Happy to Be Home

More than half of the respondents (60%) to a FormAssembly survey prefer to work from home for the near future, with 27% open to a part-time model.

FormAssembly, a cloud-based form and data collection platform, asked 100-plus customers key questions regarding the work-from-home mandate during the COVID-19 pandemic, including lessons learned and the appetite for being in a “real” office again. Key findings include:

• There is no hurry to return to the office. More than half of the survey respondents (60%) prefer to work from home for the near future, with 27% open to a part-time model.

• Video is the new black. Some 81% of respondents spent one to three hours on video per day, with 16% spending more than four. More than half (54%) prefer video meetings over face-to-face—even when they return to the workplace.

• Zoom tops every list as a communication tool for team communications. An overwhelming 80% of respondents prefer Zoom for video meetings, followed by Google Meet (40%). Favored communication tools overall include Zoom (44%), Slack (33%), and Microsoft Teams (24%).

• Culture is key to keeping your employees engaged and motivated. More than half of the respondents (66%) acknowledged their organization’s quest to maintain the company culture even during a pandemic. The most popular virtual event was a coffee talk session (37%), followed by happy hours (35%) and virtual group activities such as art lessons or baking (19%).

Lorri Freifeld
Lorri Freifeld is the editor/publisher of Training magazine. She writes on a number of topics, including talent management, training technology, and leadership development. She spearheads two awards programs: the Training APEX Awards and Emerging Training Leaders. A writer/editor for the last 30 years, she has held editing positions at a variety of publications and holds a Master’s degree in journalism from New York University.