56% of managers worked from home: one reason homeworking is set to stay

Sarah Coles, personal finance analyst Hargreaves Lansdown, comments on the ONS’s publication of figures on 2020 homeworking, which shows 56% of managers worked from home: one reason homeworking is set to stay.

Key points:

• 5% of people in the UK mainly worked from home in 2020, and 36.5% did at some point during the year. In the previous five years it had risen slowly from 4.3% to 5.1%, so this was a significant jump.
• The older and more senior people were in the workplace, the more likely they were to work from home. Between the ages of 40 and 64, around 10% of people worked mainly from home, whereas under the age of 30 it was closer to 5%.
• Men and women were equally likely to have worked from home at some point in the year (36.2% of men and 36.9% of women). However, women were much more likely to have mainly worked from home (9.3% of women and 7.8% of men).

Sarah Coles comments:

“2020 turned ‘working from home’ from a euphemism for getting up at noon and watching daytime TV to a respectable way for hard-working people to balance everything they have going on in their lives. The specific groups of people who worked from home during the pandemic mean it’s set to be part of our working lives for good.

“For some people, it made a profound difference, and they’ll be unwilling to give homeworking up easily. During the past year, 9.3% of women worked mainly from home. And while there’s no reason why women should face the brunt of caring responsibilities, right now the reality is that they do. The freedom to work from home has made it much easier to balance this with work. 

“There are also plenty of women who have chosen jobs in order to be close to home and made compromises in terms of career and pay in the process. The past year has demonstrated they don’t necessarily have to make such hard compromises. They can take jobs wherever the most suitable vacancy is, work from home, and still meet their other responsibilities.

“Similarly, older workers are also more likely to have worked from home. Among those aged 70 and over, 24.9% worked mainly from home, as did 16.4% of those aged 65-69 and 10.2% of those aged 60-64. They may have been concerned about staying in the workplace as they get older, and homeworking has helped them find a work/life balance that’s more effective. 

“Those with the longest commutes have also had the chance to discover how much more they can achieve in life and work without spending two hours a day on the move. Those in London and the south east have longer commutes on average, and they were also the most likely to work from home last year (10.5% mainly worked from home in 2020).

“Perhaps most importantly, decision-makers have been working from home too. The more senior someone is, the more likely they are to have worked from home for at least some of 2020: 14.4% of managers, directors and senior officers worked mainly from home last year, and 55.8% of them did so at some point. This group now has personal experience of how effective homeworking can be, which will have helped break down some pre-existing prejudices that only long hours in the office can get the job done.

“Of course, there are still plenty of occupations where working from home remains impractical. There are also groups for whom the attraction of a comfortable desk and free heating makes it far better than any alternative. Then there are people who want to be in the workplace to socialise, network, and learn from their peers. All those things are perfectly possible through remote working, but far easier to do when you’re in the same building.”

Kindly shared by Hargreaves Lansdown

Main photo courtesy of Pixabay