A major benefit of developing a country's digital economy is that it allows workers to work from any location using cloud and other digital services. A recent survey by software company Ivanti shows how important this is to modern workers: 71% prefer the freedom to work anywhere to career advancement. However, the report also uncovered a gender divide, with 70% of women reporting negative effects from remote work, compared to only 30% of men.

In 2022, 26% of the 6.100 surveyed digital workers said they hope IT will provide new hardware, such as laptops, desktops and mobile devices, and 26% hope IT will modernize the service desk. 32% of IT professionals want to modernize the service desk. Due to high call volumes to service desks during the pandemic, as well as reduced productivity and employee satisfaction, this should not be surprising.

Considering future work models, the study found that 42% of employees prefer hybrid work models (an increase of 5% since the last study). About thirty percent of employees said they would prefer to work from home permanently. Compared to the previous survey, this is a 20% drop, indicating a need to interact with co-workers again. Additionally, this decrease might also be attributed to the fact that working remotely has brought many positive changes - respondents indicated the top three benefits they have gained from working remotely have been less commute time (48%), a better work/life balance (43%), and more flexibility in scheduling (43%). According to 49% of respondents, remote work negatively affected them in some way. Among the top concerns were lack of interaction with colleagues (51%), inability to communicate or collaborate effectively (28%), and noise and distractions (27%).

Photo credit: May Gauthier