Last week in this column I mentioned that I have been receiving an influx of COVID-19 related pitches from publicists. I’m averaging five or six a day if not more. Everybody’s an expert or knows one who wants to talk to The Cannata Report or anyone else willing to listen.
One such pitch began this way: “With 87% of Americans under lockdown, millions of Americans are forced to work from home. A new survey came out sharing that almost 50% of Americans wish working from home were permanent.”
That survey sounded intriguing, but since the source was not identified, I conducted a Google search. I didn’t find the survey referenced in the pitch but instead found the results of a survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Glassdoor and published on March 23. A lot has changed since then but If you are an employer, you might still consider the findings interesting.
Harris surveyed approximately 1,000 employed U.S. adults about their employers’ response to COVID-19 and their feelings about working from home. If you are familiar with Glassdoor, you may be expecting to read some harsh comments about these employees’ employers. bracing yourself for some harsh comments about these employees’ employers. Even in the best of times, the reviews employees and former employees post about their employers on Glassdoor can often be ruthless. Surprisingly, this was not so much the case with this survey, mostly because most questions centered on the employee and their thoughts about working from home.
Allow me to share some bullet points from the survey.
- Nearly 3 in 10 employees (28%) across all income ranges said their employer has done nothing in response to concerns of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
- The Wage Divide: 42% of employees with a household income of less than $50K annually say they have heard nothing/seen no action from their employers about COVID-19, compared to 19% of employees with a household income of $100K+ annually.
- 67% of employees said they would support the decision by their employer to mandate employees to work from home indefinitely due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
- 16% of employees said their companies offered additional paid/unpaid sick leave in response to concerns of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
- 60% of respondents said they are confident they can efficiently do their job remotely if they are required to work from home indefinitely.
- 50% of employees believe they would be equally or more productive working from home as opposed to their normal work location.
- 68% of employees aged 18-34 reported being confident in efficiently doing their work remotely compared to 44% of employees aged 55-64.
- A quarter of female employees reported that it isn’t possible to do their job remotely, compared to 14% of male employees.
- 71% of employed parents with children under age 18 said that they feel confident they can efficiently do their job remotely if necessary.
- The top distraction employees cite that would take them away from work if they were to work from home is watching TV (32%).
- 22% of employees are concerned about going ‘stir crazy’ when considering being mandated or encouraged to work from home.
- 27% of employed parents with children under 18 said they would be concerned about the difficulty of managing children while working at home.
- 25% of employed parents with children under age 18 cited lack of social interaction as a concern when working from home, compared to 18% of employees without children under age 18.
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