NEARLY a third of employees who work from home say there are no disadvantages to doing so, as new data showed an upswing in hybrid working patterns.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) also found that 41 per cent of businesses said they are allowing staff to work from home permanently, at least part of the time, because it increases productivity.
Around one in seven working adults in the UK (14 per cent) said they were purely doing their jobs from home offices in late April and early May.
Another 24 per cent said they had adopted hybrid working patterns when they are in an office or other workplace part of the time.
The proportion of people working purely from home has plunged in the last year, as pandemic restrictions were lifted.
But the data suggests that many of these workers have instead picked up hybrid work patterns.
The number of hybrid workers has more than doubled compared with a year ago while those who travel into work every day is more or less stable.
Currently 46 per cent of workers say they commute to a workplace every day.
However the ONS said it changed the way it asked some questions in April, so new figures might not be directly comparable with the old.
The data also shows a clear difference between those on different incomes.
Those earning above £40,000 a year were the most likely to be doing hybrid work (38 per cent), while only 8 per cent of people making less than £15,000 a year said the same.
Staff were most likely to say that the benefits of working from home included improved work-life balance (78 per cent), fewer distractions (53 per cent), completing work faster (52 per cent) and improved wellbeing (47 per cent).
Only 8 per cent said that there were no advantages.
Meanwhile 31 per cent said there were no disadvantages.
Overall 48 per cent of home workers say they find it more difficult to work with others, while 26 per cent said they were more distracted at home.
Among businesses, 60 per cent said their staff wellbeing had improved due to working from home, and other benefits included reduced overhead costs (43 per cent), increased productivity (41 per cent) and reduced carbon emissions (25 per cent).
