Facing the Challenges of Returning to Work

The Limeade Institute conducted a global study to understand the current state of the employee experience and how companies are moving into 2021.  This is an important study and will be relevant to many of us. It has the more obvious statistics about homeworking increasing - in their study from around 6% from before the pandemic to 39% during lockdown.

What is more concerning is that there was not a single employee that did not have any anxiety about returning to the office/worksite. The top selected source of anxiety was being exposed to COVID-19 (77%); though, this was followed closely by the idea of less flexibility (71%) and having to commute to work again (68.5%). 

These results indicate that among fear of health and safety of a continued pandemic, employees fear losing the flexibility that work-from-home practices have established, including the decreased commute. There is a hesitancy to let go of this new reality of work that these individuals have experienced from this past year.

Interestingly, when Limeade asked employees to reflect on what they would like to change or keep moving into 2021, 48% of individuals said they are happy with the amount of social connection they are experiencing with peers and would like it to remain the same, while only 20% wanted the current amount of social connection to change. Additionally, 70% of employees said they did still feel a sense of connection to the people they work with. These results suggest that although the changes to work have brought on declines in social interactions and connection with peers, employees are doing relatively okay with these changes.

There is a lot of very interesting and useful information in this report. Highly recommended:

Read the report >