Yahoo Finance Coronavirus: Employers face uphill battle to get workers back in the office
A latest survey has revealed the extent of problems employers face when coaxing workers back into the office over the next couple of months.
Research shows that in the marketing and communications industry a whopping 97% of employees said they had reservations about returning to work in the office, with 82% nervous about the logistics of getting there.
The prospect of packed tubes in London was cited as the main concern with a number of respondents indicating that they would consider cycling into work.
There are increasing fears that the government scared the UK population so much that it could be difficult to restart the UK economy this summer, as many workers prefer to stay in their homes.
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Employers have showed increasing resistance to returning to work.
Last week engineering firm Dyson told its employees to start returning to work but the instructions were met with dismay by its workers.
Dyson was forced to backtrack on the decision.
The research was undertaken by Question & Retain, who surveyed 2500 employees in the marketing and communications sector.
The study also revealed that 66% of employees aged 25 or under working from home have suffered from low moods and social withdrawal.
Younger respondents talked about being “overwhelmed with workload” with work hours “consistently longer” and expectations that can be “mentally draining,” as well as feeling disconnected from fellow workers.
But older employees, 45 years or over, were coping better with less than half showing any signs of mental ill-health due to working from home.
Annabel Dunstan, founder and chief executive at Q&R, said: “It is clear the younger workers are feeling the most adversely affected. It takes good communication from leadership including regular one on one check-ins and opportunities to feedback to support employees in the new world we find ourselves in.”
