Employees willing to take a pay cut for remote working

Almost a third of employees are prepared to take a pay cut if it means they can work from home.

This research was conducted by the virtual Working from Home Show, a free event for businesses to discuss the future of remote working who also found that nearly two-thirds of employees would take a reduction of 12 per cent on average to work at home.

Close to three-quarters (70 per cent) have said that they are saving money during the lockdown, which equates to £1,416 per year.

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Also, 50 per cent said they were happier working from home as well as being either a little or a lot more productive. The vast majority (83 per cent) said that remote working is good for their health and wellbeing compared to being in the office.

Over 70 per cent wish to work from home permanently, with 65 per cent saying they wish to remote work more than three times a week. However, only 40 per cent of workers feel prepared to work from home, with issues such as access to technology arising.

This has led to employers considering the idea of investing money in technology for remote working, still, 87 per cent of companies have not given up their workspace.

Nick Noble, commercial and events directors at Future Plc, said:

One of the consequences of the Covid-19 crisis is that it has forced businesses into a working from home scenario that they hadn’t previously thought possible or desirable. As the situation eases and those businesses have found that working from home is working for business, they are reconsidering their strategies.

Our survey has found that employees are willing to be flexible and even consider reducing their salaries as they find working from home is good for their work life balance.

One disadvantage that arises due to remote working, is that it can lead to more unsafe data practices being used. Tessian who builds technology to empower people to work safely, report ‘the state of data loss prevention’ which found that 48 per cent of office turned remote workers are now more likely to use unsafe data practices when working remotely. As well as 52 per cent admitting they feel like they can get away with riskier behaviour whilst working from home.

In order to gather these results, the virtual Working from Home Show polled 1,334 UK employees.

Darius McQuaid

Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.

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