Despite many companies “beating the drum on return-to-office mandates,” a majority of employed Canadians still prefer to work remotely at least some of the time, data from LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence report for Canada shows.
With the worst of the Covid-19 Pandemic squarely in the rearview mirror, full-time work in the office is entirely possible, and some firms have been pushing for just that.
But given Canadians’ noted preference for hybrid and remote work, LinkedIn Senior News Editor Riva Gold asks an important question: Are companies at risk of alienating their employees with this strategy?
Broadly speaking, Canadians prefer to work either hybrid (33%) or fully remote (25%), LinkedIn data suggests, although 39% do prefer to work onsite a majority of the time.
But there is a devil in the details.
Breaking down the data further, LinkedIn’s report notes that most Canadians clinging to majority-onsite work are boomers, with Gen Z and Millennial workers “particularly keen on hybrid working models.”
Indeed, hybrid work is the favourite for Gen Z (49%) and Millennials (41%), the report found, while onsite work remains the preference for Gen X (42%) and boomers (48%).
It’s a big preference gap between ages and could mean that the pressure on employers to offer remote and hybrid working options may only increase as Canada’s working demographic shifts younger while boomers retire en masse.
We at TechTalent.ca have observed that hybrid work has emerged as an overall preference for Canadian tech talent over the last couple of years, with the perfect workweek suggested at three days in the office—and while that is a reasonable proclamation, it may be too rigid a rule when we consider that flexibility is truly what most desire.
LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a survey distributed daily by email and aggregated every two weeks.
