For people to be comfortable coming together, a combination of more space, more cleaning, and stricter sick policies is required.
We want to return to the office, but not to the same office. We asked workers to rank the factors that would make them comfortable returning to the office — and respondents noted a combination of new policies around sick leave and working from home, physical environment changes including social distancing and reduced workstation sharing, plus increased cleaning protocols.
People want to return to a different workplace: more space, less desk sharing, and more support for mobile and virtual work.
Workers expect their companies to make changes to the workplace as a result of COVID-19, and feel positively about a wide range of potential scenarios including increased social distancing, less workspace sharing, and greater mobility and virtual work support. Social distancing and routine working from home — practices most discussed in today’s discourses on safety — are the initiatives workers are most comfortable with their companies implementing. While workers expect less sharing of workstations, they report feeling less positively about reduced investments in shared amenities and are also wary of being discouraged from using public transit.
U.S. Work From Home Survey 2020 Methodology
The U.S. Work From Home Survey 2020 was conducted online through an anonymous, panel-based survey of over 2,300 U.S.-based workers who were full-time employees of a company of 100+ people. Each respondent routinely worked within an office environment prior to COVID-19 and was currently working from home at the time when the survey was released between April 16 and May 4, 2020. Responses were evenly distributed across 10 industries and represent a wide range of seniority levels, roles, ages, and geographies.
The U.S. Work From Home Survey 2020 represents input from 2,300+ U.S. office workers across a variety of industries and demographics.