In Herman Melville’s short story, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, the titular secretary reaches a point where he’s had enough, and informs his employer that he would simply “prefer not to” do what is asked of him. “I would prefer not to make any change,” Bartleby tells his baffled boss, later adding, “I like to be stationary.”
Human resource professionals may want to consider the Bartlebys among their remote staff as they strategize a return to the workplace post-omicron. If new research from the Pew Research Center is any indication, the majority of remote workers in the US would feel very comfortable working from home indefinitely, comfortably attired in their favorite “I would prefer not to” T-shirts.
Zoom in: According to the survey of nearly 6,000 employed adults in the US, 60% of workers with jobs that can be done from home said that given the choice, they would prefer to work from home “all or most” of the time. That’s up from 54% who gave the same answer in 2020.
A preference for remote work is even more pronounced in a recent poll by management consultancy AWA, which surveyed 10,000 workers around the world, and found that just 3% of white-collar workers want to return to an office full-time.
But what about burnout? As we’ve reported, other research shows that many remote workers are struggling to maintain a healthy work-life balance. But Pew found that 64% of workers who now do their jobs from home at least some of the time—but rarely or never did before the pandemic—say it’s easier for them to balance work with their personal life. (It’s unclear how many received Sharper Image massage chairs and Nespresso machines from their HR departments.)
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On the other hand, 61% of workers surveyed by Pew who currently choose to go into the workplace say the main reason they do so is because they feel more productive.
Asked about the Pew survey, author and workplace researcher Dan Schawbel said it shows that “flexibility” is essential for organizing the current workplace.
“Workers want the freedom to choose where, when, and how they work and while that’s always been the case, the past two years have created a strong-enough business case for it,” Schawbel wrote in an email. “For HR professionals, this means that you need to incorporate the voice of your workforce when making decisions about your flexibility policy, and be able to adapt and change as those preferences, and the business needs, evolve as well.”
The bottom line: Workers’ differing preferences when it comes to WFH or IRL may explain why many organizations are choosing to adopt a flexible, hybrid approach to the workplace.
Andrew Mawson, founder and managing director of AWA, believes flex work is here to stay. “Employers have to realize that the genie is out of the bottle,” Mawson said in a statement. “Workers have seen that flexibility can work and bosses who are not sensitive to their employees’ needs will suffer accordingly.”
And when it comes to suffering, most of us would prefer not to.—JDSDo you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @johndelsignore on Twitter. For confidential conversations, ask John for his number on Signal.