Survey explores home working for researchers

The online survey of 1,014 market researchers and insight professionals, conducted from 29^th March to 3^rd April, found that around 5% of respondents are still working in an office.

A further 11% of respondents said they are not working, including those who are not employed, those who have been furloughed and freelancers without projects.

Of those currently working from home, 26% said they are normally home-based, 39% sometimes work from home and 35% do not normally work from home. When asked whether working from home suited people, 79% of respondents said yes, while 14% said no, and 6% were not sure.

The findings suggest that only around a quarter ( 27%) of respondents have a lot of spare time at the moment, 39% have ‘some’, 30% have ‘not much’ and 4% have none.

The survey also asked what activities people might spend their spare time on, if those activities were made freely available. Learning opportunities, for example e-learning,  was the most popular response ( 75%), followed by articles on insight/research ( 69%), recordings of webinars or presentations ( 65%) and social networking opportunities ( 49%).

NewMR has also made several recommendations to research industry associations as a result of the survey’s open-ended responses on how researchers felt organisations should respond. These are:

1. Make the case that research matters 
2. Lobby for the interests of the research ecosystem, e.g. ensuring measures to protect individuals and small companies cover freelancers and fieldworkers
3. Provide resources: learning, business advice and general practices
4. Help support the wellbeing of insight professionals
5. Help identify suitable and appropriate opportunities for research projects

Survey responses were gathered through NewMR’s database, support from several research associations and through social media. Respondents from 70 countries completed the survey.