One in 13 people 'desperate' to get back to work - poll

7 September 2020, 07:03 | Updated: 7 September 2020, 14:16

One employee in 13 is desperate to get back to their normal place of work, a poll by LBC suggests.

The study of nearly 23,000 workers also shows two thirds of Londoners have said they are not expecting to go back into their offices every day.

Nearly 1 in 5 (19 per cent) said since the pandemic they don’t plan on going back to the office at all and will work from home indefinitely.

In London, this figure rose to 22 percent, with workers saying they intend to work from their homes five days a week.

The disparity between the capital and the rest of the country also comes apparent when people were asked about whether they would be going back full or part time.

Half of those asked who live outside the capital said they expect to go back to work five days a week everyday, compared to just 35 per cent of Londoners.

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The poll, ran by digital pollsters Findoutnow.co.uk, found Wales is at both ends of the scale when it came to people being "desperate" to go back to work.

The region least desperate to get back is Wales (5.98 per cent), and those in the North West the most (8.46 per cent).

The UK average is just 7.6 per cent

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Men are proportionally more desperate to return to the office with 8.31 per cent saying they are compared with 7.3 per cent of women.

But what effect is this likely to have on our workforce, if the call to work continues being ignored?

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he thinks younger workers in particular could be missing out on vital interactions which could further their career.

He told LBC's Nick Ferrari "The truth is sadly not everyone enjoys their job and not everyone wants to be in the office every single moment of the day.

"If you look at some of those really successful employers, famous tech companies and the like, they get the balance right.

"They say you've got to be in the office for much of the time, but there is flexibility, you can take days off you can work from home."

He added: "But office based life is going to change, but I think everyone needs a bit of a push. We all settle into habits and one of the habits we've all settled into is that all work from home and we don't go into the office.

"That's not really good for people's career development, they can be lost a bit at home, they don't necessarily meet other people, you don't spark off each other.

"For younger members of staff, people who are maybe new to the company, it's quite hard to be noticed if you're just at the end of a zoom call.

"It's alright if you've been in the company for years, but for your own career and being noticed by the people who are more senior in the company, being around and being able to have those snatched conversations are pretty important for people's own careers as well as the collective thinking of a company."