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Some 88% of Russians say they like to work from home - opinion poll

Among the key advantages of the remote work format are avoiding wasting time to commute to and from work and a visible reduction of expenditures

MOSCOW, May 6. /TASS/. Around 88% of Russians are happy to work from home, as follows from an opinion poll conducted by Raiffeisen Bank.

The poll involved 1,000 people in Russia’s big cities. More than a half of the polled (54%) worked full-time from home during the past year. Twenty-two more percent worked from home but came to office from time to time during six months. The rest, or 24%, worked remotely for several months ore less during the lockdown.

Among the key advantages of the remote work format are avoiding wasting time to commute to and from work (78%) and a visible reduction of expenditures (49%). Half of the respondents said they liked to work from home because it made it possible to spend more time with the family. Thirty-six more percent said such format was more convenient for combining work and hobby. A third (33%) of the polled said they worked more efficiently from home thanks to the lack of distractions, such as noise and idle talk. The same number of the polled (33%) said they liked remote work because of a possibility to work from another city or even another country.

However, twelve percent of Russians don’t like the idea od working from home. Half of them said they had failed to adapt to such format and the other half said they were disappointed in it.

More than 50% of respondents complained of not getting enough physical activity when working in the remote mode. Forty-two percent said they did not have enough real-life communication. Some said they could not observe a balance between work and personal life. Thus 35% said they were permanently overworking, with work-related communication continuing even through weekends. Thirty percent said they council not focus on work because of household troubles and their family members.

Raiffeisen shifted more than 5,500 out of nearly 9,000 employees of its ten offices in Moscow, Omsk, Yaroslavl, and Kolomna to a hybrid working mode in 2020. A Future of Work project was launched in September 2020 to elaborate new formats combining offline and online practices to achieve maximum flexibility and comfort for its employees.

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