A WFH ‘culture war’ is raging across Europe, with the UK leading the pack as the most WFH-friendly country, while France lags behind.

Between March 2020 and the end of 2021, office workers ceased to exist.

Of course, the office wasn’t like that, and neither was the kind of work people typically did in the office before the pandemic. But the inherent connection between the two was irrevocably broken. Working from home became a necessity first, then a possibility forever.

WFH is now a topic of debate around the world, as workers clash with management over where people work and who gets to choose. As Insead Business School professor Mark Mortensen told Fortune, there’s a culture war going on.

Like most wars, the fight over remote and hybrid working is being fought on multiple fronts. So where is WFH winning in Europe?

What does the data tell us?

According to the Global Working Conditions Survey (G-SWA), the UK is the most pro-work-from-home country in Europe. The G-SWA is an authoritative study conducted annually by renowned economists, surveying the behaviors and preferences of more than 40,000 workers in 34 countries.

In fact, the average postgraduate British employee spends twice as much time working remotely as the French and three times as much as the Greek, while countries that actively target foreign digital nomads working remotely, such as Portugal and Italy, are in the middle of the pack.

Number of remote working days per week in selected European countries:

UK 1.8 (same as US) Germany 1.5 Netherlands/Italy/Spain/Sweden 1.2 (same as European average) Portugal 1.0 France 0.9 Denmark 0.8 Greece 0.6

Source: G-SWA 2023

The average UK employee with a postgraduate degree works twice as much remotely as their French counterparts and three times as much as their Greek counterparts.

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The latest data from G-SWA is from spring 2023, but the pattern appears to hold.

According to LinkedIn data prepared for Fortune, 41% of job postings on the platform in the UK as of April 2024 were hybrid roles, compared to 32% across the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

The UK had the highest proportion of people working exclusively remotely in Europe, three times higher than France and the Netherlands, which were leaders in remote working before the pandemic.

Perhaps the most compelling indicator is the transport figures. Analysis by the Department for Transport (DfT) found that between May and June 2024, London Underground ridership was between 75% and 87% of 2019 levels, with Mondays and Fridays consistently well below pre-pandemic averages.

Commuters using the London Underground transport system.

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For comparison, the Paris rail network recovered to 91% of pre-pandemic ridership in Q2 2023, according to the 2024 Global Cities Survey.

why?

Remote and hybrid work rates are influenced by a variety of factors, including Wi-Fi connectivity, differences in lockdown experiences, and the mix of sectors across countries. In short, manufacturing and retail are not well-suited to WFH, but coding and publishing are.

The UK economy is more heavily weighted towards services, particularly finance and technology, than most of its European neighbours, so we might expect to see more hybrid and remote working structurally.

But INSEAD Mortensen says there is one factor that is even more important: individualistic national culture.

He said the more individualistic a country is, the more its people like and promote remote and hybrid working, noting that countries like the UK and the Netherlands have high levels of individualism, while Asian countries like Japan, China and South Korea have much lower levels of working from home.

Mortensen added that's another reason why the U.S. is so active in this.

In fact, an analysis by international economists who run the G-SWA suggests that two-thirds of the differences between countries can be explained by the level of collectivism versus individualism.

It certainly seems to be showing in how willing people in other countries are to comply with orders to return to the office. According to recruitment firm Randstads’ 2024 Work Monitor, which surveyed 35,000 workers worldwide, Britons are much more attached to working from home than their continental counterparts.

In the Netherlands, applications for remote work account for five times more applications than for remote job postings.

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When asked whether they would quit their job if their employer forced them to work more hours in the office, 55% of British respondents said yes, compared to just 23-26% in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, 29% in Spain and 30% in Sweden.

Is that so important?

Demand for flexible working arrangements remains widespread, with employees in countries with low levels of WFH, such as Greece and Turkey, wanting to work from home like their UK colleagues.

In the Netherlands, applications for remote work account for five times more applications than for remote job postings.

There’s no sign of this preference changing, at least not yet. Our data shows that professionals are unwilling to give up the flexibility and work-life balance that comes with remote and hybrid roles, and competition for these jobs is fierce, says LinkedIn career expert Charlotte Davis.

If employees prefer flexible working, we can expect companies to make more concessions, especially those competing for top talent in places where WFH is less established.

This is especially true where laws or union policies reinforce the right to work from home.

Microsoft and Meta found that social relationships deteriorate when people don't work face-to-face.

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But Mortensen isn't convinced. He thinks it would drive him crazy to see people using it. [pandemic era] Analyzing the data, and what worked during COVID-19, it was a huge existential fear and people had no other choice. Just because a company hasn't collapsed in two years doesn't mean remote work is the best way to organize.

He points out that companies like Microsoft and Meta are finding that social relationships are deteriorating when people aren't working face-to-face, new employees are less culturally adaptable, and creativity and collaboration are declining as more people work from home.

We know that what is good for the organization is often good for the individual. People feel engaged and motivated to do new and innovative things, so maybe [being in the office] It's not just good for the company, it's good for me, Mortensen says.

In other words, if employees spend too much time at home, it will be less attractive to them if it negatively affects their job performance, career advancement, and job security.

Ultimately, we are dealing with a relatively new measure with long-term implications that are still unknown. The situation is still evolving, and our understanding of how to manage it as employers and how we think about it as employees is also evolving, and this applies no matter where you live.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://fortune.com/europe/2024/07/02/uk-most-wfh-friendly-country-europe-culture-war-france-lags-behind/ The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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