COVID-19 has changed life for everyone in 2020 and it has been a difficult time for all. For those that are able to, working from home has become the new norm and it has proven to be successful in many industries, so it is easy to see this continuing even after the end of the pandemic. Despite this, it seems that many Brits are actually missing the office and not finding working from home as enjoyable as it may have once seemed.
What People Miss
Printing company instantprint that specialises in products such as flyers and leaflets recently carried out a survey of over 1000 UK adults that had started to work from home during the pandemic and found some interesting results.
Unsurprisingly, the aspect that people miss the most about going into the office is seeing colleagues and socialising at work with 36% of respondents in agreement. While it is possible to socialise through videoconferencing, this is not quite the same and feelings of loneliness are highly common when working from home.
While many people may claim to dislike small talk and jokes in the office, it turns out that 32% of respondents actually miss this. There were a number of other highly missed moments of the working day listed too, such as getting ready in the morning (28%), having different work and home clothes (25%), general office environment (25%) and moving around more (21%).
What People Do Not Miss
Of course, there are also things that people do not miss about the office too. In the same survey, office activities In the same survey, office activities like team meetings and birthday celebrations were tied neck and neck as the least missed events (6%), followed by the tea round (5%), feeling like you have to justify every minute (5%) and their office desk/chair (4%).
Distractions
Remote working was a trend on the rise prior to the pandemic so it is not new for everyone, but it is a major adjustment for many and even those working remotely before may have found it different with everyone working from home. Unsurprisingly, distractions are an issue for many that are not used to remote working with as many as 37% stating that watching films/TV was the main thing that people were doing when they shouldn’t be. This was followed by napping (25%), household chores (24%) and walking the dog (22%).
Phrases
Additionally, there have been a handful of phrases which have emerged during the pandemic relating to working from home which appear to frustrate people. This includes WFH (29%), “in these worrying/uncertain/unprecedented times” (24%), The Rona (23%) and “hope you are keeping safe” (22%).
Many people have always wanted to work from home, but now that this is a reality a large number of people are finding that it is not all that it is cracked up to be and are actually missing aspects of the office environment. It will be interesting to see what the future holds once the threat of the virus has passed as remote working is predicted to become the new norm but there may be some that are desperate to return to the office.
