Staff turn on home working as four in ten say it has negative impact
More and more staff are growing weary of working from home as loneliness starts to trump convenience.
Just under 40pc of office workers now say they are struggling with the downsides of working remotely, with less time spent with co-workers cited as the biggest downside.
One in 10 blame mental health problems on home working, according to a survey by software firm Ivanti.
Helen Masters, executive vice president at Ivanti, said it was “interesting but unsurprising to see that so many people are turning against working from home.
“I myself can see why that might be, as the pressures associated with it are something I’ve faced in my own experience.”
Dissatisfaction with working from home was highest in the tech sector. 60pc of staff in the sector said they were not enjoying working remotely, with almost three quarters saying their workloads had increased as a result of not being in the office.
The findings come as bosses continue to push for more employees to return to the office, arguing that isolated working harms creativity and is bad for culture and training.
The number of remote jobs advertised on LinkedIn fell for the eleventh straight month in March, the professional networking service said.
Just one in 10 openings now offers the option of fully remote work, compared with almost one in six a year ago.
Hybrid working is also falling out of favour, with the share of roles allowing people to work a few days a week remotely also falling for the second month in a row.
Ngaire Moyes, LinkedIn’s UK country manager, said: “It’s very difficult to build and maintain a strong company culture when a significant chunk of your workforce isn’t ever in the office.
“How do you keep those employees engaged?
“Another challenge for leaders is thinking about how to effectively train up members of staff, particularly your more junior people.”
Companies are increasingly identifying skills gaps among younger people who spent large parts of the pandemic learning or working remotely.
PwC and Deloitte, two of the UK’s big four accounting firms, are giving extra training to younger staff after finding that those who spent large chunks of time in isolation during Covid struggled with speaking during meetings and working in teams.
Ms Moyes said: “When more experienced members of the team are not in the office, new hires and more junior employees are arguably not able to soak up knowledge and learn from those around them as effectively.”
Ms Moyes said the deteriorating economic climate was also a factor in the move away from work from home - but warned that companies were at risk of losing good workers.
“Times are tough right now for many UK businesses and some have wound back progress on things like flexible working and been pushing to get people back in offices full time - but it's not attractive to workers and they continue to vote with their feet.”
However, demand for remote roles remains strong, with applications twice as high as for other roles. “It’s increasingly clear employees don't want to go back to the office full time ever,” said Ms Moyes.
