A new poll suggests the hybrid office will be in high demand as Canadians return to their pre-pandemic lives with post-pandemic expectations.
Of more than 2,000 people polled by Angus Reid Institute, 29 per cent said they would like to continue work from home indefinitely.
Forty-four per cent preferred a hybrid work model while 27 per cent want to return to the office.
“The majority who have been working from home say, ‘Look, my productivity has either been as good as it was prior to the pandemic or even better,'” Angus Reid Institute president Shachi Kurl said.
“It’s not been a walk in the park for everyone. We know that people who work home alone or work home in a situation where they don’t have kids … it’s been a better experience than (for) everybody at home at the same time, but for the most part, the takeaway here is Canadians have vastly embraced working from home.”
If required to return to the office, 25 per cent said they would do so begrudgingly and one in five said they would be likely to resign.
Half of respondents aged 18 to 34 — and men, in particular — say they are likely to reconsider their employment if such a demand is made of them.
“It may be that they’re in a place in their career where they feel, no, I have some choices here. My skills are transferrable — and if you’re going to force this as a quality of employment issue, we’re prepared to go,” Kurl said.
Nearly two-thirds of Canadians who worked from home during the pandemic continue to do so.
The survey found more than 70 per cent of respondents described their productivity as good or great while working from home. Their social life, however, suffered with more than 65 per cent describing it as challenging or awful.