Many things have changed in the last year and a half. Life has been turned on its head and we have all had to adapt to it.
As the UK works towards freedom from lockdowns, and the vaccination rollout continues to gather pace, many people will now be questioning how life will be when we emerge from the pandemic.
One way in which life has changed dramatically is the way in which we work. Many people moved to remote working for the first time last year, but is it here to stay? And what does the future of ‘WFH’ look like?
Business card and leaflet printing service, instantprint, looked at home-working statistics a year on from the start of the pandemic.
The move to remote work
Remote working is not a new concept and has been growing in popularity in recent years thanks to the advances in digital technology.
Now so many people are working from home, the benefits of flexible working models are becoming clear.
What businesses want
For many businesses, having a mix of working from home and working in the office is the most desirable outcome.
Businesses will likely retain their premises if they are doing well, but to justify the cost of rents, they will need workers in the office.
What employees want
Employees are split between how they want to work. The instantprint survey found that 34% of employees never wanted to return to the office.
Nearly a third wanted to split their working hours between the office and home. With a final 32% of survey participants looking forward to getting back to work as normal.
One of the reasons many want a flexible working model is that employees have enjoyed being able to juggle their work and personal lives more easily while working from home.
Working from home also gives workers something they have never had before, which is the flexibility to move and live anywhere in the UK and beyond to find that perfect work/life balance and more affordable housing and living costs.
Adapting to new models
Hybrid working models look like the most likely to succeed in the immediate future. Blending remote working and working from the office helps both employer and employee to manage their work and personal lives.
Adapting to this way should be easy for most as it is similar to how we have been working throughout the last year, while adding in some much-needed social interaction.
Choosing the way we work
Ultimately, the future of remote work looks like it will boil down to personal choice. As employees continue to perform while remote working, they will have more say in how they work in the future.
