Fewer than one in five employees want to go back to working in the office five days a week, laying bare the full extent of people’s changing attitudes to work in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Exclusive polling shared with i shows more than half of workers are opposed to returning to a life of commuting to the office every day.
It comes as the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, said it was unlikely workers would ever return to the daily commute once the Government lifts its guidance on working from home.
A survey by Survation of more than 1,000 working adults showed that just 19 per cent of people believed they would return to the office every day.
It also revealed that 55 per cent of people believed they would take up a hybrid model of working, splitting their time between home and the office.
The figures show the substantial shift in people’s views towards work due to the pandemic.
In an interview marking his first year as the Governor of the Bank of England, Mr Bailey said it was unlikely that staff would return to the office as they did pre-Covid-19.
“I think there will be for many people more of a hybrid model of working at home and working in a place of work,” he told the BBC.
Four-day week
David Cann, 56, is chief executive of Target Publishing in Essex, and introduced a four-day working week for his staff after the first wave of coronavirus struck.
“It was forced upon us to begin with as the pandemic hit our business, advertising revenue dried up and so we asked our staff to take a 20 per cent pay cut to reduce costs,” he said.
In return, he offered to reduce his workers’s hours by 20 per cent, meaning they were only asked to work four days a week. A similar move is being trialled by the consumer goods giant Unilever.
“We noticed that we didn’t see any drop off in productivity during that time and so when business began to pick up again, I returned the staff to 100 per cent pay and offered them the chance to keep to a four-day working week,” he added.
“We have seen no drop in productivity or any further drop in profitability. I just felt like giving something back to my staff after the pandemic, and I think it will help with job retention.”
“I think we’ve already seen the retailing industry change quite dramatically in the last year and although I would expect some of it to change back, it won’t entirely change back.
“I would be very surprised if we went back to exactly as we were before Covid.”
Joe Ryle, a campaigner with the 4-Day Week Campaign, which commissioned the poll, said working life had changed “forever” with more companies shifting to a hybrid model of work.
Companies are increasingly trying to plan how they will bring back their employees at least on a part-time basis, with several major firms making a permanent shift by downsizing their office space.
Last week, the chief economist at Deloitte Ian Stewart told Parliament’s Treasury select committee that a poll of 800 clients showed executives were planning on staff returning at least two days a week once Covid-19 restrictions are eased.
Mr Stewart told MPs: “I think there is going to be a step change. There has been a long-term move towards greater flexible, agile home working. This is going to cause a significant acceleration of it.”
BP became the latest blue chip firm to introduce flexible working, telling its 25,000 staff around the world last week they would be working from home for two days a week.
Last year HSBC said it would use the shift in working patterns to cut its office space by 40 per cent, while Lloyds has downsized by a fifth.