Work location change over time pre & post COVID-19

Relative to the COVID-19 pandemic, what percent of your country's workforce was, is, or is expected to be in each of the following categories?

Characteristic	Primarily work from home	Primarily work in a physical facility	Primarily work in the field
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Source

Release date

October 2020

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

August 5 to 17, 2020

Number of respondents

670 respondents

Supplementary notes

* Total percentage points exceeding 100 percent are probably due to rounding.

The source indicates that respondents are made up of senior decision makers and/or influencers across IT, LOB, and C-level roles within their organization's work transformation initiatives among various industries and company sizes.

Citation formats

Before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 only **** percent of the respondents primarily worked from home (WFH), which is significantly less compared to the **** percent of respondents who WFH now in the midst of the pandemic. Interestingly enough, respondents answered that many would go back to their respective physical facility or the field after a vaccine is available.

Physical workplaces

However, following the COVID-19 pandemic, the physical workplaces will change as the percentage of personnel that will primarily WFH is projected to be percent more than prior to the worldwide pandemic. Other studies have suggested that post-pandemic, almost ** percent of enterprises worldwide are projected to have a distributed workforce, compared to around ** percent before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Distributed workforce

A distributed workforce may become the new normal, as it is projected that by 2023, ** percent of the top Forbes Global 2000 companies will have commitments to a hybrid workforce design. It is worth noting that to work distributedly is different than only working remote, as to "work distributedly" assumes that there is not a single central location to work from. Instead, the company is distributed among various working environments. This allows personnel to engage either locally, remotely, in the field, or switching between locations as they please. This permits for a more fluid working environment, as many throughout the world either like or love WFH.