37% engineers find stretched working hours challenging during WFH: Survey

Even as the majority of engineers interviewed favour remote working, 37 per cent them find work from home challenging mostly due to extended working hours, according to a survey.

Irrespective of their professional experience, a majority of respondents agreed being more comfortable with tele-working, with 64 per cent saying they find it easier to work remotely, while 36 per cent of respondents said they find it challenging, according to a survey by IP-driven incubation lab BridgeLabz.

The survey was done online with over 1,000 BridgeLabz alumni from October 16 to 28. The respondents possessed different levels of work experience in the categories of less than one year, a professional experience between 1 and 2 years and more than five years.

'Trying to balance work at home' emerged as the most popular answer when probed about how they are trying to cope up with work from home, the survey showed.

Out of the total, 58 per cent of the employees are simultaneously taking part in household chores to strike a healthy work-life balance to deal with the ongoing remote work effectively, it added.

About 22 per cent of respondents connect with peers, while the remaining 20 per cent take regular breaks to relax, it added.

The survey further showed that extended work hours are the biggest obstacle for 37 per cent respondents during tele-working.

It is followed by frequently occurring technical errors and glitches (29 per cent), it noted.

It found that respondents with more than five years of working experience faced more (40 per cent) technical issues compared to their counterparts.

This may be attributed to an irrelevant skill set or lack of upskilling opportunities over the years that could have widened the skill gap for those job roles, it observed. Colleagues (20 per cent) and lack of concentration (13 per cent) were some of the other challenges reported by the employees, it said.

"The survey speaks out and loud about the issues faced by the global workforce today. What makes it more interesting is that even coders with half a decade of work experience are struggling with technical issues," BridgeLabz founder Narayan Mahadevan said.

He added that continuous learning and upskilling is the need of the hour for all, no matter what industry or domain one belongs to.