Will we ever return to our old ways of working?
With England and Scotland now back into national lockdown, it seems that the UK will not be returning to pre-pandemic ways of life for longer than anticipated. People have been told that they must work from home again. The pandemic has changed the way we feel at work, with home offices, kitchen table workspaces, homeschooling and endless ‘office’ hours now the norm. With this, many working Brits have seen work in a new light.
Future Strategy Club (FSC) – a creative consulting agency that helps talented individuals take the first step towards consultancy work and self-employment – has commissioned nationally representative data across 2,076 Brits to find out what they now want from work.
Key stats
– Over half of working Brits – 52% or 13.7 million – feel closer to their family and enjoy a better work-life balance after working at home for months and want to continue to do so in some capacity in the future
– 40% of Brits – 11.4 million people – say the pandemic has made them realise what a poor work-life balance they had pre-lockdown and they will not return to it after COVID
– 60% of Brits believe the workplace of the future will have to change drastically for the better to avoid losing its best talent to freelancing and consulting
– 23% of British parents say their employer was unsympathetic to them having to manager childcare around work during the COVID period
– 34% of Brits say the COVID pandemic has encouraged them to look towards consultancy and freelance work or start their own business
Justin Small, CEO and Founder of Future Strategy Club, has provided commentary on what people now want from work post-COVID:
“Lockdown and the way that we see work has changed immeasurably and surprisingly quickly throughout the course of 2020 and into 2021. Working from home and flexible working was already growing in popularity but the past year has put that growth on steroids. COVID showed all the worse parts of the traditional working structure so it is not surprising so many people have wanted to make changes to their environments permanently.
Companies need to be careful to accommodate their employees’ needs and concerns otherwise, talented individuals will be drawn towards going it alone or jumping ship, causing repercussions for businesses that may be on the edge of surviving and going under. If people are looking to go freelance, self-employed or become a full-time consultant, consultancy agencies are a great alternative to going it alone straight away. It wouldn’t be surprising if 2021 becomes the year of the mass exodus from the 9-5 and towards self-employment.”
