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FACTS AND FIGURES
HOME SWEET HOME
When it comes to remote work, ergonomics is about much more than a comfortable chair and an adjustable desk. It can transform an employee's working life, maintain the bond with their employer and colleagues and enhance their experience of team work, even when they are working alone.
When somebody sits down to write the history of the workplace, the
Spring of 2020 will almost certainly be remembered as the moment of a
massive shift to remote work. During the Covid crisis, the total European
remote working population made up an incredible 36.5 percent of
the total workforce1 - with Slovenia with the lowest proportion of
remote workers (22 percent) and Finland (65 percent) with the highest.
Worldwide, 88 percent of organisations made remote work either 6 mandatory or encouraged their employees to work from home2.
The impact of this overnight, global shift in people’s lives, routines, 5 motivations and wellbeing is still a subject for debate. This in turn
will be driven by the occupation, job profile, home setup and personal
relationships of each worker along with a number of other variables.
According to a paper by the European Commission3, the initial response to the shift to remote work was overwhelmingly positive. Both people and organisations welcomed the greater autonomy it offered as well as greater control over work schedules, routine and individual priorities. A few months later, as we all adjusted to the new realities, we saw firms starting to exert more control over work flows and goal setting.
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FACTS AND FIGURES 5
HOT CHALLENGES WHEN WORKING FROM HOME
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We also became more aware of other challenges, not least a lack of motivation, the presence of distractions in the home, feelings of loneliness and isolation and the challenges of collaborating with
Even allowing for such drawbacks, the overall opinion of employees is that remote work has had a positive effect on their lives. Across the EU, nearly two thirds (65.3 percent) express a preference for working from home at least several times a month5. The results of research from IZA6 suggest that both employees and employers believe teleworking (85 percent) and digital teamworking (81 percent) are definitely here to stay.
This all supports the idea of distributed work7, in which people will switch their time between an office of some sort and a number of other
Collaboration and communication
Isolation and loneliness
Distractions at home
Motivation
Disconnecting from work
Taking vacation time
Hot Challenges when Working from Home
Source: elaborated from “Challenges of working remote in 2020”, Statista, and “The 2020 State of Remote Work”, Buffer.
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