While the very nature of some occupations makes it impossible to perform them away from a central worksite, there's no doubt the pandemic caused a huge leap forward in flexible working. Judging from surveys and polls, some degree of flexibility is here to stay, creating opportunities for both businesses and not-for-profits like Îlots d’été to cater to people when they're not working from the office.
A few stats on the current state of WFH:
In Australia, 61% of polled working professionals in a Hays survey believed a hybrid working model was the most productive, and 47% of employers were open to retaining WFH as part of their workplace mix (source: Financial Review).
A recent analysis by the UK's Office for National Statistics reported that of those who are currently homeworking, 85% wanted to use a hybrid approach in future. "When asked about homeworking, working adults stated work-life balance was the greatest positive, while challenges of collaboration were the greatest negative." Meanwhile, as reported by the Guardian, the UK government is considering legislation that would give employees the right to work from home.
In the US,
Conference Board surveyed HR managers and found: "79% of the mostly large businesses say 10% or more of their employees will be able to work remotely at least three days a week a year after the pandemic subsides. That compares with 26% of firms that permitted staffers to primarily work from home before the health crisis" (source: USA Today).
