Who's missing out?
How working from home is affecting the workplace
Last time, I wrote about how employees in Canada continue to express considerable interest in working from home.
But what do employees think about the impact that having so many people working remotely is having on the workplace?
Some views are fairly positive.1 For instance, strong majorities of employed Canadians (about 7 in 10) agree that:
people who work at home are just as productive as those who work in their regular office or workplace; and that
allowing people to work from home as much as they want has made their workplace a more enjoyable place to be.
But, in other cases, opinions are mixed.
55 percent agree that “people who work at home are missing out on too many things that happen when we come together in our regular office or workplace,” though 40 percent disagree;
one in two (50%) agree that “it is impossible to work together as a team when some people are working at home and not in our regular office or workplace,” but almost as many (45%) disagree.
48 percent agree that “allowing some people to work from home is unfair to those workers who can’t perform their jobs at home,” while the same proportion (46%) disagree.
In short, between 40 and 50 percent of employees worry that allowing people to work from home leads to people missing out on things, impedes teamwork, and is unfair to those whose jobs can’t be done from their kitchen tables.
What’s most important, though, is that these opinions about the impact of working from home vary, depending on a person’s own work situation. People who themselves regularly work from home are much more positive in their assessment than people who don’t.
For instance, a majority of workers agree that “allowing people to work from home as much as they want has made my workplace a more enjoyable place to be,” regardless of whether they themselves are working from home most days a week, only some days a week or not at all. But the extent of agreement increases as the frequency of working from home rises. The same is true in the case of the statement about whether people who work at home are just as productive.
In the case of the three other statements – about whether people who work from home are missing out, whether having some people working at home impedes teamwork, and whether allowing some people to work from home is unfair – a potential problem emerges: majorities of those who don’t work from home agree, while majorities of those who work from home almost every day disagree. The likelihood of expressing concerns about the downsides of working from home decreases as the frequency of working from home rises – to the point where, on the whole, those who are and are not working from home end up on opposing sides of the issue.
Do these results signal a possible rift emerging in the workplace?
This is something employers should be watching for. Presumably, creative steps can be taken to foster greater collegiality and dispel any resentment within workplaces where some are able to work from home more than others.
The data in this post are from the Survey on Employment and Skills. This survey is conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, in partnership with the Diversity Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University and the Future Skills Centre. The 7th wave of the study consists of a survey of 5,855 Canadians age 18 and over, conducted between May 30 and July 4, 2024, in all provinces and territories. It was conducted both online (in the provinces) and by telephone (in the territories). More information about the survey is available on the Environics Institute website. The author is solely responsible for any errors of presentation or interpretation.
The Survey on Employment and Skills is funded primarily by the Government of Canada’s Future Skills Centre / Le sondage sur l’emploi et les compétences est financé principalement par le Centre des Compétences futures du gouvernement du Canada.
Cover photo credit: Diva Plavalaguna
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For each of the five questions, roughly 10 to 20 percent of respondents said they could not provide an answer because the question did not apply to their work situation. This might arise, for instance, because they work in a sector where almost all employees work outside their homes. These respondents have been excluded from the analysis presented here.