Deloitte Switzerland: most employees want to go back to the office after the pandemic

In mid-January 2021, the Federal Council imposed new rules requiring people in Switzerland to work from home. Many people now apparently like to work from home: office workers in Switzerland would like to work partly (62%) or even completely (26%) from home even after the pandemic. This was revealed in a representative survey conducted by Deloitte Switzerland in mid-February. Young people have a more positive attitude towards working from home than older employees, who are more attracted to their familiar working environment. The survey respondents also consider themselves more productive at home than in the office, but a majority see the lack of personal contact as the biggest drawback. The trend towards remote working is likely to have lasting and far-reaching effects on the economy and society. Companies must consider how they want to organise work in the future and come up with solutions that on the one hand enable employees to work flexibly and on the other hand ensure competitiveness in the market.

An hybrid future
According to the Deloitte survey, a large majority (88%) of office workers do not want to spend every working day in the office in the future. Almost two-thirds (62%) of respondents want to work from home on some days each week even after the pandemic, and 26% would prefer to work from home all the time. Only 12 % want to work full time in the office. Also, when it comes to individual preferences, there are also differences between the generations: among those under 30, only 9 percent want to return to the office completely and among those over 50, 16% no longer want to work from home. On the other side of the spectrum, the picture is similar: 31% under 30 want to work full time from home even after the pandemic, compared to only 22 percent of the over-50s. Almost half the survey respondents (47%) have the impression that they are more productive when working from home than together with their colleagues in the office; only 16% think they are less productive, while for 37% productivity has remained the same. However, remote working also has its pitfalls. Besides problems of working space (20%) and a lack of infrastructure (22%), the lack of personal interaction is the biggest problem for many respondents (44%).