Over three-quarters of Brits are in favour of teleworking

With Internet penetration at 45%(*) in the European Union and this figure rapidly increasing as more households get Internet access, logic dictates that working patterns will change with more people looking to work from home. The remote working debate has many supporters and detractors, with commuting time savings and better work-life balance on one side, versus office life and colleague interaction on the other. Leading recruitment website Monster asked over 8,000 Europeans if they worked from home and results showed a mixed response.

The Monster Meter asked, Do you work from home? 8,335 Europeans placed a vote, revealing:
36% (3,030) No - I wish my company offered this
20% (1,659) Yes - it’s a great way to work
15% (1,274) No - my company doesn’t offer this and that is fine with me
15% (1,228) Yes - but it’s more trouble than it’s worth
14% (1,144) No - the option is there but I’d rather come to work

As part of the European survey, nearly 801 visitors to Monster.co.uk responded:
51% (408) No - I wish my company offered this
26% (213) Yes - it’s a great way to work
10% (79) No - my company doesn’t offer this and that is fine with me
6% (48) Yes - but it’s more trouble than it’s worth
7% (53) No - the option is there but I’d rather come to work

At present, only in the UK do we find nearly 35 million(**) Internet users, which is 59% of the entire British population. It is no surprise that 27% of Brits say that they already work from home and an additional 51% admitted that although their companies didn’t offer them the choice, they wish they could work remotely. In Germany we find a similar situation with 38% of respondents working from home already and 44% saying that they wished they could do so, too.

Working from home is becoming increasingly common, as there is a strong argument that it increases productivity. With technology evolving rapidly and enabling workers to be connected almost at all times, the need for staff to be at their office desks is not as imperative as it used to be comments Kai Deininger, head of communications, Monster Europe. However, despite the obvious employee benefits of working from home, some employees do enjoy going to the office and seeing their colleagues, whilst others feel they miss out on office news and find it easier to interact face-to-face rather than via conference calls. This is why employers need to assess the needs of their specific business and decide if working from home is a suitable option.

36% of Europeans don’t have the choice of working from home, and this is particularly the case for French (65%) and Italian workers (63%), who wish their employers would give them the option of working remotely. However, 15% of Europeans don’t mind not having the option. 23% of Swedish respondents said they didn’t mind having to go into the office and an additional 24% actually said they had the option of working from home, but choose to go into the office.

One in five Dutch voters say that they already worked from home, but this was more hassle than it was worth. This feeling is shared by 27% of Swedish respondents.

The results of the current Monster Meter are based on votes cast by Monster.com visitors from 26th April to 10th May 2004. Only one vote per user is counted toward the final tabulation. The Monster Meter, a product of Monster, the leading global online careers site and flagship brand of Monster Worldwide Inc., is a series of online polls that gauge users’ opinions on a variety of topics relating to careers, the economy and the workplace. Anyone interested in voting in Monster’s current online poll may do so by logging onto www.monster.co.uk.

* Source: Internet World Stats
** Source: users as of March 2004, per Nielsen//NR.