More than half of Canadians fear returning to the office

More than half of Canadians are afraid to go back to their workplaces and 77 per cent are worried their colleagues might show up infected with the coronavirus, according to research from consulting firm KPMG.

About six in 10 say they’ll will refuse to go back if they believe their place of work is not safe enough and 57 per cent are concerned about sharing meeting rooms and other common areas. The survey polled more than 1,000 Canadians online and was conducted July 22 to 24.

Major Canadian employers including Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia and Telus Corp. have told many employees to continue working from home for the rest of the year. One potential issue for workers in Toronto’s financial district is its often-crowded subway system. The city has one of the busiest transit networks in North America, trailing only New York City and Mexico City.

In the KPMG survey, 71 per cent said they were worried about using public transportation for their commute. In Ontario, the figure was 78 per cent.

Ontario also had the highest percentage of people who said they were “afraid of returning” to the workplace, at 64 per cent. Nationally, the number was 54 per cent.

“We see that Canadians do want to come back, but are concerned for their safety,” KPMG Partner Doron Melnick said in an interview.

“Anyone who owns or manages an organization needs to remember that their workers are feeling somewhat anxious. Communicating about what the company will do to keep them safe when they come back will go a long way.”

In a separate survey for The Logic, less than seven per cent of the technology website’s subscribers said they want to return to the office permanently while only 15 per cent anticipate that their employer will ask them to return full time once the COVID-19 pandemic is over.

Since the pandemic began, major tech companies including Shopify, Facebook and Waterloo- based Opentext have long-term plans to allow work from home. Tuesday, Uber joined Google in allowing staff to work remotely until July 2021.

The majority of respondents favoured a hybrid model with seventy per cent preferring a combination of remote and office work going forward. Twenty- three per cent would like to work from home exclusively.

“I’d like some face-to-face time with colleagues but much of what I do can be done at home with electronic connection to the mothership,” one subscriber wrote. The survey was conducted online between July 27 to 29.

Lisa Fulford- Roy, senior vice-president of client strategy of CBRE Canada, said she has seen increased interest in flexible work spaces as more employees opt to work from home — a trend underway before the pandemic, but appears to have accelerated. In the past month, she’s started hearing from firms interested in creating the kind of arrangements employees will want long term, a shift from earlier in the pandemic when the focus was on retrofitting offices for social distancing.

“Most of us are not investing in the short term,” Fulford- Roy told The Logic. “Business continuity and health are certainly bigger concerns right now than making short- term temporary retrofits, which can cost a lot and may not be relevant longer term.”

While firms are considering making changes, she expects few to ditch their office spaces completely. Instead, employees might opt to work from home, the office and coworking spaces as needed. “As much as there will be extremes that come out of this, I think many will fall in the middle with a flexible arrangement,” she said.

Most of The Logic’s subscribers see the appeal of flexible work arrangements that allow them to drop into the office on their schedule. Many noted their preference for working at home or in the office depends on the work they’re doing. Subscribers consistently said they prefer being at home for focused work like research or writing, but that collaborative work is best done in the office.

The Logic also asked subscribers whether their workplaces are planning to return to the office once the COVID- 19 pandemic has subsided. Thirty- seven per cent of respondents said their companies will continue working from home, and 48 per cent said they will work from home in part. Only 15 per cent expect to return to the office full time.