Almost everyone who works remotely will want to determine for themselves when and where they work

As many as 72% of employees living in Finnish cities who work remotely each week want to continue working remotely as much as possible*. The figure has increased from the previous year (64%).

This result is from the Sustainable Urban Environments barometer, which is a survey among more than 1,000 Finnish city dwellers commissioned by YIT and conducted by Prior Konsultointi in September 2021.

The barometer survey was aimed at revealing the types of urban environments Finns would like to see developed. The participating city dwellers express their views on various themes, such as home, work and urban environment and transport. The barometer was conducted for the fourth time this year. In part, the results are compared to those of the previous surveys.

The popularity of remote work among people who work on a computer** has increased slightly from last year: 56% of the respondents said they wanted to work remotely as much as possible, while 28% said they would like to meet others at the workplace in the future. In the previous year, the corresponding figures were 53% and 29%, respectively.

Up to nine out of ten people working remotely each week would like to be able to determine for themselves when and where they will work in the future. At the moment, almost everyone works remotely at home, but in the future, they would like to work in more diverse locations, such as their holiday homes or a coworking space near their home.

Ilkka Tomperi, who heads YIT’s Property Development segment, says that the reality in which all employees arrived at the office in the morning no longer exists.

“In fact, hybrid work is only an intermediate phase in a trend that leads to the complete liberation of work. The transformation accelerates the fragmentation of work, and employment relationships may also become more flexible. A growing number of knowledge workers are likely to work in consulting roles in the future. In hybrid work, the office must be a social magnet, and the premises must be better equipped than the home,” Tomperi says.

According to the survey, women have slightly more positive experiences of remote work than men during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the respondents, 69% of women feel that their schedules are more flexible (58% of men) and 60% feel that their daily life has become easier (44% of men). The boundary between work and free time feels blurred to 31% of women and 35% of men***.

The barometer also mapped out the three most important aspects of the workplace location for the respondents. Among all respondent groups, the most important thing was that the workplace was easy to reach by public transport. Secondly, the workplace should be close enough to be reachable on foot or by bike. Restaurants near the workplace were particularly wanted by those who work remotely each week. The third most important factor among employees who work remotely less often was the presence of everyday local services, such as shops or a laundry, near the workplace.

According to Tomperi, future office solutions will take into account the changes that have taken place in working life. In addition to the actual office space, more and more companies are taking advantage of a network of co-working spaces, such as Workery+, to support the daily lives and smooth work of their employees. Flexible office solutions are expected to become a competitive advantage for companies that want to attract the best talents.

In the future, employees working remotely each week would come to the office to cooperate with colleagues face-to-face or to use their private office or dedicated workstation. More than one-half (54%) of the respondents who work remotely weekly consider their own office or workstation as one of the most important things at the workplace. The respondents**** justified the importance of having their own workstation by the convenience of finding papers and items in the same place they left them on the day before (53%) and by the fact that routines and permanence reduce unnecessary stress (38%). Better ergonomics was the third most important benefit identified in the responses (33%).

Read more:
More freedom, responsibility and caring – how has COVID-19 changed knowledge work and the way it is managed?

For further information, please contact:
Ilkka Tomperi, Executive Vice President, Property Development, YIT Corporation, tel. +358 50 379 1903, ilkka.tomperi@yit.fi 
Johanna Savolainen, Communications Manager, YIT Corporation, tel. +358 (0)44 305 4594, johanna.savolainen@yit.fi 

*Respondents are employees who work remotely on a weekly basis, spending most of their working time at a desk/on a computer (n=354)

*Respondents are employees who spend most of their working time at a desk/on a computer (n=515)

***Respondents are employees who work remotely on a weekly basis and whose work has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic (n=230)

****Respondents are employees who consider their own workstation or office as one of the most important things that would make them come to the workplace in the future (n=260)

Sustainable Urban Environments 2021
The Sustainable Urban Environments barometer was being conducted for the fourth time this year. The survey is targeted at the residents of eight cities: Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä and Kuopio. The data was collected by an online panel on 15–23 September 2021. There were 1,005 respondents. The sample is representative of the 18–75-year-old population of the participating cities in terms of the respondents’ age and gender as well as the size of each city.
According to the survey, remote work affects a little less than half of employees in large cities and two-thirds of people who work at a desk or on a computer.

YIT is the largest Finnish and a significant North European development and construction company. For 110 years, we have been creating better living environments for our customers: functional homes for sustainable living, future-proof public and commercial buildings and infrastructure for smoother flow of people, businesses and society. We employ 7,000 professionals in ten countries: Finland, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. Our revenue in 2021 was EUR 2.9 billion. YIT Corporation's share is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Oy. www.yitgroup.com