to being in their place of work. Furthermore, 26% would not accept a job if it did not allow the opportunity to work from home.
Three in 10 (30%) agreed that time saved on commuting is the most important benefit of home working, while 22% said working from home improves their work-life balance and 14% stated that it bolsters their productivity. More than one in 10 (11%) agreed that the most important benefit of working from home is stress reduction, while 9% value the money saved by not commuting.
Despite this, 15% of the survey’s respondents are concerned about colleagues judging them for being out of the office, while 11% worry that they are less likely to be considered for promotions if they work from home. Linked to this, a third (33%) admitted that they like working from home, but only on a part-time basis.