The UK workforce has revealed it is over 15% more productive when working from home than in a traditional workplace, according to ongoing research by Leesman, the leading authority on workplace efficiency.
Leesman – which measures employee workplace experience in over 4,800 workplaces across 96 countries – is currently studying home-working effectiveness in the UK. It launched a survey which has had more than 35,000 respondents so far. Initial findings have revealed that while an increase in overall productivity from 63% in workspaces to 79% at home has been reported, so too have some of the more negative impacts resulting from full-time home working.
Just 56% of respondents said they have been able to maintain a healthy work-life balance at home, while around half of those working at a non-specific location, such as a dining table, consider their setting “unsuitable for the work they are undertaking”. A further 45% of overall respondents feel their home set-up does not support knowledge sharing, and just 56% of workers aged 25 or under report that they continue to feel connected to their colleagues.
Leesman chief executive and founder Tim Oldman said: “This is a very complex situation and it is very important not to generalise. Some people have the privilege of a dedicated home-working space where for others, say in shared accommodation, it is literally a case of the first person up in the morning getting the breakfast table and everyone else is confined to their bedrooms.”
He added that the true working from home picture would be revealed towards the end of the summer once the survey had been completed and the final results analysed, but warned that businesses will need to adapt to respond to changing employer habits and requirements. He added that after a prolonged period of time where the UK’s working population has been entrusted to work from home, a sudden return to enforced workplace-only based work could result in a huge “crisis of trust”.
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