91% of employees would prefer the option to work remotely

Nine in ten (91%) employees would prefer to have the option to work remotely, according to research by Eskenzi PR.

Its Covid-19 Remote working survey asked 1,000 full-time employees in the UK how they would feel about returning to an office environment after the Coronavirus pandemic was over.

The report also found that a third (31%) of respondents would prefer to continue working from home every day or four days a week, a quarter (25%) would like to work from home one day a week, while over a third (35%) would prefer to work remotely two or three days a week.

The majority of respondents aged 23 to 34-years-old (93%) wanted to work from home and employees aged over 55 only appeared marginally keener to go into the office, with only 14% wanting to return to office working.

Just over a third (36%) of respondents said that they feel more productive working from home, 34% feel less stressed and over half (54%) believe that they waste their time commuting. A further 23% feel they are not being watched by their peers or managers.

Yvonne Eskenzi, founder at Eskenzi PR, said: “This survey shows that for the first time ever, people have had a taste of working from home and they love it because they’re more relaxed, they don’t need to travel and can spend time with their family and pets. Interestingly, a third of respondents think the ideal working week would be betters pent half at home and half in the office.

"We can only hope that this great remote working experiment has shown employers that their staff can be trusted to work just as productively from home; particularly as it also appears to have a positive impact on their wellbeing as well as the environment. This can also be good for business productivity and profitably, as they’ll need less office space with fewer people there 100% of the time."