I suppose I'm quite privileged seeing multiple first hand research of this. I can understand how in your circumstance, human interaction is important. In organisations which are more office based and corporate (so these are all big businesses with 2,000-23,000 employees, some global) the consistency of sentiment is really striking. Over the last decade I've seen sentiment wanting say 2 days a month at home and it be rejected. Now 80% upwards want to work from home for half the week as a minimum and 15-20% are commonly wanting to work from home fully. What's also interesting as touched on before, is that the evidence suggests better hours are being delivered. There was a question in this survey asking what people were looking forward to returning to an office environment. One question was improving boundaries between home and work. The other was being more effective in an office environment. Aside from utilizing local amenities near work, they delivered the lowest scores in the survey section. Surprisingly, the sentiment is stronger in women than men, which did surprise me. On a personal opinion, what would be refreshing is that personal choice and situation is accounted for and respected, which certainly hasn't been the case pre covid. If someone wants to work 100% in a fixed office location, they should be able. If someone wants to work 100% from home, they should be able. I hope thats what happens in all businesses that can. Edit: obviously there are some businesses that could never have all people working from home fully. Fabrication, fulfilment, construction, manufacturing, heavy industries, picking, transport, food, pharma (in part), hospitality just some that spring to mind.
