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In summer 2020, as it became abundantly clear that remote working in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was here to stay, Netskope surveyed more than 400 end-users in the US from across many industries, including telecommunications, IT, government healthcare, finance, nonprofit, and education, about their thoughts related to remote working.
Nearly a year later, with companies evaluating a mix of returning to offices, letting employees stay remote, or attempting a hybrid model, we ran this survey again to see if anything has changed for end-users at large regarding remote working. In addition, we also asked whether their organizations have any plans to continue offering remote working, or even a hybrid of remote and in-person working. Here’s what stood out from this year’s answers:
Users have accepted the “new normal” of remote work is no longer “new”
On the whole, opinions about working remotely have stayed consistent with the results we found in our 2020 survey. As we reported, the majority of respondents noted that they either never or seldom worked remotely before COVID, and as Netskope Threat Labs reported in March roughly 70% of workers are still consistently working remotely after a year. Clearly, this has gone from the “new normal” to the just normal for many and based on our results, only 8% of users surveyed had a negative view of working from home.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t detractors. 46% of respondents say they find it somewhat to much more difficult to access the people or resources they need, and 40% found collaboration was somewhat to much more difficult when working remotely. Nearly two-thirds (65%), however, responded that they do have the adequate collaboration tools in place to be productive while working remotely. It’s also worth noting that 74% of respondents report having either seen no change or are working fewer hours than they were pre-COVID.
Most organizations still haven’t made a call on permanent work from home
Although some well-known organizations have announced permanent WFH policies, most organizations are still playing it by ear.
When asked if their organization had announced any plans for permanent work-from-home options post-COVID, 72% of respondents were either unsure or said no plans had been announced yet. There are so many more factors to consider when it comes to executing return to work plans, whether that’s existing office space leases, vaccination rates in a given area, and employees’ comfortability returning to offices. With all of those factors in mind, and the time it takes to socialize return to work plans, th