And she’s not alone in choosing to work where she does - Whanganui & Partners estimates now as much as 30 per cent of Whanganui’s workforce is doing their work at home.
Some of these workers and their employers opt to have occasional days working from home, while others work from home exclusively, Whanganui & Partners chief executive Hannah Middleton said.
“It is good to see Whanganui workers choose to live here while taking up employment opportunities that might previously have taken them out of our region.
“This allows flexibility for these workers and their families and reinforces Whanganui’s lifestyle strengths and excellent digital connectivity.
“It also enables those workers to add to their skillsets with opportunities which might not be available locally, which in turn builds our workforce capability as a whole.”
She said the Whanganui figure was estimated to be slightly lower than Stats NZ’s national work-from-home rate of 34 per cent.
That was probably due to Whanganui’s job composition.
“The currently very competitive labour market and a cultural shift towards working from home more make it inevitable that some workers will seek employment outside of our region.
“But while they live in Whanganui they are still contributing to the community and positively impacting our local economy.”
She said the ability to work from home helped Whanganui retain young, highly educated workers and workers with young families, “which is great for Whanganui’s social demographics”.
Middleton said many of the fully remote workers were employed out of the region, while many Whanganui residents would work from home on an occasional basis.
A 2021 University of Otago Business School survey found remote working was easy for 84 per cent of respondents, and 43 per cent said their employers were proactive in adapting to working-from-home situations.
Similarly, a study by Cisco in 2022 showed 83.2 per cent of New Zealand employees said the ability to work from anywhere has made them happier.
The Cisco study also showed 63.2 per cent of New Zealanders believed their productivity increased and 79.9 per cent saved money while working from home, with an average estimate of $13,000 in annual savings.
When asked about their preference for working locations, 60.9 per cent said they preferred hybrid working, 9.4 per cent favoured fully remote working and 28.5 per cent preferred working fully in the office.
Meanwhile, only one in four felt their organisation was highly prepared for hybrid working.
Tuatahi First Fibre chief executive John Hanna said there had been a steady increase in data usage in Whanganui over the last three years.
He said fibre broadband is now available to 21,117 properties in Whanganui, and 61.5 per cent of those properties (12,987 premises) had an active fibre connection on Tuatahi First Fibre’s network.
In March 2021 Hanna said there were 11,549 fibre connections in Whanganui, or 55 per cent of the premises able to connect to fibre.
“This compares to 73.61 per cent across our whole network, which covers Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Manawatū-Whanganui, Taranaki and the Auckland region.
“There has been a high demand for data and internet usage during the Covid-19 pandemic, as schools have moved to online learning and businesses have shifted to flexible working.”
Prior to the first Covid-19 lockdown, Whanganui residents downloaded an average of 289GB of data each month, he said.
“During the August 2021 lockdown, we hit another peak of 454GB of average monthly download traffic.
“Data usage in the city has continued to trend upwards, and we now see over 400GB of data downloaded per user each month.”
Chorus provides internet connections to Waverley, Pātea, Rātana, Marton, Raetahi, Ohakune and National Park.
These locations have increased data usage by 74 per cent between February 2020 and July 2022.
Data usage for residential and small businesses in Whanganui had increased by 74 per cent since pre-Covid-19 times, from 277GB in February 2020 to 494GB in July 2022.
Chorus chief people officer Shaun Philp said this showed an increasing number of businesses in the region adapting to worker demands for flexible, hybrid working models.
“People are now more comfortable working from home, following extended lockdowns and the pandemic response,” Philp said.
“While Covid was the catalyst, that is now the environment we’re operating in, and that means businesses are having to adapt.”
He said fibre had eased New Zealand’s transition from an office-focused workforce to an adaptive and flexible one.
“With fibre available in over 390 cities, towns, and communities, Kiwis no longer are forced to look for the skills and talents their businesses need in one location; an open approach to flexible working enables businesses to recruit from anywhere,” said Philp.
