Before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 17 percent of U.S. employees worked from home 5 days or more per week, a share that increased to 44 percent during the pandemic. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the remote working trend, as quarantines and lockdowns made commuting and working in an office close to impossible for millions around the world. Remote work, also called telework or working from home (WFH), provided a solution, with employees performing their roles away from the office supported by specialized technology, eliminating the commute to an office to remain connected with colleagues and clients. What enables working from home?

To enable remote work, employees rely on a remote work arrangements that enable hybrid work and make it safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology supporting remote work including laptops saw a surge in demand, video conferencing companies such as Zoom jumped in value, and employers had to consider new communication techniques and resources. Is remote work the future of work?

The response to COVID-19 has demonstrated that hybrid work models are not necessarily an impediment to productivity. For this reason, there is a general consensus that different remote work models will persist post-COVID-19. Many employers see benefits to flexible working arrangements, including positive results on employee wellness surveys, and potentially reducing office space. Many employees also plan on working from home more often, with 25 percent of respondents to a recent survey expecting remote work as a benefit of employment. As a result, it is of utmost importance to acknowledge any issues that may arise in this context to empower a hybrid workforce and ensure a smooth transition to more flexible work models.

Around a quarter of the surveyed CIOs expect more than half of their organizations' workforce to predominantly work from home post Covid-19. Only six percent of the survey respondents expect that they will have no employees working from home after the pandemic.

In a June 2020 survey, 22.8 percent of participants that worked from home during the coronavirus pandemic said that they would like to continue working from home on a permanent basis. Adversely, 31.9 percent said that they would like to return to the office after the outbreak ends.

Close to 80 percent of employees in the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, and China are satisfied with working from home during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. 34 percent of employees in the United Kingdom love working from home and easily see themselves doing that forever. As with employee preferences, working policies by businesses, public bodies and employers could also see significant changes regarding where and how people work after the pandemic.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

When asked about remote working in a 2021 survey, over 70 percent of employed people in Finland said that they would like to work from home in the future. Working remotely part of the week was the most popular option with 36 percent, while 15 percent preferred working fully from home after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, about one fifth of Finns did not want to work from home.

In September 2022, there were 8.28 million workers in the United States that worked from home sometime in the past four weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This accounts for those who teleworked, or worked at home, specifically because of the coronavirus pandemic and does not include those who worked from home before the pandemic.

Not unlike the rest of the world, Spain saw its normal daily life altered by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020. One of the many aspects than changed the country's lifestyle was the way people worked, with the latest surveys pointing to a share of only 9.5 percent of the working population that were able to work remotely before the coronavirus outbreak in March 2020. According to these reports, almost 75 percent of the population did not normally work from home.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 only 14.4 percent of the respondents primarily worked from home (WFH), which is significantly less compared to the 44.6 percent of respondents who WFH now in the midst of the pandemic. Interestingly enough, respondents answered that many would go back to their respective physical facility or the field after a vaccine is available.

Physical workplaces However, following the COVID-19 pandemic, the physical workplaces will change as the percentage of personnel that will primarily WFH is projected to be seven percent more than prior to the worldwide pandemic. Other studies have suggested that post-pandemic, almost 50 percent of enterprises worldwide are projected to have a distributed workforce, compared to around 30 percent before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Distributed workforce A distributed workforce may become the new normal, as it is projected that by 2023, 75 percent of the top Forbes Global 2000 companies will have commitments to a hybrid workforce design. It is worth noting that to work distributedly is different than only working remote, as to "work distributedly" assumes that there is not a single central location to work from. Instead, the company is distributed among various working environments. This allows personnel to engage either locally, remotely, in the field, or switching between locations as they please. This permits for a more fluid working environment, as many throughout the world either like or love WFH.

Before the first coronavirus lockdown in Denmark in March 2020, only four percent of employees in the private sector were working from home on any given day. The share increased significantly during the lockdown, up to 34 percent of all employees, and as of fall 2020, 22 percent were in home office. It is estimated that 90 thousand more people will continue to work remotely in Denmark after workplace restrictions have been abolished.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

According to a recent survey, 90,000 employees are expected to work from home after the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis ends in Denmark. While around 70 per thousand private sector employees were working remotely before the pandemic, the number was forecast to reach 160 per 1,000 employees after workplace restrictions are abolished. During the crisis in 2020, 460 private sector employees were in home office per thousand employees.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

In 2021, approximately 37 percent of workers in Great Britain wished to work from home some of the time after the Coronavirus pandemic is over, with one in five wanted to work from home all the time. Despite this, 37 percent of British workers advised they never want to work from home, with seven percent not sure.

The majority of the agricultural, forestry, fishing, and hunting industry in the United States has been labeled as unsuitable for telework. However, in response to the coronavirus outbreak 2.8 percent of the workers in this classification had begun to work from home as of April 2020.

In a May 2020 survey, the majority of employees from the United States said that they would like to continue working from home for at least one day a week after the coronavirus outbreak comes to an end. Only 17 percent responded that they wouldn't want to work from home for even one full day a week following the global pandemic.

Working from home has become the new normal for many workers coping due to Coronavirus restrictions in Great Britain, with 38 percent of those aged between 30 and 49 advising that they are working from home as of February 2022. Among younger workers aged between 16 and 29, just 23 percent of them are working from home, with 21 percent unable to do so.

According to a survey held in March 2020, 71 percent of respondents stated that they do not feel pressure to prove that they are working with the increase in working from home created by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Conversely, only 27 percent of respondents reported working more hours.

How many private sector employees are working from home in Denmark because of the coronavirus? According to a survey conducted by Dansk Industri, around one in three private sector employees worked from home in March, 2020. In detail, 41 percent of the respondents were from the Capital Region of Denmark, while another 30 percent lived in the Central Denmark Region. Only 16 percent of private sector employees from the North Denmark Region worked from from home.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

In 2020, companies in the German services sector stated that 57 percent of their employees regularly worked from home during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In the manufacturing sector, this was true for only 24 percent of employees.

Due the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), many marketing organizations in the UK may have to start operating remotely in 2020. A survey published in mid-March revealed that 73 percent of marketers believe that they are more efficient when working remotely and 68 percent believe that they work more hours at home. Yet just a quarter believe that working from home will intrude on their personal life. For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

The transition to home office as a result of the pandemic presented multiple technological challenges to a substantial share of the work force in Mexico. A survey conducted in 2020 showed that 19 percent of respondents who had to work from home in the first weeks following the coronavirus outbreak were required to use technology they were not familiar with. Workers have also had to adjust to lower speeds of online systems, limited hardware available at home, and the inability to access data remotely.

As of January 2021, 21 percent of the Austrian population were working from home almost full-time during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. To stop further spread of the virus, Austria, like many other countries, also imposed restrictions on contact between people and larger gatherings, which in turn led to many workplaces either giving their employees the option to work from home or relocating completely to a home office regimen.