Evolve IP, an international service provider of Work Anywhere solutions, released the results of a survey taken by 538 business professionals about working from home and their expectations for the future of remote work.
The survey took place during February, approximately one month before the March 13th, 2020 national emergency declaration forced the majority of American employees to begin working from home.
Five key findings from the survey include:
- Working from home makes employees less likely to look for a new job.
- 44% of employees say working remotely has opened new job opportunities for them but 60.5% say they are less likely to look for a new job.
- Only 14% say work from home makes them more likely to look and just 6% think remote working puts their job at risk.
- More than half of businesses expect employees will work remotely most of the time post-pandemic.
- 55% of C-Suite executives said they expect their employees will work outside of a corporate office much of the time even after the pandemic has subsided. This has major ramifications for IT, HR and operational/real estate planning.
- It also aligns with employee expectations where 64.5% stated the desire to work from home most of the time once the pandemic ends (3+ days/ week).
- Working from home is making employees more productive – much more so than many business leaders think.
- 75% of employees say they are more effective workers at home averaging a 31% increase in productivity. Business leaders generally agree but are less convinced about the level of improvement.
- 34% of C-Suite executives say their employees are more productive at home, 42% aren’t sure or estimate no change.
- Of executives indicating their employees were more effective at home, they estimated a 25.5% increase in productivity – closely aligned with employee estimates.
- Employees are happy with their work from home technology but believe integration (unifying communications, collaboration, virtual desktops, etc.), will make them more productive and secure.
- 5% of employees are happy with their company’s work from home tech choices. However, employees feel they could be more productive and secure if their solutions were integrated.
- 5% of employees feel they would be more productive and 59% believe their work habits would be more secure. IT professionals agree – 60% and 56.5% respectively.
- 45% of businesses are planning to integrate their communications and collaboration services in the next 12 months.
- Most businesses aren’t planning any major adjustments to salaries or compensation due to work from home.
- 5% of respondents say their businesses aren’t making (or planning) any salary/compensation adjustments for remote workers. 5.5% have made or are considering compensation increases or stipends.
- 13% of employees say working from home has positively increased their compensation. This is likely due to lower work-related expenses such as decreases in commuting, lunches, and work apparel costs.
“Businesses did a great job putting together a variety of solutions when the pandemic hit to ensure their employees could function reasonably at home,” said Scott Kinka, Chief Innovation Officer for Evolve IP. “Now, as we see in the survey results, businesses are looking at a way to make these solutions sustainable for the long-term as both executives and employees see the value in a workforce that can be remote the majority of the time.
“As a result, we’re seeing an increase in the number of businesses that are implementing remote work technology integration projects like unifying voice communications via Microsoft Teams direct routing and delivering apps via digital workspaces instead of virtual private networks. We expect this trend to accelerate for the foreseeable future,” Kinka added.
