Working from home on the whole is a good thing.
For many, working from home is another thing that comes under the catch all phrase ‘new normal’. There are definite pro’s and con’s, reduced commuting costs and no office politics have been traded with video calls 30 seconds after rolling out of bed and children crying out for attention while you attempt to finish inputting data in that spreadsheet.
While this situation looks to be going on for a bit longer yet and perhaps a fundamental shift in the way we work going forward, we wanted to know if people felt productive at home and whether it had any impact on their mental health.
The ‘more productive at home’ camp definitely outweighed the others here with well over half saying they felt that they were getting more done. It could be down to less distraction, no trips to the kitchen where you get dragged in to a debate with the accounts team, no getting caught on the way to the loo by the office gossip who doesn’t stop talking or perhaps just knowing that your boss is not breathing down your neck provides a bit of freedom and flexibility.
With such a high proportion of workers thinking they are more productive away from the office, will businesses start to wonder whether those expensive offices are really necessary?
The absolute best thing to come out of this Speedy Poll was that people were more than twice as likely to be feeling mentally the same or more positive at home than in the office. 28% people polled say that WFH was having a negative impact on their mental health.
WFH is not all that bad.
It was always going to be tough with an enforced work from home policy but the one thing that we can take away from this Speedy Poll is that on the whole, people are more productive and happier than working in their usual environment. There are obviously many other factors to consider but it is great that it isn’t compounding an already tough situation.
The survey was conducted on eOpinion.org with 2,098 people on 19/20th May 2020 and is nationally representative.
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