According to an ADP Canada survey, more than six in ten workers (63%) feel that being in the office provides a better chance of “getting ahead” than staying home and telecommuting.
The question is worth exploring further, in a context where more than half of workers surveyed (55%) expect to have the freedom to choose where they work. Are employers giving workers a rope to hang themselves on?
Let’s look at the results of the ADP Canada survey of 3,021 Canadians conducted by Maru/Blue:
- 53% believe that face-to-face workers will benefit from more social gatherings;
- For 48%, they will be more likely to have positive relationships with their managers.
- And so, as a result, 63% of workers believe that an employee who comes into the office to do his or her job increases his or her chances of advancing his or her career, and 36% go so far as to say that this presence in the office could lead to a promotion.
The authors of the report call this positive perception of office attendance the “proximity bias”. They caution managers who succumb to it, perhaps without realizing it.
It’s important for employers to recognize proximity bias and better understand the needs of a dispersed workforce,” said Heather Haslam, vice president of marketing for ADP Canada, in the release accompanying the survey.
The ADP Canada vice president urges managers to equip their teams with the right hardware and collaborative platforms that “foster engagement” to hold hybrid virtual meetings that can accommodate everyone.
The world of work is constantly changing, therefore, recognizing that the workplace has changed and implementing equitable work policies will allow all employees to thrive professionally, regardless of their preferred work mode.”
Recognizing remote productivity
It should be noted that the survey reports workers‘ perceptions (not those of managers or employers). They feel they are losing value by choosing to operate from home… Yet, in the same survey, 56% of these same workers say that telecommuting has had a “positive” impact on their relationship with their manager (47% say that telecommuting has created a better relationship of trust with their manager).
Currently, it is true to say that a majority of employers and managers are leaning towards being in the office (see last summer’s CHRP survey). However, surveys consistently report equal if not higher productivity when teleworking, in industries where it is used.
This finding was reconfirmed most recently in a PwC survey released in November 2021.
So, it may only be a matter of time before managers and employers fully recognize the intrinsic value of telecommuting. After all, jobs that have a high degree of autonomy can be done from home, without disrupting business operations.
In fact, there is already a greater openness to hiring talent that is off-shored, based in another city or even abroad.
It will be interesting to see how the perception of workers, as well as employers, continues to evolve in the coming year.
