49% Of Professionals Feel Vulnerable To Job Uncertainty Due To WFH

49% Of Professionals Feel Vulnerable To Job Uncertainty Due To WFH

Companies are trying to bridge the gap between the work from home present, and the future, when a vaccine or effective treatment will open the possibility of safe return to the traditional workplace. 

Google’s CEO says the future of work involves a ‘hybrid model’ and the company is already reconfiguring its offices for employee ‘on-sites’. Hybrid work models, done right, will allow organizations to better recruit talent, achieve innovation, and create value for all stakeholders. By acting boldly now, they can define a future of work that is more flexible, digital, and purposeful.

On Blind, an anonymous professional network, with 3.6M verified users, we asked: 

  • How often do you want to work remotely?
  • Do you struggle with collaboration/communication during WFH?
  • Do you struggle with loneliness during WFH?

 

Key Learnings: 

  • 47% of professionals want to work remotely some of the time
      • 53% of Amazon professionals want to work remotely some of the time
      • 43% of Apple professionals want to work remotely some of the time
      • 69% of Paypal professionals want to work remotely some of the time
  • 45% of professionals want to work remotely all of the time
      • 55% of Adobe professionals want to work remotely all of the time
      • 60% of Salesforce  professionals want to work remotely all of the time
  • 43% of professionals state that they struggle with collaboration/ communication during WFH
      • 65% of Intuit professionals state that they struggle with collaboration/ communication during WFH
      • 58% of Facebook professionals state that they struggle with collaboration/ communication during WFH
      • 40% of Paypal professionals state that they struggle with collaboration/ communication during WFH
  • 48% of professionals are struggling with loneliness during WFH
      • 59% of Google professionals are struggling with loneliness during WFH
      • 59% of Adobe professionals are struggling with loneliness during WFH
      • 49% of Microsoft professionals are struggling with loneliness during WFH

You can see the report highlighting the overall responses here.

Until the coronavirus vanishes as a severe threat to health and safety, organizations will be managing a large share of employees who work remotely some or all of the time. In a previous survey, Blind learned that 80% of professionals agree that hybrid work is the future of work.

The platform ran a survey from 9/25- 9/28 and had 3,202 responses. The survey asked the following questions:

  1. In your opinion, the future of work will be:
  2. Does not being able to get together in person with your team negatively affect your work?
    1. Why or why not?

Key Learnings: 

  • Only 9% of professionals believe the future of work will be “As it was before (9-5, Mon- Fri)” 
      • Only 10% of professionals believe the future of work will be “fully remote” 
      • 80% of professionals believe the future of work will be “Somewhere in the middle — a remote/in-person hybrid” 
  • 45% of surveyed professionals state that not being able to get together in person with their team negatively affects their work
      • 64% of Facebook professionals say that not being able to get together in person with their team negatively affects their work
      • 63% of Google professionals say that not being able to get together in person with their team negatively affects their work
      • 56% of Uber professionals say that not being able to get together in person with their team negatively affects their work
  • As to why or why not?
      • One Lyft professional at Lyft says “brainstorms/ fruitful chance encounters don’t happen” during WFH
      • A professional at Apple has an opposing opinion, stating “Everything we need to do can be done via webex.”
      • A professional at SourcePanel shares, “I’m social. I want to hang out with my coworkers.”

You can see the report highlighting the overall responses here.

A user at Facebook  posted “Sundar gets it – Hybrid WFH. I don’t know a single person on my team who wants to work from home full time, and yet the majority of my team would like to work from home some of the time. Facebook (and other tech companies) only seem open to an all or nothing approach currently, but it looks like Google might move forward with the model most employees actually want.”

“I see the future as definitely being more flexible,” Pichai said during a video interview for Time 100. Pichai was part of this year’s list of the most influential people in the world.

“We firmly believe that in-person, being together, having that sense of community, is super important for whenever you have to solve hard problems, you have to create something new,” he said. “So we don’t see that changing, so we don’t think the future is just 100% remote or something.”

What do you think the future of work is? Join the conversation!