Working from home over the last couple of years has fundamentally shifted our perception of what constitutes a healthy work-life balance, and this shift cannot be undone.
We now know that remote work can lead to an improvement in productivity as well as an increase in employee happiness. Keep reading for five recent hybrid work statistics that can help you adjust to this new normal:
1. High-revenue Organizations Are Adopting Hybrid Business Strategies
Many employees prefer hybrid workplaces and consider flexibility essential in the modern world. However, this tends to come as a surprise to most employers. Indeed, managers all over the world were stunned to see productivity increase when employees started working from home during the pandemic.
Recent research has confirmed the strong correlation that exists between flexible schedules and productivity. Companies with a high revenue growth rate have been quick to recognize this trend. They’ve capitalized on it by creating infrastructure and procedures to support a remote working environment, including making use of virtual offices.
Meanwhile, 69% of businesses experiencing negative or no growth are opposed to the idea of a hybrid workplace and would rather have all of their employees on-site. Make of those numbers what you will.
2. Employees Would Rather Work Off-site
The above-mentioned study also revealed that many workers don’t appreciate distracting office politics, which is why they would rather have access to hybrid and remote alternatives if given a choice.
3. Some Employees Are Willing to Quit if They’re Forced to Return to the Office
When asked whether they would be willing to return to the workplace full-time, 33% of employees said they would rather leave their jobs. That should serve as a significant wake-up call for business owners who have been hoping for things to go back to the old normal.
Consider the situation from your team’s point of view: Working from home eliminates the need to commute, which results in a more favorable work-life balance. Still, many businesses continue to set their sights on the old in-office paradigm.
4. Remote Collaboration Can Be Tricky
Of course, there are good reasons for this desire to stick with the status quo. For example, many tasks require collaboration, which becomes noticeably more challenging with remote work.
At present, more than 40% of workers openly state that working from home makes it challenging to participate in group initiatives. However, this percentage could soon increase.
Even the most ardent supporters of remote work have to concede that it’s considerably harder to create meaningful connections via instant messaging or video conferences. Still, remote work isn’t going away anytime soon, and the severity of this productivity issue should decrease as new strategies and technologies emerge. In the meantime, the hybrid work solution offers the best of both worlds.
5. The Duration of Meetings Has More Than Doubled
Because remote collaboration is so challenging, employees spend far more time making it work. For example, the typical remote employee attends twice as many meetings each week as their in-office colleagues.
This rise makes perfect sense. What could once be accomplished with a quick visit to a coworker’s desk now requires many online exchanges and a catch-up meeting that drags on longer than necessary.
While these problems are easy to delineate thanks to the power of statistics, that doesn’t make them simple to solve. Still, as the world slowly adjusts to the new normal, statistics like these offer us the information we need to navigate the complexities with a little more style and finesse.