Working from home in some form – whether full time or in a blended approach – was found to be most popular among Irish workers.
A new study on Irish attitudes to remote working by Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and the National Transport Authority is the latest to suggest that the majority want to continue working from home.
According to a survey of Irish workers last summer, 78pc said they want to stay working from home in some capacity. There is also a greater preference for working from home on Mondays and Fridays than other days.
The goal of the research was to gauge the desire of office workers to work from home, as well as the format that most appeals to them, the consideration of home relocation based on the ability to work from home, and the factors that may explain their preferences.
The findings were collated in a study published in the Journal of Transport Geography.
Figure 1: Percentage of respondents per area that preferred the different working options. Image: TCD and National Transport Authority
The main point of interest was finding out the likelihood of Irish people working from home after the pandemic. Given options of various degrees of working from the office or home, 77.9pc of respondents showed a preference for some form of working from home.
A type of hybrid arrangement was most popular, with only 12.8pc of respondents from the greater Dublin area (GDA) and 15.8pc from the rest of the country wanting to always work from home, and only 10.6pc in GDA and 12.9pc elsewhere wanting to work always from the office.
Although working from home in some form – whether full time or in a blended approach – was most popular, there did not seem to be a consensus on how best to manage this.
The study suggested that people were more inclined to pick some days over others to work from home. Most respondents said they preferred to work from home on Mondays and Fridays, rather than Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Over the past few months, several surveys and reports have shown that flexible working is hugely popular among Irish workers.
Figure 2: Percentage of respondents who want to work from home on a given day. Image: TCD and National Transport Authority
Earlier this week, research by tech communications firm Poly found that 83pc of Irish workers were reluctant to return to the office and that workers would need “a compelling reason” to go back to the workplace.
The TCD and National Transport Authority study concluded that businesses should accommodate the preferences of workers if they want to be competitive in the job market. Other surveys have suggested that workers are very much leaning towards flexible working options and are inclined to vote with their feet if their needs are not met.
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