For years, U.S. employers resisted the concept of remote work, believing that employees would be less productive while working at home than they are at the office. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that theory wrong.
According to a new study by workflow automation platform Nintex, 70% of remote workers say they are more productive while working at home than they expected to be.
The study also found that more than 50% of employees think their quality of life would improve if they could permanently work from home.
In a statement, Nintex Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Dustin Grosse said that the pandemic has forever changed the way employees view workplaces.
“Employees across every job role and generation are looking for workplaces that are flexible and offer automation tools that make work faster, easier and more enjoyable,” Grosse said.
While the majority of U.S. workers have embraced the shift to remote work, some employees are struggling to adapt.
According to Nintex, 80% of older workers feel productive at home, compared to just half of younger workers. Entry-level employees are also more likely to report task confusion, living situation challenges and feeling overworked than senior-level employees.
The study also found a generational divide regarding the ways remote working conditions could be improved.
For example, 42% of baby boomer workers say they want higher compensation for boosts in productivity, whereas 56% of Generation X employees would like more work schedule flexibility to care for dependents.
Meanwhile, 50% of millennial workers say they want improvements to their home office hardware and equipment, while 55% of Generation Z employees would like software and work automation upgrades.
Employers should be increasingly motivated to improve their remote work systems.
A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey found that 83% of employers believe remote work has been successful for their companies. In addition, only 1 in 5 senior-level employees plan to return to the office full-time after the pandemic ends, indicating that remote work is here to stay.
However, even with multiple vaccines now approved in the U.S., the pandemic is far from over.
The Trump administration promised to vaccinate 20 million people against COVID-19 by the end of 2020. However, fewer than 3 million people had received a shot by Dec. 31.
During his first week in office, President Joe Biden announced a plan to administer 100 million vaccine doses within his first 100 days in office.
As of Jan. 29, approximately 27.3 million doses have been given, according to data from Bloomberg and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vaccinations will be critical for employees who return to the office in the U.S. and other countries.
New government figures from the United Kingdom show that offices were the country’s top source source of work-related COVID-19 outbreaks in the second half of 2020.