Working from home, health and wellbeing consequences of a pandemic

Drawing from a survey of 1,165 Sydney (Australia) workers conducted in late 2020, when restrictions from the first COVID-19 wave were easing across Australia, we explore the impact of the pandemic on perceived changes to working from home (WfH) and other travel behaviours. Based on this analysis, we identify three distinct segments of the population with differing physical activity (PA) and quality of life (QoL) outcomes: (1) ‘Active but Anxious’ (22%) – younger, higher income, largest increase in WfH, sitting most of the day, sufficient PA; (2) ‘Less Change, Less Worries’ (38%) – older and male, least change in WfH, sitting relatively less, largely sufficient PA; (3) ‘Stressed and Sedentary’ (40%) – average age, lower income, largest loss of paid work, highest levels of sedentary behaviour, lowest PA and QoL. In a probable future of greater opportunities for WfH, understanding these heterogenous outcomes has implications for individuals, employers and policy-makers

What have we learned about long term structural change brought about by COVID-19 and working from home?

March 2020 will forever be etched in our minds as the beginning of what has become the most concerning health pandemic faced by all generations of the living population. Almost two-and-three quarter years on, we are starting to see a number of signs for what the future might evolve into through structural change brought about by many events, and no more so than the burgeoning growth in working from home (WFH). No longer associated with negative stigma, working from home, or remote working more generally, has become almost folklore with all elements of society slowly recognising that it is to some extent here to stay, and we should start rethinking how this non-marginal change in the way we live, and work will be used to restructure the fabric of society. In this paper, we draw on the research undertaken as part of an ongoing project on WFH and its relationship to travel and work, since March 2020 to summarise the main evidence that we use to speculate on what we think are likely to be the big changes in the land transport sector that would not have been considered, at least to the same extent, pre-COVID-19

Insights into Working from Home in Australia in 2020: Positives, Negatives and the Potential for Future Benefits to Transport and Society

The year 2020 has been marked by the most extraordinary event we have witnessed since World War II. While other health threats and geographical disaster have occurred, none have been on the global scale of COVID-19. While many countries have experienced more than one wave of the pandemic throughout 2020, Australia has been able to contain the virus with numbers less than ten at any one time in a way that makes it a stand out (with New Zealand) in the way that it has been contained, with an exception in Victoria from July to early November, linked to failed quarantine procedures for travellers returning from overseas. This paper builds on earlier papers by the authors on the Australian response, with a focus on the role that working from home (WFH) has played in response to reducing the risk of seeding the virus in local sources. Given the volatility of exposure and transmission, WFH to some extent has growing support from employees, employers and government as a way of not only containing the virus but as a positive unintended consequence in contributing to the future management of the transport network, especially in larger metropolitan areas. We report on the findings from the first three waves of data collected in Australia between March and September 2020, highlighting the potential future benefits of WFH to society more generally what this might mean for the future revision of transport plans and priorities