Study Reports the Risks of Forcing Workers Back to the Office Full-time

Mar 30

Only 9% of workers want to return to the office full-time, a Gallup study says. Employers must adapt.

A graph showing how worker attitude toward working in an office, hybrid or fully remote has hanged since 2020.

Allison Carter, Ragan CommunicationsOffice work will never look the way it did in February 2020. That much is clearfrom a Gallup poll analysison the future of hybrid work.Gallup examined “the experiences, needs and future plans of more than 140,000 U.S. employees surveyed since the onset of the pandemic.” The biggest takeaway: Most employees don’t want to return to an office full-time. Some don’t want to return at all. In fact, a resounding 91% of employees don’t want to return to the office for 40 or more hours a week. Of those, 59% preferred remote work, while 32% wanted to be fully remote.Just 9% told Gallup that they wanted to be in the office full-time again. To be clear, this survey targeted workers who can complete their work from home at least part of the time, which Gallup says is about half the workforce, or 60 million Americans. Plenty of people still need to work on an assembly line, in a hospital or on a shop floor. Their needs are different.Employers will face some difficult choices when deciding how to meet the needs of these these “remote-capable workers. And the risks of making the wrong decisions are high.What do people value about a hybrid workplace?Continue reading here...