Employees’ emotional response to home working varies across industry

  • 90 per cent would not take a pay cut to work from home
  • 46 per cent of employees felt ‘positive’ working from home and 20 per cent felt ‘empowered’
  • Employees in education, technology, finance and manufacturing tended to experience more positive emotions around home working than negative
  • Communications and construction employees tend to feel demotivated.

Working from home has become the norm for a significant proportion of the global workforce over the past year and it’s likely this trend is here to stay. But new research from employee engagement experts, Inpulse has identified an industry divide in emotional responses towards home working.

While there appeared to be widespread agreement from employees surveyed who would not accept a pay reduction in order to continue working from home (90 per cent), there were clear variations across industries when it came to emotional experience.

Employees from education, technology, finance and manufacturing tended to experience more positive emotions when working from home, with many attributing these emotions down to enjoying a better work-life balance, not having to commute and saving money on travel and other expenses.

75 per cent in the education sector said they felt ‘positive’ while 25 per cent felt energised. In the technology sector, 67 per cent felt positive, 33 per cent felt empowered and a further 33 per cent felt confident. In finance, 50 per cent felt positive and empowered and a further 33 per cent felt motivated. 67 per cent of employees in manufacturing said they felt positive working from home while 33 per cent felt motivated and energised.

However, employees working in communications tended to struggle more with 63 per cent of respondents disclosing feels of isolation from being ‘stuck at home’ and not seeing colleagues and socialising. 40 per cent of employees in the construction industry said they felt demotivated. There appeared to be an equal split between responses from employees in transportation: 29 per cent said they felt isolated while a further 29 per cent said they felt positive from working from home.

Overall, 46 per cent of respondents across all sectors felt positive working from home and 20 per cent felt empowered in comparison to 17 per cent who felt isolated and indifferent.

Matt Stephens, CEO and founder of Inpulse, said: “Pay and remote working are very divisive topics. People overwhelmingly believed it wasn’t right nor fair for employers to cut pay for employees who work from home. Yet there was a lot of variation between people’s experience of home working across different industries.

“Employees from sectors such as finance, technology and education tended to benefit from working at home and felt motivated, energised and confident. Other sectors however, such as communication and construction, to some degree, experienced feelings of isolation and and demotivation.”

Inpulse’s sample is from 102 individuals.