A WFH ‘culture war’ has broken out across Europe, with the U.K. leading the charge as the most WFH-friendly country, while France lags behind

Offices Working from home wasn’t possible, of course, nor was it the kind of work people typically did in offices before the pandemic. But the inherent connection between the two was irrevocably severed, with working from home becoming first a necessity and then forever a possibility.

Now, working from home has become a point of contention around the world, with workers clashing with management over where people work and who gets to choose. As Professor Mark Mortensen at INSEAD Business School says: luck“There is a culture war going on right now.”

As with most wars, the fight over remote and hybrid work has multiple fronts. So where does remote work win in Europe?

What does the data say?

The UK leads Europe in the work-from-home league table, according to the Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA), an authoritative annual study by leading economists of the behaviours and preferences of more than 40,000 workers in 34 countries.

In fact, the average British highly educated worker spends twice as much time working remotely as their French counterparts – and three times as much as their Greek counterparts. Meanwhile, countries that have actively targeted foreign remote “digital nomads,” such as Portugal and Italy, have average levels.

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 latest G-SWA data was from spring 2023, but the pattern appears to be holding.

According to LinkedIn data prepared for luck41% of jobs advertised in the UK on its platform were for mixed roles in April 2024, compared to 32% for the wider EMEA region.

The UK also had the highest proportion of remote-only roles in Europe, at 9% – three times higher than in France and the Netherlands, which were pre-pandemic leaders in remote working.

Perhaps the most convincing indicator is the transportation usage figures. analysis A study by the UK Department for Transport found that between May and June 2024, London Underground usage was only between 75% and 87% of 2019 levels, with Mondays and Fridays consistently below pre-pandemic averages.

For comparison, according to World Cities Survey 2024Paris’s rail network returned to 91% of pre-pandemic usage by the second quarter of 2023.

Why?

Various factors influence remote and hybrid working rates, including Wi-Fi connectivity, varying lockdown experiences, and the mix of industries in different countries. Manufacturing and retail simply don’t lend themselves to remote working, while programming and publishing do.

The UK economy is more services-oriented than most of its European neighbours, particularly in terms of finance and technology, so structurally you would expect to see more hybrid and remote working there.

But there is another, perhaps more important factor, says INSEAD’s Mortensen: individualistic national culture.

“The more individualistic a country is, the more people like and push for remote and hybrid working,” he says, pointing to high levels of individualism in countries like the UK and the Netherlands, and much lower levels in Asian countries like Japan, China and South Korea, where levels of home working are also much lower.

“This is another reason why the United States tends to focus so much on this issue,” Mortensen adds.

In fact, analysis by international economists behind the Global Public Goods Agreement suggests that two-thirds of the variance The relationship between countries can be explained by the level of collectivism versus individualism.

This certainly seems to be reflected in what people do in different countries. He says About their willingness to accept orders to return to the office. Recruiter Randstad’s 2024 Work SupervisorA study by International Inc. (Intl), which surveyed 35,000 workers around the world, found that Britons were more attached to working from home than their counterparts on the continent.

When asked if they would quit if their employer tried to force them to work from the office more, 55% of UK respondents said yes, compared to just 23-26% of French, German, Italian and Dutch respondents, 29% of Spanish and 30% of Swedish respondents.

Does it matter?

Demand for flexible working arrangements remains widespread, with employees in countries with low levels of home working, such as Greece and Turkey, expressing a desire to work from home in a similar way to their peers in the UK.

In the Netherlands, remote work requests make up a share of total requests. 5 times higher From the remote job listings section.

There are no signs of that preference changing, at least not yet. “Our data shows that professionals are not willing to give up the flexibility and work-life balance that comes with remote and hybrid roles, as competition for these jobs increases,” says LinkedIn recruitment expert Charlotte Davies.

If employees’ preference for flexible working continues, you might expect to see more concessions from companies competing for top talent, especially where working from home is less established at the moment.

This is particularly the case if legislation or union policy establishes the right to work at home.

But Mortensen isn’t convinced. “I get mad when people use data[in the pandemic era]and say, ‘Well, it worked during Covid, which was a massive existential horror and people had no choice. . . . Just because a company doesn’t go under in two years doesn’t mean that remote work is the best way you can organize.”

He points to what companies like Microsoft and Meta have found about the “deterioration of social relationships” due to people not working together face-to-face, the lack of “cultural socialization” for starters, and the decline in creativity and collaboration that has accompanied higher levels of working from home.

“We know that things that are good for organizations often benefit individuals. People feel engaged and motivated by doing something new and innovative, so maybe[being in the office]is not only good for the company, but it’s good for me as well,” Mortensen says.

In other words, if spending too much time at home negatively impacts performance—and therefore career advancement and job security—then home will not seem attractive to employees at all.

Ultimately, we are still dealing with relatively new arrangements with unknown long-term impacts. The situation is still evolving, as is our understanding of how we as employers deal with it, and how we feel about it as employees – and that applies wherever you live.