The coronavirus pandemic-prompted shift to remote working has brought increased job satisfaction for many people, according to a new survey.
More than half of respondents said their job satisfaction has increased while teleworking, according to a survey by the Federation of Finnish Enterprises (Suomen Yrittäjät).
Carried out in September 2020, the poll on remote working was commissioned by the business federation and carried out by data and insights firm Kantar TNS.
According to the survey results released on Friday, one fifth of respondents reported a decline in job satisfaction.
Of the 1,039 respondents to the survey, all were working in Finland and were between the ages of 18 and 79.
The majority of remote working was done by employees working in organisations large and small while the least telecommuting was done by those working for municipalities or municipal companies.
The majority of respondents, 95 percent, said that they were working from home. As it was possible to pick several telecommuting locations, 15 percent of respondents said that they had also worked from somewhere else such as a holiday home.
Telecommuting saves time
Survey respondents said that they had also saved time by not having to physically commute to a job. Forty-two percent of respondents said they had saved half an hour to an hour per workday, while 25 percent of respondents said they saved less than 30 minutes and another 25 percent said that they saved more than an hour per workday.
Close to half of poll respondents said that their ability to work independently had increased while working remotely.
Majority would like chance of part-time remote working in future
Only about 10 percent of respondents said they would like to work remotely full-time in the future, whereas 39 percent of respondents said they would like to be able to work part of their week remotely.
If the demand for working from home increases in the future, one of the biggest needs will be creating an ergonomic work station, which 38 percent of respondents said they wanted.
One in four poll respondents said they didn’t need a separate workspace or room to work in, and one in five respondents said they needed better work tools. Almost one third of respondents said they didn't require any extra tools in order to work remotely.
The margin of error for this type of survey is +-3.1 percentage points.