MetaFacts TUP/Technology User Profile analysis results for subscribers
Email continues to lead as the major communication activity across all devices. One-to-one video calls have grown rapidly. Worldwide and US employees are showing their Zoom/Webex fatigue, as both work and personal web-based group meetings have subsided.
Workers working from home are younger than average, more often married or coupled than single, and more likely to be a college graduate. This TUPdate reports on the age, marital status, and educational attainment of employees regularly working from home, as well as their household demographics: household size, income, presence of children, and ownership or rental of dwelling.
Working from home requires more communication than ever, both a broad range of devices (smartphones, computers, tablets), and types (calls, messages, meetings with and without video). Employees working from home use computers for different communication activities than they do with smartphones. This TUPdate compares a detailed list of communication activities among those working from home and those not working from home, and also identifies which devices – PCs, smartphones, or others – are used the most for communication by work from home status.
Employees expect to return to pre-pandemic levels. In one year (in August 2022), 13% of employees globally expect to be working from home always or the majority of the time. Among American employees, this share is 25%. In one year (in August 2022), 70% of employees globally expect to be working from home at least occasionally. Among American employees, this share is nearer to two-thirds (63%).
Many employees working from home need connected devices to work or to communicate. This TUPdate reports on the collection of actively used connected devices, comparing what is being used by employees working from home, employees not working from home, and adults not employed outside the home. These are split by form factor as well as operating system family.
Working from home is wholly new to some people, old hat to others, and not experienced by yet others. Seasoned workers – those who ever worked from home before the pandemic and do so now – make up the largest segment of online adults. The second-largest group is diametrically opposed – having never worked from home and not currently doing so. This MetaFAQs reports on the size of four segments by their prior and current experience of working from home.
Employees use personally owned home PCs for work. Well before the pandemic, this has been a widespread practice. This MetaFAQs reports on the work-related activities done with home PCs among employees that work from home and those that do not. It also compares home PC activities from the 1987 wave of TUP.
Worldwide, 15% of employed or self-employed online adults are working from home always or the majority of the time, versus 32% in the US. Worldwide, this rate is lower than one year earlier and in the US is effectively the same.
Working remotely from a personal computer is not a new phenomenon—and it took hold long before the pandemic. Most home PCs have already been allocated to work-related activities, but the type of work differs, and has been shifting since the pandemic caused a larger variety of workers to stay at home.
This TUPdate reports on the penetration of home PCs among employees, which activities employees use their home PCs for, the prominence of work-provided PCs, the age of the home PC-using employee, and work-from-home status. It measures online adults in the US, Germany, UK, and Japan in 2019 and 2020.
Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, October 6, 2020 Working from home is a new practice for many employees during the COVID pandemic. This MetaFAQs reports on the use of new home PCs and new work PCs among employees who are new to working from home, those who had previously been working from home, and those…