This has raised many interesting debates and topics in recent weeks and it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the office environment and remote working once things start to return to normal.
Surveying “The New Norm”
UK online business card printing experts instantprint has been looking into this and recently carried out a work from home survey of over 1000 Brits which revealed some interesting results in relation to how productive different regions and departments have been along with how people have adjusted to “the new norm”.
The Most Productive Cities
The survey revealed that there are some places that have been much more productive during lockdown than others with people putting in more hours while working from home than normal. Bristol leads the way with 47% of residents that were surveyed stating that they were putting in more hours than normal since lockdown began, followed by Glasgow (36%), London (27%) and Leeds (23.9%).
The Least Productive Cities
Of course, not everyone has taken to remote working as well and many employees find it difficult to be productive while working from home largely unsupervised. Sheffield came out as the least productive city with 18% of workers claiming not to be working at all during lockdown followed by Belfast (11%), Birmingham (7%) and Newcastle (6%).
Departments
Of course, you cannot only look at the geographical location home workers are based when measuring the success of remote working. The department workers are based in has proved to be another interesting area that was addressed by the survey. HR & recruitment is the department that has been the most productive, which is not entirely surprising when you consider the impact of the pandemic. Similarly, IT has been busier than normal which is not surprising with entire workforces having to work from home. Directors and owners have also been busier along with designers and creatives.
Not all departments are working harder, though, and the survey found that operational roles were doing less work than normal - this is understandable due to the department dealing with onsite issues. Other departments include admin and office workers, self-employed workers and sales. Again, these could be working less due to the repercussions of the pandemic.
How Employees are Struggling
Working from home is a big adjustment to make for many so it is understandable that many people have been struggling, particularly for those that have not worked remotely before and/or do not have a suitable space to work at home.
The instantprint survey also asked what people were getting distracted by when working from home which provided some predictable results. The biggest distraction by far was watching films/TV with 37% admitting to watching TV during working hours, followed by napping (25%), household chores (25%) and walking the dog (22%). Other distractions include online surveys, socialising with friends and family, errands, cooking and home workouts.
It is interesting to see how the country has taken to remote working and it is clear from the instantprint survey that results are varied both in terms of region and department. Of course, these are challenging times so this will also play a role in people’s motivation and possibly even their workload, but it will be interesting to see if remote working continues to be a major trend when things start to return to normal.