Nearly one-third (31.4 percent) of British office workers admitted that they have avoided working from home, according to a survey by Crucial, the memory and storage experts. Comment from Jonathan Weech, Sr. Product Marketing Manager -Crucial SSD.

The survey of 2,000 British office workers found that office workers 45 years old and above have a significantly more positive view on working from home than millennials (18- to 34-year-olds) – 40 percent of the 45 and above age group said nothing would keep them from working from home but only 11 percent of millennials responded in the same way.

The most common reasons Brits avoid working from home are the lack of human interaction (21 percent), the inability to connect to their company’s IT system (21 percent), having their children at home (18 percent) and a slow or old home PC (18 percent).

Only 17 percent of people cited a slow internet connection as something that would stop them from working from home. Other reasons for avoiding working from home include: having to do domestic chores (17 percent), having noisy neighbours (13 percent), noisy maintenance work (11 percent), your other half working from home (10 percent), being distracted by video games (8 percent) and having no tea or coffee (7 percent) or anything to eat (5 percent). More than half (51 percent) of the respondents said that these factors cause them stress when working from home.

The survey found that 72 percent of British office workers across the United Kingdom have remote working options with their employers. However, workers in Glasgow are least likely to work from home, with 43 percent working for a company with a policy against the practise, which is nearly double compared to other cities such as Oxford (20 percent), London (22 percent), Brighton (22 percent) and Birmingham (22 percent).

Jonathan Weech, Crucial SSD Sr. Product Marketing Manager, said “Remote working has been shown to boost productivity and employee satisfaction, so it makes sense that more British employers are offering remote working options.2 Employers should also do their part in ensuring that there are fewer barriers to having their employees work from home, whether that is making their IT easier to access or helping to fix slow technology.”

Weech continued, “Slow technology not only wastes time and money but it can be as frustrating as a noisy neighbour. In fact, recent research found that one out of every five Brits has a temper tantrum once a week due to slow technology. But there is hope – a memory and SSD upgrade can be one of the best ways to solve this problem. Get a lot of the time back that you spend waiting and have one less thing to worry about when working from home.”