COVID Work From Home Analysis Shows Many Workers Feeling Discouraged or "Trapped"

The Martec Group, a global market research firm that provides unparalleled quantitative and qualitative research to top companies around the globe, surveyed 1,214 individuals across various industries, demographics, and seniority levels to identify how working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting employees.

While some employees blossomed working from home, the survey also found a significant decline in mental health across all industries, seniority levels, and demographics. Job satisfaction, job motivation and company satisfaction were also negatively affected.

The Martec Group Work from Home Study identified four unique segments of employees –

Thriving Employees (16%) – employees who love working from home and think their company is handling things just fine.
Hopeful Employees (25%) – employees who believe working from home is not for them, but who have complete faith in their company’s management.
Discouraged Employees (27%) – Employees who really do not like working from home, but think their company is doing the best it can.
Trapped Employees (32%) – Employees who strongly dislike working from home and don’t think their company is handling the situation well.

Overall, the survey revealed that working from home is having a strong negative impact on employee’s outlooks. Before COVID-19, 62% of employees reported positive mental health, 57% had job satisfaction and 56% had good job motivation. After COVID 19, mental health fell to 28%, job satisfaction to 32% and job motivation to 36%. Stress also increased when employees had to start working from home. 42% reported increased stress levels and worsened focus.

COVID-19 did have a positive impact for some employees’ work-life balance and schedules. 38% reported better work-life balance while working from home, while 32% reported no change. 33% felt their schedule had improved and 40% said their schedules were the same. The majority of employees reported that COVID-19 had no impact on company policies (66%) and pay (72%). Only 18% of employees said their pay was negatively impacted.

Overall, The Martec Group survey found that employees are for the most part being negatively impacted by working from home during COVID-19. Despite being satisfied with how their companies are reacting to the pandemic.

The Martec Group is a global market research firm that provides unparalleled quantitative and qualitative research to top companies around the world. Beyond just the data, The Martec Group provides customers with actionable intelligence in four core perspectives: Market Intelligence, Customer Intelligence, Product Intelligence and Competitive Intelligence. Founded in 1984, The Martec Group has grown to more than 100+ professional staff members across six global offices. For more information, visit: www.martecgroup.com.