New study shows a reluctance to head back to the office.
Businesses want their employees to be in the office for at least three days of the week. But it seems most workers don't want to do it.
Gigabit Networks carried out a survey asking 3000 employers and workers about working from home and working in the office.
It found that 83% of businesses wanted their employees to be based in the office for at least three days a week. But only 20% of employees were prepared to return to the office. And, a whopping 41% of employees stated they didn’t want to return to the office at all.
Tech entrepreneur and co-founder of Gigabit Networks, David Yates, said: “We were shocked to see that despite employees reporting problems such as frozen video conference calls, slow connectivity or work being lost due to internet outage, the vast majority of those questioned still considered themselves more productive being based at home than in the office."
A second study by Gigabit Networks focused on the wishes and expectations of employees. It highlights the problems both businesses and employees experience in and around Broadband and technology when working from home.
Employees were more interested in returning to the workplace to save money on their heating bills (33%) or socialise with colleagues (51%) rather than improve productivity.
And, 90% of employees stated that they considered the quality of their work to be superior when produced at home.
Whilst 85% stated that they achieved more at home than in the workplace, despite problems with unreliable internet connections.
“Employees working from home need to have access to the best tools to do their job and ultrafast Full Fibre connectivity is that tool,” adds Gigabit co-founder Dan Illet.
“Having staff working on slow and unreliable internet connections is like giving a racing driver a pushbike rather than a Porsche and still expecting them to win the race.”
Gigabit Networks, which was recently voted ‘Midlands’ Best ISP’, was launched by tech entrepreneurs, David Yates and Dan Ilett with the intention of helping Midlands-based businesses and residents bridge the digital divide via ultrafast Full Fibre connectivity.
“[The survey] made us question how much more businesses could benefit by providing their home workers with the ultrafast speed. Up to 20 times faster than standard broadband - and reliability that Full Fibre connectivity gives.
"It really could be a game changer for Midland’s businesses. Incredible broadband is no longer a ‘nice to have’, it’s a ‘must have’ for hybrid staff working in 2023.
More from Gigabit Networks' survey
55% feel that the cost of commuting as a factor that would discourage them from returning to the office full-time
40% of workers prefer the flexibility that working from home can provide.
54% of employers found either an increase or no difference in productivity with staff working from home.
43% reported remote working actually improved communication between home-working staff.
58% of employers highlighted concern about network security from potentially insecure home broadband connections.
Gigabit Network’s ultrafast service
The service takes advantage of CityFibre’s Full Fibre connections that always use 100% fibre-optic lines directly to the building, with none of the copper wiring of traditional broadband services to slow things down.
Each Full Fibre connection is exclusive to your property and capable of delivering up to 930 Megabits per second speeds both ways – more than 20x faster than normal broadband.
At present, the technology is available to 250,000 homes and businesses in the current Gigabit Networks catchment area, but this could ultimately yield over 1 million potential premises as the CityFibre infrastructure and tech roll-out continues.
