Whilst many faced uncertainty about their work or were put on furlough, a Censuswide survey commissioned by Eskenzi PR showed that out of 1,000 people interviewed, 30% saved on lunches by working from home, 60% saved money by not going out and 50% saved on their daily commuting costs.
Those in the IT, Legal, HR, Education and Finance sectors reported the highest savings, with a total of 90% saying that they had saved money in some shape or form. This was followed by 65% of retail workers, builders and manual workers claiming that they were better off since lockdown ended.
Looking into the figures, the average worker managed to save an average of £820 over the 6-month lockdown period by making lunch at home – which was based on an average cost of buying lunch at £3.56 per day, Monday to Friday. When scaled up, this could reach £8.1bn saved on out-of-home lunches nationwide.
The survey also confirmed that 30% of participants believed that they won’t be back in the office until 2021. Around 75% of employers insisted that they are happy for their teams to continue working remotely, saving on hefty office fees and overheads.
Yvonne Eskenzi, Co-founder of Eskenzi PR who carried out the survey commented:
“Our survey shows that workers aren’t keen to rush back to work full time with saving costs by not commuting and buying lunches being a major factor. However, for 40% they’re ready to go back to work for 2 to 3 days a week. It all comes down to the employers now – will most of them allow their staff the freedom to work flexibility?”
Further data from the study showed that 9 out of 10 people are now happy to continue working from home, with around 35% saying the ideal scenario would be to work from home ‘one or two days per week’ but still have the fulfilment of working in an office environment.
