Working from home under COVID-19 lockdown: transitions and tensions

Summary

The project has completed the first wave of its research, relating to the period of rapid change during the lockdown of March-July 2020. This
report presents insights from this first wave of data collection and summarises the learnings and implications for employers and policy-makers. The themes explored in the report relate to managing change; employee health, well-being, performance and productivity; working effectively from home; learning and development; and future demand for hybrid and flexible working. The analysis draws upon three sources of data collected between July and December 2020: 1) analysis of the national dataset Understanding Society COVID-19 Survey; 2) 1,035 survey responses to our online worker well-being survey among employees working from home in jobs that were more office-based prior to the pandemic; 3) 38 in-depth interviews with leaders, managers, and colleagues without management responsibilities in four case study organisations, selected to cover a range of geographical working experiences across the UK, as well as different organisational forms. Verbatim quotes from interviews are used throughout the report.