6 in 10 nervous about returning to work following lockdown

As many as 60% of the UK workers who are no longer travelling to their usual place of work and now working from home  are nervous about returning to work following lockdown.

That’s according to a YouGov survey commissioned by One Year No Beer, which also identified that women appear to be considerably more nervous, with 70% of them opening up about their fears of returning to the workplace, opposed to 49% of men.

61% of 18-34 workers who are not currently in their usual place of work agreed that they were nervous about returning and surprisingly fears were lowest amongst those aged 55 years and over. Geographically, Midlands came out on top with 72% of all workers no longer travelling to their usual place of work nervous about returning to work, and those most relaxed about getting back to old routines were workers residing in the South (51%).

Whether people had children in their household or not seemed to have little impact on their attitudes towards returning to work with 63% of those with children in the household  opening up to anxiety around returning to the workplace, compared to 60% of those with no children in their household.

Ruari Fairbairns, founder and CEO of One Year No Beer, said: “As the CEO of a company that operates its entire workforce remotely, I’m not sure why there is such a sense of urgency from employers to get their staff back into the work place, especially if they still feel so uncomfortable returning to work at this stage of the pandemics lifecycle.

“With so much access to technology and productivity software, there is no need to be sitting in an office with each other right now (or ever) and the flexibility and freedom that working from home affords, by far outweighs any benefits of working in an office. We are personally urging CEOs to review their thought processes and empower their staff to work from which ever location makes them feel safest and most comfortable.”

The same survey also revealed that nearly three-quarters of UK drinkers were drinking the same (45%) or more (29%) during lockdown, leaving only 25% drinking less. Further to this, 18% believed they would emerge from lockdown drinking more than they did pre-lockdown.

Fairbairns added: “I think a lot of people will have formed habits during this time they wouldn’t have before, and some may be challenging to shake. In hard times it’s easy to let things creep in that you wouldn’t normally do and if people are anxious about returning to work, the concern here is that they will start to lean more so on alcohol as a coping mechanism.

“At One Year No Beer we focus on the habit-changing process, rather than just deleting alcohol from your life. We’ll help you break down and rebuild new habits as well as develop a new mindset that gives you complete control, something that will last way past finishing your challenge.”