A fifth of workers feel employer prepared for hybrid working

Only one in five workers feels that their employer is prepared to support a more hybrid working model, combining home working with the workplace, according to a survey from Sony Professional Solutions.

Almost three-quarters (72%) expect to work remotely at least one day a week once pandemic restrictions ease, and 65% believe they will work from home at least two days a week.

Workers between the ages of 18 and 24 are the most likely to see themselves working from home, with three-quarters saying this will be the case at least two days a week, according to Sony’s survey. Only 13% of this age group expect to return to an office full time once the pandemic has passed.

How employers responded early on in the pandemic has influenced how employees perceive they will manage a move to a more hybrid way of working, however.

Just over half (51%) of workers felt employers could have done more to support them with remote working, and only 30% felt fully supported in their home office set up.

More than a third of respondents thought a return to the office of more than one day a week would not happen until the latter half of 2021 or 2022 at the earliest. This has increased from 20% who felt this way in December, Sony said.

Older workers were more likely to envisage a return to the office, with 51% of 35 to 54 year olds expecting to return to work full time at some point.

Sony Professional Solutions said the results of its survey pointed to a number of key trends for this year: an increase in companies establishing permanent flexible working policies; new ideas for support and collaboration around home offices; a focus on how to build virtual and physical ‘social’ spaces and more use of data to track how employees are interacting.

Carl Standertskjold, corporate segment marketing manager at Sony, said: “The global pandemic has dramatically changed how people work and how they feel about going back to offices, where there is a clear call for employers to think more effectively about how they can adapt and support a hybrid workforce, longer-term.

“While everyone has been working from home, we’ve been working hard to develop new technology that will help both employers and employees to feel confident about this new hybrid work environment, which will be fundamental in a post-Covid world.”

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