THE WORK-FROM-HOME SURVEY RESULTS ARE IN!
We can help you emerge from this extraordinary time with new insights, practices, and approaches for the future of work. Let us help you:
- Survey your workforce to get data-based insights, similar to those we uncovered in the Global Work-from-Home Experience Survey, you need to create a sound remote work strategy and back-to-office plan
- Improve employee productivity and performance when they are working from home
- Formalize your remote work program, policies, and practices
- Quantify the employer, employee, and environmental impact of your remote work program
- Integrate remote work into your real estate, HR, IT, Risk Management, and Sustainability strategies
- Optimize your real estate footprint with a hybrid remote/on-site work model
- Help you develop a return to work strategy
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About the Global Work-from-Home Experience Survey
Nearly 3,000 employees responded to the Global Work-from-Home Experience Survey between March 30th and April 24th, 2020 making it one of the largest global post-COVID employee survey to date. It has revealed:
- 73% say they are very successful working from home (68% globally).
- 97% of North American office workers worked from home >1 day/week during the pandemic (88% globally); 67% had not worked remotely on a regular basis before COVID-19 (69% globally).
- People feel they perform equally well at home as they do in the office (70% are satisfied in both places) in both solo and group work, but they are more satisfied collaborating in person.
- 78% North American office workers say they have the resources they need to be successful at home (72% globally). They are most successful when they have the tools, skills, and resources they need and they have a good place to work at home.
- Managers are just as satisfied with work performance as employees (70% report the same or better results), but remote management and collaboration skills should be a focus for improvement.
- Only 19% in North America want to say goodbye to the office forever (16% globally), with most preferring a bit of both. Half of the time in each place seems to be the sweet spot in the U.S. and slightly less in Europe.
- 86% of respondents feel fully productive at home (77% globally). They gain back 35 minutes a day due to fewer unwanted interruptions (43 minutes/day at home vs 78 minutes/day in the office both globally and in N.A.).
- When working alone, which accounts for 58% of an average worker’s day (57% globally), employees say they are productive 75% of the time at home, compared to only 62% of the time at the office.
- When working with others, which accounts for 43% of a worker’s day, employees say they are equally productive at home versus in the office (61% vs. 60% of the time respectively), but they are more satisfied when collaborating in person (63% satisfied with collaborating at home vs. 90% at the office). (60% vs 87% globally).
- 77% are satisfied with the flexibility they have working at home; 69% are satisfied with their well-being.
- 76% of global employees want to continue working from home. On average their preference is for 2.5 days a week in the U.S. (2 days/week globally).
Download the full Global Work-from-Home Experience Survey report for all the demographic details (i.e. geographic, generational, size company, role in the company) and watch the one hour webinar here.
This groundbreaking survey was made possible by an unprecedented collaboration of individuals and industry associations with leadership from Workplace Evolutionaries (WE), a community within the International Facilities Management Association. WE is “changing the world one workplace at a time.”
Other data from Global Workplace Analytics’ research
Over half of U.S. employees (56%; 75 million workers) hold jobs and have responsibilities that could be performed, at least in part, from home. Read more about how we arrived at that number here.
Historically, more than 80% of employees said they would work from home (WFH) if they could yet less than 4% of employees actually did half-time or more before the pandemic [Global Workplace Analytics special analysis of American Community Survey].
While almost 70% of employers said they offered the option to work from home to some of their employees [Society for Human Resource Management], only 7% offer it to all or most [Bureau of Labor Statistics]. That is, until the pandemic.
A typical employer can save an average of $11k per half-time remote worker/year. That’s from a combination of increased productivity; reduced turnover, absenteeism, and real estate costs; and being able to continue working in the event employees can not get to work. Organizations can calculate their own potential savings with our Telework Savings Calculator.
A typical employee can save between $2,500-$4k/year. Much more in large cities or if they choose to move to a less expensive area. That is net of the additional costs incurred by working from home. Employees can calculate their own potential savings with our Employee Savings Calculator.
We forecast 25M to 30M U.S. employees will regularly work from home within the next two years (currently only 5M WFH half-time or more). Read more about how we arrived at that number on our work-from-home forecast page.
Who created the Global Work-from-Home Survey? Analyzed the results?
The Global Work-From-Home Experience Survey was developed and will be analyzed by a collaborative team led by industry experts and thought leaders in work-from-home and other emerging workplace strategies, Dr. Anita Kamouri (Co-Founder of Iometrics), and Kate Lister (President of Global Workplace Analytics). The two are frequent partners in workplace strategy engagements.
Kate Lister is a recognized thought leader on trends that are changing the who, what, when, where, and how of work. She is president of Global Workplace Analytics (GWA), a research-based consulting firm that has been helping public and private sector employers measure the impact of and optimize work-from-home strategies for more than a decade. Learn more about how GWA can help you maximize the people, planet, and profit impact of remote work by making it part of an overall workplace strategy.
Dr. Anita Kamouri is Vice-president and Co-Founder of Iometrics, a workplace services firm that helps organizations succeed with remote work practices and next-generation workplace strategies. Iometrics has been focused on helping clients create great workplace experiences for over 20 years. Her firm has developed some of the largest survey databases in corporate real estate to inform data-based planning, workplace modeling and measuring the human capital impacts of workplace change.
The public survey was supported, through distribution to its members, by global associations including the 25,000-member International Facilities Management Association (IFMA) and Workplace Evolutionaries (WE, a community within IFMA).
How was the data analyzed?
The researchers used standard significance tests to compare group differences, regression analysis to derive statistically significant drivers of engagement and productivity, and statistical modeling to estimate future impacts. Results with a minimum confidence level of 95% (p.05) were included in the final report.
Intellectual Property
The Global Work-from-Home Experience Survey is under copyright by Iometrics © 2021. All rights reserved.
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