Office life may be set to dramatically change in the future, according to recent research from Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion (enei), which found that almost two thirds (69 percent) of employers expect to see an increase in the number of homeworkers in the next five years.

At present 1.4 million people work mainly at or from home, and currently most (79 percent) employers report that less than 10 percent of their staff are homeworkers. In five years’ time, however, two thirds of employers (66 percent) expect to have up to a quarter (25 percent) of their staff working from home – an increase of 150 percent. Furthermore, ten years on, in 2023, 72 percent of employers expect to see an increase in the number of homeworkers, with a third (33 percent) believing up to half (50 percent) of their staff could be homeworkers.

Denise Keating, CEO of Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion (enei) comments: “It appears a traditional office environment may be set to become a thing of the past, with many employers predicting a change in the number of people working from home. The spread of broadband and other technologies that make mobile working easier mean that employees are slowly moving towards more homeworking. It’ll be interesting to see how office life changes in the coming years as we move towards more agile ways of working.”

enei also interviewed employers on the work-life balance of their employees, finding that 79 percent measure their staff’s satisfaction with their work-life balance, up from 69 percent last year. Over the same period there has also been an improvement in staff satisfaction, with over half (53.1 percent) of employers reporting that staff were more satisfied with their work-life balance compared to just 15 percent last year. Denise Keating continued: “It’s good to see that more are taking time to measure their staff’s happiness with work-life balance – a really positive move in the right direction – it’s crucial that employees are able to maintain a healthy work-life balance as happier workers are more motivated and productive employees.”