Remote Working Decreased Career Advancement Prospects: Survey

GLOBAL – 31 percent of workers across the world said that working from home has negatively impacted their professional development opportunities, according to The Work Survey recently carried out by American software firm ServiceNow.

Of this percentage, 9 percent shared that their career advancement prospects dropped significantly, while 22 said it declined by a moderate extent.

But employees from the financial industry are the most affected as 40 percent believe that their professional development opportunities have fallen. This is the highest among the 5 sectors surveyed.

On the other hand, 32 percent shared that their career advancement prospects stayed the same while working from home. 18 percent of the respondents think it improved significantly, while 19 percent believe it increased somewhat.

Globally, 60 percent of the surveyed employees like the new way of doing work. However, 47 percent of the polled executives said their focus is returning to how they worked prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Singapore, 54 percent of the executive respondents prefer to maintain the new way of doing work, while 55 percent of the polled staff hold this belief.

Over in the United States, 58 percent of the surveyed bosses want to continue teleworking, while 60 percent of the respondent employees share this notion.

In the UK, the rates are 49 percent and 60 percent respectively. Over in Australia, 59 percent of the executive respondents prefer to maintain the new way of doing work, while 56 percent of the polled staff hold this belief.

For concerns over remote work, the top issue globally among staff is the reduced collaboration (48 percent). This is followed by limited direction & feedback (45 percent) and extended timelines for new releases (40 percent). Delays in product or service delivery as well as unclear or confused responsibilities are tied as being the least concern at 38 percent.

For executives, the top concern is delays in product or service delivery (54 percent). This is followed by reduced collaboration and extended timelines, which are both tied as the second top concern at 51 percent. Third is limited direction & feedback, and then unclear or confused responsibilities at 46 percent and 44 percent respectively.

The Work Survey was conducted from 1 to 10 September 2020. It reflects the views of 900 C-level executives and 8,100 staff across 5 industries, namely financial services, healthcare, telecommunication, public sector, and manufacturing.
The executives and employees are spread across 11 countries – Singapore, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, France, Germany, Ireland, the UK, and the United States.