Romania Working From Home Survey

The aim of the survey

There is no doubt that working from home will remain on everyone's agenda for some time to come, but also will be assumed as part of the working schedule.

Even the official data from Eurostat, are indicating an upward trend of the percentage of employed persons aged 15-64 that usually work from home.

Thus, if in 2019 the registered percentage was of 0.8%, in 2020 the value considerably increased, reaching 2.5%.

Nonetheless, 2020 was the year with the imposed lockdown and it was expected to reach such a high degree of WFH employees.

The future evolution remains to be seen as this ball has just started to roll. Almost a third of respondents affirm that they returned in the office 5 days per week, 29%.

Working from home, now vs. a year ago

In the attempt to better understand the trend that is unveiling in regard to work from hom versus work from office, CBRE Research conducted a public survey amongst employees, opened to anyone from sector in Romania.
We aimed to find out how they have adapted their work, and most importantly, the challenges they faced during the past year and how they see the future of workspace.

As a follow up to the special report Working from Home Survey 2020, the 2021 survey findings show a fragmented position of the employees that proved that some adapted very well at working from home, while others want to return as soon as possible to their very missed office desk.

Key takeaways:

- Most of the respondents don't feel 2021 is any diffrent to 2020 in terms of feeling tired, interacting with the manager and collaborating and other current issues of the workplace.
- A positive outcome is that 44% feel less tired after a typical working day, while more than half of the respondents seems to have organised their home space better for regular work
- Work-life balance has also been assessed as better for 42% of respondents
- An impressive 58% also feel more prepared to complete the given tasks than they were a year ago.
- But when it comes to collaboration, 37% are experiencing less opportunities to do it.

We want offices back, however...

Even if most of respondents declared they didn't experience any difficulties when working from home, they top listed the most important inconveniences of WFH.
Top factors that make working from home difficult or even impossible:

- Need more support or spontaneous communication with my teammates
- Having no proper workstation (ergonomic, daylight, size, monitor, etc.)
- Lack of privacy or quiet space (not enough space, too many persons around, etc.)
- Need more support or spontaneous communication with my team leader
- Need an acces to paper documents that must be stored in the office

The expectations towords employer when it comes to the workplace environment are clear:
Safety, physical health, sustainable strategies and a healthy culture measures are expected to improve once offices will reopen at full capacity.

Learnings at personal level

For each individual, the Covid-19 for sure left some marks, and when it comes to work, the positive outcomes were mirrored according to the survey's respondents in gained independence and productivity.

Seems that we have learned a few lessons

The adaptation in one of the main characteristics that kept humans evolving and change to new and better versions of themselves.
After a 2020 that changed nations and economies to the core, the workspace got caught in the middle and was forced to change in order to survive and be operational in the safest way for its users.