Remote Works: 96% of workers want it

In a world where Amazon employees are staging walkouts, senior Apple employees are departing the company to work for more flexible competitors, and Elon Musk is sending late-night emails demanding employees return to the office, some companies are struggling in the fight against remote work. But is the ongoing battle actually worth it, or will the companies that can't evolve eventually fall behind? The numbers say the latter. Our Out of Office report lists findings from multiple studies that clearly show workers are more satisfied and even more productive when allowed to work remotely.

Working from home (WFH) means you can skip the commute, keep up with your other responsibilities, and choose your working environment, whether it’s a cosy nook of your house, a local library, or a cafe. Gone are the days when you had to live in an over-priced area of the city in order to be close enough to the office, and parents can find it easier to navigate school drop-offs and pick-ups. Not to mention the freedom to sing along at full volume to your favourite songs while you work, without upsetting your colleagues. No wonder 96% of workers want it in some shape or form!¹ In fact, as many as one in three employees admitted they'd quit if they were told to return to the office full-time.²That's a lot of talent to lose just for the sake of close proximity.

"Doing things in a new way is hard," says Annie Dean, Global Head of Team Anywhere at Atlassian. "But the problem of today's working culture isn't about where people work, it's the fact that companies aren't providing their workers with the tools or ways of working to succeed."

Now that we have the right tools to make remote working work, it's only becoming more and more appealing. Less time in the office no longer means a disconnected community or a weak company culture. Remote workers are actually more satisfied with their company culture than their on-site counterparts, with 66% stating that it impacts their role positively, compared with 52% of on-site employees.³ Digital tools have played a huge part in enabling stronger collaboration and communication between remote teams.

With continuous software developments and 2020's mass WFH experiment, the number of remote workers just keeps rising. Office vacancies across the globe are at their highest in two decades,⁴ with WFH being four times more common in 2023 than in 2019 and 10 times more common than in the mid-1990s.⁵ The pandemic didn't start a trend, it accelerated a movement, and remote work isn't going anywhere.

Surprisingly, only 35% of employers trust their employees to work remotely,⁶ demonstrating a severe lack of trust in most organisations. Your company wants to be in that high-trust minority, not just for the workers' happiness but also for the sake of productivity and performance. High-trust organisations are 50 times more productive⁷ and known to out-perform, out-innovate, and retain talent more than their peers.⁸ But is that really a surprise? We all know how limiting it feels to be micromanaged when the alternative lets you work however you work best. It's only natural that you can get more done when you feel empowered to do it your own way.

To quote the report directly, the time for remote work has arrived: it's doable, it's preferable, and it's good for business.