UK employees working two extra hours daily during self-isolation

Data from NordVPN suggests UK employees are working an extra two hours per day, up to 11 hours, after ditching commutes during this period of self-isolation and social distancing.

While there might still be images circulating of cramped Underground trains in London, NordVPN data suggests there are a huge number of home workers. Analysing the data from VPN logins, the team believes the time being saved from the daily commute is being driven back into work.

“The analysis of our clients indicated that their 10,000s of corporate employees that have started working from home in the past week are typically working 11 hours a day, some of the longest hours in the world at this time,” said Daniel Marcusson, Digital Privacy Expert of NordVPN Teams.

“Typically people homeworking are starting work earlier – but finishing at their usual same time. The lack of a morning commute is currently being used as additional work time, which looks like a win-win for employees and businesses.”

Whether this trend would continue beyond the coronavirus outbreak remains to be seen, though it might force a transformation in attitude towards mobility and remote working for some employers.

“In the face of Coronavirus pandemic, people seem to be focused and united more than ever,” said Marcusson. “Therefore, we expect the working hours to remain longer throughout the crisis. When the restrictions are lifted, I expect that many UK businesses will be much more receptive to greater homeworking.”

Although many corporations suggest they are reacting to industry trends and are open to more remote working, the reality is very different. The majority of more traditional organisations and those who have been trading for some time, are seemingly stuck in their ways. Remote working is still not that common, as the office culture persists, though this pandemic has forced a changed in attitude, which might persist.

For the telcos, this should be seen as a silver lining for the future, though the cloud companies will also be keeping an eye on these trends as there will be profits to be made.

As more people work from home, more processes, systems and workloads will have to be migrated to the cloud to ensure employees have all the tools and information available. There are numerous companies who are set to benefit from the pandemic, though cloud, collaboration and productivity companies will certainly be close to the top of that list.