Are the Nordics ready for a home office environment?

Until recently, working from home was a flexible benefit associated particularly with employees in desk-based office roles. However, COVID-19 changed this, and necessitated an increase in the use of home offices. This has had, and will continue to have, significant implications for the way companies organise work.

While most of the Nordic respondents have the technological devices/hardware needed to conduct their work in a more digital and remote manner, almost half of the respondents (49%) indicate that they have experienced internet connectivity issues with their home broadband. Furthermore, 25% of those experienced such issues at least once a week.

The respondents from Denmark seem to experience internet issues slightly more often (29%) than the other Nordic countries on a weekly basis (25% average), while the Norwegian respondents seem to have slightly fewer issues with their internet connection at home (22%).

It may be more convenient to work from home, but there are challenges

Our survey reveals that people across the Nordic countries are roughly evenly split when it comes to how they feel about working from home. As a general Nordic average, 35% find it easier, while 31% find it more difficult. Moreover, data indicates that a greater proportion of people in the youngest age groups finds it easier to work from home than those in the same groups that find it more difficult to work from home. Slightly more than two fifths (42%) of the respondents between the age of 18-44 state that working from home is easier compared to 31% of the same cohort finding it more difficult.

It may be more convenient to work from home, but there are challenges

As mentioned above, respondents from Finland seem to find working from home easier than working from the office. Compared to other countries in the Nordics, the Finns also report fewer issues related to access to technology (27%), reliability of technology (19%), effectiveness (47%) and disturbances from the environment (31%) (Figure 8). This is likely part of why the respondents from Finland seem to find working from home easier.