Job satisfaction has increased but Australian workers wonder why it's taken a crisis to drive widespread flexible working
The pandemic has forced millions of workers worldwide to work from home but most say that it has boosted their job satisfaction.
Almost 7 in 10 Australian respondents said that both satisfaction and work-life balance have improved thanks to remote working and 86% said that they have greater appreciation for life outside of their workplace.
The positive view of work-from-home is reflected across many global respondents with an overall 44% saying that better work-life balance is the single biggest change felt during this period.
In a report titled Reworking Work: Understanding the Rise of Work Anywhere, more than 5,000 workers were polled by Australian research agency Paper Giant for software firm Atlassian.
Employers may have concerns about workers slacking while remote working but 42% of respondents said they are working longer hours from home than they were in the workplace.
Missing the banter
Aussies were typically upbeat about the ‘new normal’ but, as with others across the 5 nations surveyed, there were challenges for those looking after children.
Many respondents globally reported that it was harder to maintain boundaries between work and home when the two are in the same place, but more than half were nervous about returning to an office setting.
Teamworking was generally not reported to be significantly affected by remote working; most felt that teams were working effectively.
However, a sizeable majority of Australians (77%) said that they miss workplace banter.
“If you’ve ever said your people are your biggest asset, now is the time to act upon that,” says Dom Price, work futurist at Atlassian. “We’ve heard many positions on the future of distributed work but the reality is that one size won’t fit all situations. This research underscores just how nuanced the future of work is, it’s not about a company going fully remote or hitting some specific flexibility target.”
How does your remote work experience compare? Take a look at some of the most unanticipated and under-appreciated impacts of the pandemic that our research uncovered. https://t.co/YXgi7P7ij0
— Atlassian (@Atlassian) October 7, 2020
