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Working from home saves time – but are we more productive?

Research shows UK employees split the time saved between work and leisure
February 7, 2023
  • ‘Working from home’ covers a wide range of set-ups
  • It works better for some roles than others 

Facemasks and social distancing may have almost disappeared, but one feature of the pandemic era has lingered on: working from home. As of September 2022, around 1 in 5 of the UK labourforce had worked from home in the previous week, and 13 per cent still worked from home exclusively. 

At first glance, workers seem pretty happy with the arrangement: 80 per cent of the employees who worked from home in the pandemic prefer a hybrid working model. What’s more, they think it makes them more productive. In self-reported surveys, two-thirds of employees think they get as much or more done at home as they did in the workplace before the pandemic hit – a figure that no doubt provokes as many cheers of agreement as it does snorts of derision. 

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