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Executives stand steadfast in belief that WFH is a passing fad

One would think that after a year of working from home (WFH) that folks would start to warm up to the idea, but a new report sponsored by Kyocera Document Solutions suggests that isn’t the case.

The report was compiled following a survey of 360 executives from around the globe in May 2021. The survey results were then analysed by The Economist Intelligence Unit and the report, Reshaping productivity – A changed workplace over COVID-19, was compiled.

The big takeaway for us is that 32.8 percent of executives surveyed believe that working from home is a “temporary arrangement, and things will return to how they were earlier”. As few as 12 percent of executives said that WFH is the new reality and 23.8 percent said a hybrid model is likely to be adopted.

While the reason for this might be because productivity dropped during the pandemic, that’s not the case at all. Yes, 32.6 percent of executives interviewed said that productivity had decreased over the pandemic, but 39 percent of respondents saw an increase in productivity and 28.5 percent saw no change in how productive employees were.

Importantly, the reasons for productivity dropping could be attributed to the fact that 25 percent of executives had not fully implemented or adopted remote working capabilities.

This really seems as if executives failed to adapt and as such now see remote work as a stop gap but they’re going to have a hard time convincing employees that it’s back to the office.

According to The Economist, “data from an aggregation of nationally representative employee surveys by The Economist, most employees claim that remote work has had either no effect on productivity or increased it”.

This really is a case of ships moving in the night and unless employers and employees sit down to discuss the path forward, things could get messy in future.

With that having been said, there may be a carrot that tempts executives to lean into a hybrid work model – the cost of an office.

When asked what example would apply to their business if a hybrid/remote work option became a permanent fixture, 88.5 percent of executives picked “Organisational savings have increased due to a reduction in maintenance costs associated to physical assets”.

What this report makes crystal clear is that there are benefits to hybrid work solutions. However, not every business is able to adopt a remote or hybrid work solution.

As with most things, the solution that a company arrives at depends heavily on the type of business and as such decisions such as this require careful thought and collaboration with employees.

We don’t foresee things returning to how they were earlier though, and executives would do well to consider what the future of their business might hold.

You can find the report from The Economist Intelligence Unit and Kyocera Document Solutions here.

[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]

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