Inspire Selection surveyed a group of people living in Dubai about their experience of working from home for the past few weeks.

6% always worked from home, even before Covid-19.

32% cannot wait to get back to the normal place of work. Explanations for this include:

• Distractions and interruptions from family / house mates
• Lack of social interaction
• The need to leave home in order to feel like you’re in ‘work mode’

25% cannot work from home due to the nature of their work, such as working in F&B, hospitals, manufacturing and on-sites.

Interestingly, more than a third (37%) of our respondents would prefer to spend more time working from home.

We asked them why?  Reasons given:

• No need to spend time on the commute to the office and driving around during the day (for meetings on other sites / offices)
• Fewer distractions from colleagues
• Flexibility to exercise during the day rather than really early or really late after a typical working day
• Can get more work done in less time
• Ability to spend a few more minutes with children/family
• Spending less money on lunches & car fuel

At Inspire Selection, we have always enjoyed flexible working relating to office hours and work location. Due to the nature of our work, we are often out of the office meeting candidates and clients, taking our laptops with us and grabbing a quick hour working from Cafes before our next meeting starts.  We also embrace working from home.

Furthermore, we believe the world may now move more towards working from a virtual office…  Employees have learned to adapt to new technology such as MS Teams and Zoom.  Video conferencing may not replace all face to face meetings, but it may become a more effective use of time for many meetings.

Finally, a point to consider is that we could now consider hiring more candidates which may not be ‘local’, thus widening the net for potential talent – people who live just a little bit too far to commute every single day for example, or even people who will always work virtually.

Covid-19 has affected us all but working from home is becoming ‘the norm’ and companies have realised that life still goes on – Recruitment has certainly slowed down but we are seeing green shoots. Please visit our website for our latest jobs, and ensure you register for job alerts.