By Neelam Rahim

The South African workforce seemed to have adopted two days a week work from a home pattern. Driving data by Discovery’s vehicle insurance division suggests this. Its new work from an index which tracks driver’s habits found that people are more likely to physical travel between their places of work and their homes on three days of the week and typically work from home on two.

Radio Islam speaks to Precious Ndluli regarding this developed trend in South Africa.

According to Precious, it’s quite a topical issue right now regarding working from home and returning to the office. The driving data at Discovery Insure rewards clients for driving well. We decided to create this work from the index that tracks the level at which people are driving.

She says the central insight is that people’s driving habits to a work location are at 80% of a pre-Covid level. They drive on average three days a week to a work location, and we found that the most popular days on which people go are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with Fridays being the least popular.

She added that everybody has adapted to a flexible work schedule at Discovery ourselves on a hybrid module where people must come in at least two times a week.

Thandi also tells Radio Islam that increasing petrol prices will allow us to observe which way that shifts the behaviour.

“We have additional challenges in South Africa, load shedding as well. And we need to monitor how the patterns will evolve because of the load shedding phenomena and the fuel petrol price which is a real concern.”