THE concept of working from home has been talked about in various perspectives , creating mixed feelings to the method, despite the obvious safety benefit it brings to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
Apart from its obvious pros and cons, the work-from-home (WFH) setup includes a concern that needs to be addressed: the workers/employees financial state.
A survey was conducted in July 2020 by CouponLawn to study the conditions of 1,100 WFH employees based in the United States during the pandemic.
It showed that 59.3% of the total respondents have been working from home when the US released official lockdown measures during the last days of March and companies followed suit and implemented WFH regulations.
According to the survey, 63.4% of the respondents admitted that they tend to overspend their finances while working from home compared to the office environment.
With a majority (57.8%) of the respondents comprise of millennials aged between 24 to 37, it was found that they estimated their weekly spending to average at US$274.43 (approx. RM1,138.47).
Meanwhile, the second largest (30.4%) group of respondents which belonged in the Gen X category, aged between 38 to 56 years old had the highest estimated weekly spending averaging at US$331.36 (approx. RM1,374.65).
With such high level of spending per week, WFH employees would need to be mindful of their finances more than they realise. Regardless of where they are based in, be it in the US or Malaysia, the WFH concept might end up hurting the employees, despite benefitting the employers. – Sept 14, 2020
