By: Global Web Index
When COVID-19 caused countries across the world to institute “lockdowns”, hundreds of millions of office workers suddenly found themselves working entirely remotely.
The way this has impacted people’s daily routines is clear from GWI Work – our data set which tracks day-to-day working practices and behaviors of professionals in 10 countries.
Back in 2019, 1 in 4 of the professionals we surveyed said remote working wasn’t permitted by their company in any circumstances – a figure which peaked at 50% among workers in Japan.
A further 1 in 2 professionals said that home working was permitted in some cases, leaving just 1 in 4 who said the practice was broadly permitted.
Almost overnight, this situation changed drastically; reflected by the vast increases in remote working (and working at home specifically) that we see in GWI Work’s 2020 release.
Working from home holds global appeal.
Home working is up 40 points in France, the U.S. and the UK. It’s climbed by nearly 50 points in Spain and Singapore, while having risen by close to 60 percentage points in Brazil.
Numerous other location types have seen notable increases, from professionals opting to work in shared offices and coffee shops, for example.
This has prompted one obvious question: what will happen once the threat of coronavirus eventually recedes. Will office life return to pre-pandemic normality? Or, will companies need to embrace a future in which remote working is a much more mainstream proposition?
In some countries, it’s been reported that various corporations are planning to down-size or relocate offices. While this has been more prominent in some places than others, there’s a clear sense of enthusiasm among professionals who work for more progressively-oriented organizations such as these.
In one of our Custom studies on coronavirus behaviors and attitudes, we asked professionals how interested they were in working from home permanently.
Strikingly, 3 in 4 B2B professionals across 18 diverse countries expressed at least some interest in permanent home working. In no country did this level of interest fall below 60%.
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