Nearly half of workers in the East Midlands are spending at least one day a week at home, new figures have revealed.
In a government survey of more than 1,100 firms in the area, 31.9 per cent said their workers were in the office one or two days a week, while a further 15.9 per cent were in three to four days a week.
Across the East Midlands, 15.9 per cent staff never work at home, the study found.
The 47.8 per cent of staff now hybrid working in the East Midlands is above the UK average of 42.7 per cent.
The Office for National Statistics data was gathered in the two weeks to August 21, and surveyed a total of 9,207 firms across the UK.
Hybrid presentation expert and former politician Gavin Brown, director of UK firm Speak With Impact, said the new numbers showed habits which developed as a result of the pandemic were here to stay.
He added that there were opportunities for East Midlands businesses who embraced the hybrid world to broaden their horizons, as well as for individual employees who excelled in a hybrid environment.
Gavin Brown, director of Speak With Impact, said: “Unless you work every day in the office, or indeed every day at home, you are a hybrid worker.
“These figures show us that now accounts for almost half of East Midlands workers, and it illustrates just how drastically things have changed in a couple of years.
“This transformation in working and business environment must be adjusted to, and holds a great deal of opportunity.
“But pitching, collaborating and performing in a hybrid world requires an entirely different set of skills which, prior to the Covid pandemic, almost nobody had.
“If businesses can excel in this hybrid world by maximising in-person and virtual opportunities in tandem, it could provide a real boost to our economy and to individual prospects generally.
“Other parts of the developed world are doing this now, and it’s essential the East Midlands and the wider UK does not get left behind.”
