Working from home was the best solution for certain professionals throughout most of 2020 and the first few months of 2021 as well - but it was a thing long before the pandemic struck. Many workers consider that working from their home office offers them not only a better work-life balance but more flexibility as well. The pandemic, along with the restrictions meant to slow its spread, has shown the world that remote work is indeed a viable alternative for a number of industries and businesses. And workers themselves are fond of the idea, so much so that many of them would prefer to continue this practice even when the pandemic is over.
Benefits of the home office
And what’s not to like? The first thing to come to mind when looking at the differences between working remotely and from an office is the time spent commuting. Even if it’s just half an hour a day that you can use to sleep a few minutes more or relax playing your favorite game at Spin Online Casino Ireland, it contributes to a better work-life balance. Not to mention the more flexible nature of the time spent working - it’s easier to sneak in a break when you most need it, no matter if you plan to spend it sipping a cup of tea on the balcony or dive into a game of blackjack at Spin Casino. And let’s not forget about the different spending habits - when you work from home, you don’t tend to spend on takeaway coffee or fast food but make your own, thus reducing your daily budget even more.
How do Irish workers feel about working from home?
They love it, according to the Second Annual National Remote Working Survey conducted this April by NUI Galway and the Western Development Commission. The survey has found that 95% of the responding workers were in favor of working remotely on an ongoing basis, with half of them willing to work remotely several times a week, and 32% willing to work remotely full time. The number of respondents ready to embrace remote work has more than doubled compared to the similar survey conducted a year before. Only 5% of the respondents said that they did not want to work remotely at all, a drop from 16% from last year.
Does remote work mean fewer hours worked? In most cases, the answer is “no”, as shown by the survey. 51% of the respondents said they work more hours when they work remotely than they would onsite, and 45% said they work the same number of hours.
How do team managers feel about remote work? The survey shows that almost half of them - 47% - find managing a team remotely to be just like managing a team onsite, and 44% of them consider remote work to be beneficial to the productivity of their teams. Further 44% of the respondents have found no difference between remote and onsite work from a productivity point of view.
And when it comes to post-pandemic work, 75% of the companies that responded to the survey are still undecided on the form in which they will continue once it’s over. Of the 25% that decided, 78% said they’ll adopt a hybrid model - workers will work at least a few days from home each week.
The survey was conducted under the leadership of Professor Alma McCarthy and Noreen O’Connor at NUI Galway, and Tomás Ó Síocháin and Deirdre Frost at Western Development Commission. The survey was completed in the 10-day period at the end of April 2021, with more than 6400 respondents, with almost 2200 of them with people management responsibilities.