With offices still closed, employees continuing to work from home and day after day of virtual meetings, it could look like this form of working is now the new normal. But for many across Europe, people are already returning to the office. Two recent surveys suggest a difference of opinion between the UK, US and other European countries. The ManpowerGroup What Workers Want survey of eight countries published this week suggests staff in the US and UK were more negative than about returning to the workplace than their counterparts in Germany, France, Italy, Mexico, Singapore and Spain.
According to another poll by AlphaWise last month for Morgan Stanley, only 34 per cent of UK office workers said they had gone back to their usual workplace, compared with 83 per cent in France, demonstrating a nervousness to returning to work in the UK.
With many businesses looking to bring teams back either from furlough or from an extended period of working from home, nationally representative research from Theta Financial Reporting across 2,000 UK workers found that 35% of Brits say going back to work in a traditional office environment will have a negative impact on their mental health, which in turn will negatively affect their productivity.
Key stats·
· Nearly three-quarters of Londoners – 70% – do not feel comfortable commuting to work via public transport anymore and think it will be one of the most stressful parts of their day
· 57% of people in London do not want to go back to the normal way of working in an office environment with normal office hours
· Over a third of Londoners – 36% – say their company will return to the office with a smaller team with people handling more varied responsibilities
Leave a Comment