Omicron Scare: 66% Indian Employees Demand 100% Work From Home, 58% Are Working From Office (Survey)

Just when we thought that we had kept the pandemic behind us (at least up to some extent), omicron started spreading throughout the country and the daily number of patients in the country is on the rise. This directly has implications on the willingness of people to move around, especially on working from offices. According to a recent survey, a majority of people are still inclined towards working from home only.

Two out of three people prefer working from home

As per a recent survey conducted by, LocalCircles, a Community Social Media platform, two out of three people prefer to shift to mandatory work from home, wherever possible. The survey results also said that 58 percent of those employed are currently physically working at their workplaces, only 36 percent say the workplace they or their family members work at has good air ventilation. Hence people are demanding governments to consider the implementation of working from home in all districts/cities where the positivity rate is over 0.5 percent, given the week over week growth in cases.

The survey received more than 28,000 responses. Sixty-three percent of the participants were men while 37 percent were women. Of all the respondents, 47 percent of respondents were from tier 1 districts, 35 percent from tier 2, and 18 percent were from tier 3, 4, and rural districts. It should be noted that the respondents for the survey were only those engaged in the organized sector.

Ventilation – an area of concern for all employees

The government and doctors are advising towards being in a well-ventilated environment to avoid the spread of the virus. So this survey delved into checking views of people on ventilated-ness of their workplaces.

Citizens were asked if the workplace they or their family member(s) go to work have access to the outside air through doors and windows, 21% of citizens surveyed said their workplace doesn’t have good air ventilation. At the same time, only 36% of citizens said the workplace they or their family members work at has good air ventilation, while 39% said it is partially ventilated.

In the end, the respondents were asked, whether mandatory work from home (for desk jobs) should be implemented given the rising Omicron and overall cases and risk of poorly ventilated indoor working spaces. 67 percent of the respondents were affirmative and 28 percent said ‘No’ while 5 percent couldn’t decide. So, to say it in laymen’s terms, two in three citizens are in favor of mandatory work from home in light of the omicron surge and rising cases in India. This question received 10,928 responses, the survey said.