Three-quarters of people expect to work remotely more often after the lockdown

In a consequence of the Covid-19 lockdowns that could have profound implications for digital infrastructures, research from Dynata has found that the blurred lines between work and home life will become increasingly blurred, with many home workers wanting to preserve their new way or working.

In its The new normal report, the global online market research firm conducted 11,322 interviews between 30 April 2020 and 2 May 2020, using its propriety first-party research panels.

Interviews were conducted in 11 countries, with approximately 1,000 interviews per country. Countries covered were the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, China, Singapore and Australia. Quota controls were applied at the country level to ensure a balanced sample.

Among the key topline findings were that three-quarters of people expect to work from home more often after the lockdown, and almost two-fifths now want to work from home permanently. This is what the analyst believes could have a major impact on digital infrastructures.

Looking as to whether people were more productive when they worked from home, the analyst found that overall, just under two-thirds reported they are just as, if not more, productive at home than they were in the office (31% more productive, 31% just as productive).

By contrast, 38% believed they were less productive. Americans had the highest opinion of their productivity from home, with 18% saying they felt very much more productive, compared with 10% overall.

China, on the other hand, stands at the other end of the scale, with less than half feeling they are as productive or more so now than when they worked outside the home, and just 3% say they are very much more productive. However, more than half (55%) of those who have never worked at home before say they are just as productive or more so than they were previously.

Those in higher income brackets were more likely to be working from home full-time during the pandemic (57%), compared with 42% of those in the low-income range. Those with low income were found to be over 60% more likely to be still going out to work (29% are doing this compared with 18% of those with high income). High-income earners self-reported feeling slightly higher levels of greater productivity than those with low income (63% versus 58%).

Not surprisingly, those who felt very much more productive at home are the ones most likely to want to continue to work from home all the time (55%). Yet Dynata noted that the benefits of working from home did not appear to be limited to just productivity, as 43% of those who said they were very much less productive at home still want to work from home at least some of the time.

Telemedicine looks like an area that will see more usage on the dig infrastructures – 78% of Brits who used telemedicine during the crisis used it for the first time, and with very high satisfaction levels. Not only could this have profound impacts on training and diagnosis of doctors and nurses, it might, suggested Dynata, enable artificial intelligence to take a much greater role in assisting diagnosis.