17.05.2019

A quarter of bosses think employees are more productive working from home

This Friday is National Work from Home Day, an initiative organised by Work Wise UK on a mission to introduce smarter working practises around the country.

Working from home can reduce commuting times and help people to manage workloads more effectively, but also dramatically cut costs for both the employee and employer.

But how productive are we when we’re away from our desks and our bosses?

New research by YouGov reveals that a fifth (20%) of HR managers believe that staff work to a slightly higher standard at home than they do in the office. A further 7% believe they work to a “much higher” standard meaning over a quarter of bosses believe productivity is improved in some way when working from home (27%).

Employees seem to share this view: 45% don’t think that their location affects the standard of their work, and over a fifth (22%) think that working from home improves their work to some extent.

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Most business do encourage working from home - in fact, 7 in 10 businesses (70%) do, compared to just 27% that actively discourage it. Industries that discourage flexible working the most include hospitality and leisure (55%) and finance and accounting (34% discourage it a little). Unsurprisingly, businesses with more employees to spare (+ 250) support working from home more than smaller businesses with 50 employees or fewer (80% vs 67%).

However, when asked the same question, just over half of employees from companies with work from home policies say that they are encouraged to make use of this policy (51%), with a third saying they are actively discouraged from utilising it (32%).

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