A new study by 451 Research, the emerging technology research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence, shows 80% of organizations surveyed said they have implemented or expanded universal work-from-home policies as a result of COVID-19.
The survey features responses collected between May 29 and June 11, from approximately 575 IT decision makers across a range of industries. It sheds light on the future of work, and highlights some of the enterprise-wide changes that companies actually experienced or implemented.
Highlights from the survey include the following:
- Firms have implemented several travel and event-related measures that change office life. In addition to the 80% of organizations that said they have employed expanded or universal work-from-home policies, 85% have implemented travel limitations, and the same percentage limited or banned face-to-face meetings. In addition, 71% of respondents said they are converting hosted events into virtual ones, and 37% have expanded employee leave rules, among other changes.
- Companies are in no rush to head back to workplaces. Though close to 19% of organizations intend to have employees return to offices as soon as local regulations allow, 25% will wait a month or more, while another 24% have not yet determined any timeline.
- A reduction in office space is expected. While companies are hesitating to head back to physical office spaces, 47% of respondents say they are likely to reduce its physical office footprint because of the COVID-19 outbreak. More than 20% expect it to reduce by more than 25%.
- Altered working conditions are presumed to be long-term or permanent. About 20% of respondents say their organization is planning to operate under alternate conditions such as remote working, wearing protective gear, and social distancing through 2021 and beyond. And 14% responded that conditions have been altered permanently, while 18% have yet to establish a plan.
- Travel will remain scarce, even in Q4 2020. Compared to the last quarter of 2019, a third of organizations (34%) expect work travel to be reduced by 80% or more in the fourth quarter of this year. Yet, a large cohort of respondents (21%) say they don’t know how much travel will resume during this period.
- Social distancing serves as a barrier to returning to office life. Social distancing will be the biggest challenge in resuming normal operations, according to 79% of organizations.
- Organizations are more likely to be spending more on IT resources with notable increases to security spending. Compared to March, increased information security spending grew more common (from 15% to 28% of businesses), and organizations are spending more on communication and collaboration technologies (50%), employee devices and services (43%), information security tools (42%) and network capacity (38%).
- Many businesses are seeking flexible terms from suppliers. More than half (56%) of organizations agreed they were offering to adjust the terms of leases, licenses or contracts for their customers. Similarly, 42% of organizations said they were expecting or asking IT vendors to adjust pricing, payment terms or payment models.
The latest survey is a follow-up to the COVID-19 Flash Survey published in March, which assessed the difficulties enterprises expected to face in light of the global COVID-19 outbreak.