Key Results
- Working from home has long been popular among employees, but its average benefit rating has steadily increased. It was among the top three highest-rated benefits for more than two-thirds of employers (68 percent) on Glassdoor who offered the benefit in 2022.
- Entry-level workers have the lowest work from home rating at 4.3 (out of 5.0) compared to mid senior (4.6), director level (4.6) and executive roles (4.7).
- Employees working in technical sales and support (4.9), business development roles (4.8), or as attorneys (4.8) are most satisfied with the working from home benefit.
In just a few short years, the job market saw a mass exodus from the office followed by megaphone calls summoning workers back to in-person work. This pivotal disruption made one thing clear: the workplace is ever-evolving and the future of work isn’t fixed. In a post-pandemic era, companies that continue to offer working from home as a benefit will largely be doing so by choice rather than necessity and the work-arrangement model they choose will determine their attractiveness to workers. To better understand which employees value working from home, we examined Glassdoor reviews to see how employees across seniority and occupation rate their experience with working from home.
Remote Work Was Popular Before It Became Prevalent
Working from home was popular before it became widespread in the U.S. as shown by the consistently high and steadily increasing benefit ratings on Glassdoor from 2017 (4.1) to 2022 (4.4). Discussions of remote work picked up steam at the start of the pandemic in 2020 leading into 2021 with a 10 percent increase in the share of Glassdoor reviews discussing working from home. This was followed by another jump in discussions by 39 percent in 2022.
Analyzing Glassdoor benefit reviews, we find that working from home was among the top three benefits for more than two-thirds of employers on Glassdoor (or 68 percent) who offered the benefit in 2022, only behind Vacation & Paid Time Off (71 percent) and Health Insurance (69 percent) and just ahead of 401K Plans (67 percent). Employees discussing their work from home (WFH) experience has risen substantially over time and covers a wide range of positive impacts, from more scheduling flexibility, productivity and time spent with loved ones, to fewer commuting hours and microaggressions in the workplace.
- “Tons of flexibility and autonomy. Unlimited PTO. Great people to work with. Work From Home or Hybrid options” – Marketing Manager, 2022
- “Every third Friday off to take care of your mental health – Outstanding healthcare benefits – CEO’s look after the best version of how you can be productive (work from home, office, or both!) – Feels like family” – Anonymous Employee, 2022
- Work from home, good work environment, more time with family, no commute, lots of support. – Elementary Teacher, 2022
As some employers pull back on pandemic-era remote work policies and call workers back into the office, they risk pushing employees that value working from home to apply to roles that offer better work from home options. Glassdoor and Indeed’s Workplace Trends 2023 report found job searches for remote work remain at levels higher than before the pandemic. It’s clear from reviews that employees are satisfied with working from home and from job search data that employees are voting with their feet, presenting a challenge to employers who want workers back in the office.
Entry-Level Workers Aren’t as Excited About Working From Home
Remote work environments can bring challenges to fostering an engaging company culture, particularly for employees early in their careers. Analyzing Glassdoor benefit reviews by seniority level, we find that entry-level workers have the lowest work from home rating at 4.3 compared to mid senior (4.6), director level (4.6) and executive (4.7) roles. Entry-level workers, who tend to be earlier in their professional careers, may have a difficult time establishing a solid footing in new organizations and remote work doesn’t appear to be helping.
In general, however, entry-level workers also have lower overall workplace satisfaction. To control for this, we also look at the gap between the WFH rating and the overall rating. After controlling for overall workplace satisfaction, we find that mid senior level positions are more distinctly satisfied with working from home than any other seniority group. The satisfaction derived from remote work for directors and executives, although highly rated, shows less distinction from their overall workplace satisfaction as it shows for mid senior level employees, indicating that directors and executives feel similar about remote work as they do their overall workplace culture.
These findings are consistent with previous Glassdoor research that found interns are more likely to discuss remote work negatively than their full-time peers, suggesting that remote work may negatively impact interns’ experiences due to the difficulty of communication and connection in a remote environment. There is clearly still work to be done to ensure that Entry Level employees are able to find the full support, resources and opportunities they need to be as satisfied as their more-experienced peers with remote work.
Occupations Most Enthusiastic About Work from Home
Employees in different occupations show different levels of satisfaction with WFH. As a result, it’s likely that employers calling employees back into the office risk losing talent that prefers remote over in-person work and that retention risk is likely elevated for the roles most satisfied with working from home.
When employees are physically separated and the ‘workplace’ becomes their home office, it is possible that the employee’s overall work experience is merely a reflection of their remote work experience. To separate the remote work experience from the overall work experience, we rank occupations by the difference between their average work from home benefit rating and their average overall rating to obtain the top ten roles most satisfied with working from home.
Table 1: Occupations Most Satisfied With Working From Home
| Rank | Occupation | Avg. WFH Rating | Avg. Overall Rating | Rating Gap |
| 1 | Social Worker | 4.7 | 3.7 | +1.0 |
| 2 | Customer Service | 4.6 | 3.8 | +0.9 |
| 3 | Product Support | 4.8 | 4.0 | +0.8 |
| 4 | Branch Manager | 4.6 | 3.9 | +0.7 |
| 5 | Sales Representative | 4.6 | 3.9 | +0.7 |
| 6 | Technical Sales and Support | 4.9 | 4.2 | +0.7 |
| 7 | Quality Assurance | 4.6 | 3.9 | +0.7 |
| 8 | Management Consulting | 4.7 | 4.1 | +0.7 |
| 9 | Account Executive | 4.8 | 4.1 | +0.6 |
| 10 | Underwriter | 4.6 | 4.0 | +0.6 |
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research (https://www.glassdoor.com/research)
Occupations most satisfied with working from home are those that have the highest relative difference between their work from home rating and their overall rating. Social workers are most satisfied with working from home, showing a 1.0-star difference between their work from home benefit rating and their average overall rating for 2022. Many of the occupations where employees are most satisfied working from home had relatively high rates of remote work access even prior to the pandemic. This suggests that employee satisfaction with working from home is, at least in part, driven by employers and employees learning the tools and processes necessary to make it successful.
What’s consistent between all occupations with remote work access is the high satisfaction rating for the work from home benefit for 2022. Overall, companies pulling back on workplace flexibility or simply increasing in-person days indiscriminately are at risk of seeing their employees’ valuable talents being applied elsewhere.
Conclusion
This research analyzed Glassdoor reviews to see how employees across occupations and seniority rate their experience with working from home and what risks employers face from calling workers back into the office en masse.
Working from home was among the top three highest-rated benefits for more than two-thirds of employers on Glassdoor in 2022 and rated highest in occupations that had access to remote work before the pandemic.
When analyzing how working from home stacks up against employees’ overall workplace experience by seniority levels, we find that entry-level workers have the lowest work from home rating, yet mid senior level positions are more distinctly satisfied with working from home than any other seniority group. There are also substantial differences across occupations.
Overall, the future of work is constantly changing and working from home has given employees more flexibility in how they manage their day-to-day schedules. The data presented above show that employees at different levels and in different roles experience WFH differently, and mandating a single solution for all teams and all roles are likely to risk alienating some employee groups.
Methodology
Using Glassdoor benefit reviews, we calculate the average rating for every benefit at each company for which more than fifty percent of reviews from current full-time and part-time employees at the company indicate having access to the benefit in 2022. We then rank the benefits by their average rating to identify the highest-rated benefits and calculate the share of employers with “Work From Home” ranked as a top three highest-rated benefit.
To analyze benefit access and benefit rating, we analyze how many “Work From Home” benefit ratings report having access by occupation. Additionally, we analyze the work from home benefit rating broken out by occupation and seniority level for current full-time and part-time employees in 2022.
