Yahoo Finance Many Willing to Take Pay Cut to Avoid Going Back to the Office
The pandemic has led many companies to make working from home the new normal, and recent research suggests many employees would give up some of their salary to keep things that way.
A survey by business-planning website RealBusinessSavings.com asked workers across the country to give their thoughts about working remotely, and how willing they would be to make working from home more permanent.
Not only did respondents point out a variety of reasons they don’t miss the office, but some said they were even willing to take a pay cut to keep working remotely.
The value of working from home
While economic anxiety has increased in recent months because of the pandemic, some employees feel secure enough in their jobs to accept earning less, at least if it’s for the right reason.
On average, employees across the country said they would take a $316 monthly pay cut if they could continue to work from home, the survey found.
The amount employees were willing to give up varied by state. For example, Californians were willing to give up the most, as on average, they would accept a $495-per-month pay cut to avoid going back to the office.
On the other end of the spectrum, Hawaiians were willing to give up the least, as they would only take an average cut of $71 per month to keep working from home.
Benefits of working from home
A majority of workers (57%) who are able to work from home have found enough tangible benefits to request more telework in the future to avoid being exposed to the coronavirus. This resembles findings from other recent surveys showing wide concern about contracting COVID-19 at work.
But the RealBusinessSavings.com study turned up other reasons for wanting to stay remote, including 46% who said their mental health had improved, and 60% who said they are more productive at home.
And when it came to respondents’ favorite perks of working from home:
30% said saving money on commuting is the best thing
28% said the best is avoiding the commute itself
22% pointed to saving money on lunches and after-work drinks
12% most liked avoiding office politics
8% said the best part is being able to wear casual attire
In-person meetings may be a casualty of the pandemic
One reason employees may feel more productive at home is because they can avoid some potentially time-wasting meetings. That’s the sentiment shown in another new survey, this one from conferencing software provider Premiere Global Services.
Among respondents, 75% of those working from home because of the COVID-19 outbreak said the remote experience helped them see that in-person meetings aren’t always necessary. Likewise, 69% said they now felt that some of the meetings they’ve attended in the past weren’t necessary.
In addition, 76% of employees working from home because of the pandemic are using video conferencing tools more often, with 63% saying they can get more done during a video conference meeting than they can in an in-person meeting.
Methodologies: RealBusinessSavings.com surveyed 3,500 workers across the United States using Google surveys in the month of June 2020.
Premiere Global Systems surveyed 2,026 adults in the U.S., 745 of which were employed and working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey, conducted by The Harris Poll, took place between June 11 and June 15, 2020.
