Return to the office? No way, say more than one-third of remote workers

The COVID-19 pandemic made remote working acceptable, and now many employees say they won’t go back to the traditional office.

Results of a new survey of 1,000 fully or partially remote workers, conducted by the personal finance website FinanceBuzz.com, indicates that more than one-third of them (36%) would quit or immediately begin looking for a new job if told they had to return to office. What’s more, 58% of remote workers are likely or very likely to look for a remote role for their next job. And one-fourth of remote workers say that flexibility of schedule is the top perk of working from home — down from 31% in 2020.

The survey asked respondents about the top benefits of remote work, and the FinanceBuzz team compared them to a similar survey the company conducted in 2020.

Here are the top five perks of working remotely, as listed by respondents:

1. Flexibility to work from anywhere (35% in 2023; 29% in 2020)
2. Schedule flexibility (25% in 2023; 31% in 2020)
3. Time saved (14% in 2023; 23% in 2020)
4. Time with family (12% in 2023; 5% in 2020)
5. Higher productivity (8% in 2023; 8% in 2020)

Conversely, here are the top five downsides of remote work, according to remote workers’ responses:

1. Difficult to build relationships with co-workers (41%)
2. More distractions (40%)
3. In different time zone than co-workers (39%)
4. Difficult to separate work from personal life (32%)
5. Lack of “face time” with manager or company leaders (32%)

Read more: 10 return-to-office incentives employers can provide at little (or no) cost

“While some workplaces have returned to the office …, others have adopted full-time remote or hybrid schedules, indicating that remote work is here to stay for many,” the report notes.