More than two-thirds of German employees who have been working from home due to the coronavirus crisis want to keep doing so after the pandemic, a new YouGov poll revealed Monday.

The popularity of working from within your own four walls has increased in the wake of the pandemic, said energy supplier Eon, which commissioned the survey.

A total of 71 percent of those queried said they would like to be able to work from home in the future. At the beginning of the pandemic in May of last year, it was only 58 percent.

A good quarter (26 percent) of those surveyed would like to work at home all the time. And 45 percent want to alternate between their home office and their company workplace.

According to the survey, the main reason for the growing popularity of home office work is the time saved by eliminating the need to commute. This is the reason given by 70 percent of those surveyed.

Other reasons are the more flexible working hours (57 percent), saved travel costs (52 percent) and positive effects on the environment (43 percent).

A British survey published on Monday reached similar results.

Research by the Adecco Group found that half of British employees were happier following the changes to working life in the last 12 months, the Press Association reported, although just over a third of those surveyed believed their mental well-being had worsened.

“For those who are not bound to being physically present to perform their work, it is obvious that we will never return to the office in the same way and that the future of work is flexible,” Adecco chief executive Alain Dehaze said, according to the Press Association.

Adecco surveyed 1,000 office-based workers in the UK, and found that just over half felt a lot of anxiety about returning to the office, the British news agency wrote.

More than a third of respondents said their mental well-being had suffered in the past year, with almost two in five complaining of having to work too hard or reaching burnout.

Nearly two-thirds of office workers polled said they wanted a hybrid working model where more than half of their time spent working was remote.

Source: dpa/MIA