Guest post: IT workers miss their colleagues while working from home

Edward Hayhurst, Digital Marketing Executive at webevents limited explores the social impact of remote working and how colleagues are coping outside of the office environment.

Working in an office, we regularly catch up with colleagues over coffee, sit down with our team members to brainstorm, and discuss our weekend plans with one another on a Friday afternoon. However, since the start of the global pandemic, many of us have had to pack up our laptops, keyboards and headsets and do our jobs from our homes.

Following the second UK lockdown announcement on November 5, 2020, data from the Office for National Statistics showed that the number of people working exclusively from home rose from 21% to 24%. Some people have been working from home since March, meaning that they have had no face-to-face interaction with colleagues for months – and it’s certainly taking its toll.

What IT Workers Miss About The Office
One industry that is missing the office in particular is the IT sector. According to research carried out by business card and banner printing experts, instantprint, 43.4% of IT workers admitted to missing their colleagues. This was followed by the general office environment (30.2%) and getting ready in the morning (24.5%).

Things That Distract IT Workers When They are Working From Home
Of the 1,000 Brits that were surveyed, 28.3% of IT workers confessed to watching films, Netflix and TV while they should have been working, while 24.5% of them declared that they had been napping during the day! Walking the dog was another activity that they do at home during working hours (18.9%) as well as running errands, such as popping to the shops (20.8%)

Discussing how to keep employees engaged in their workplace, Jon Constantine-Smith, Head of instantprint said, “The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown up lots of challenges for businesses and for lots of people working from home is one of them. A majority of people are working harder than ever but it is clear that some are taking advantage of their employers by doing less than normal or in some cases nothing at all.”

Lingo That IT Workers Don’t Like
‘The ‘Rona’, ‘Furlough(ed)’ and ‘What a weird time to be alive’ have all been constantly used over the last few months, but which phrases do IT departments detest the most? 20.8% of those surveyed admitted to hating ‘WFH’, while ‘furlough(ed)’ is disliked by 18.9% of them. 17% also stated that emails shouldn’t start with ‘In these worrying/uncertain/unprecedented times.’

Do you enjoy working from home, or are you someone that can’t wait to get back into the office?

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