Does the government really want you back in the office?

The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic has turned work on its head with mil­lions swap­ping every­day office life for work­ing from home, but how long can this new work­ing pat­tern last?

Dur­ing the sum­mer, the UK gov­ern­ment made a strong attempt to per­suade employ­ees in Eng­land to return to work if the right COVID-secure pro­to­cols were in place. Just weeks lat­er it aban­doned a fol­low-up ad cam­paign as cas­es of Coro­n­avirus began to rise.

Then just last week, in an address to Par­lia­ment, Boris John­son was forced to return to the advice giv­en ear­ly in the pan­dem­ic, telling “office work­ers who can work from home to do so”. How­ev­er, he also added: “In key pub­lic ser­vices – and in all pro­fes­sions where home­work­ing is not pos­si­ble, such as con­struc­tion or retail – peo­ple should con­tin­ue to attend their work­places.”

Confusion over return to work messaging

Such con­flict­ing mes­sag­ing has led to con­fu­sion among employ­ers and employ­ees, not least those fear­ing for their jobs and liveli­hoods as the prospect of redun­dan­cies grows. This is now com­pound­ed by Chan­cel­lor Rishi Sunak’s unveil­ing of the new Job Sup­port Scheme to replace the cur­rent fur­lough scheme on Novem­ber 1, some­thing described by him as “to sup­port only viable jobs”.

Now in the face of the cur­rent sec­ond surge of COVID-19 cas­es, many employ­ees remain fear­ful about social dis­tanc­ing when com­mut­ing or work­ing close to col­leagues.

In all four nations of the UK the advice is now to work from home if pos­si­ble, some­thing that had always been the case in Wales. In fact, the Welsh gov­ern­ment had pre­vi­ous­ly tweet­ed its longer-term hopes for such an ide­al say­ing: “We think this is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for a per­ma­nent change. Our aim is for 30 per cent of work­ers to work from or near home. This will reduce traf­fic, sup­port local busi­ness­es and pro­vide flex­i­bil­i­ty.”

A num­ber of major com­pa­nies were still embrac­ing home work­ing any­way, includ­ing Google and NatWest, while across pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, such as the legal, accoun­tan­cy and finan­cial ser­vices sec­tors, oth­ers had con­tin­ued to encour­age it giv­en many peo­ple saw per­son­al ben­e­fits to their lifestyles.

So where does this new approach leave boss­es and work­ers in the short, medi­um and long term? How viable is it to keep the return to work on hold and instead focus on remote work­ing?

Government advice “misses the point”

Chris Herd, chief exec­u­tive of First­base, a plat­form for com­pa­nies to sup­ply and man­age phys­i­cal equip­ment for remote teams, says a third of com­pa­nies he speaks to are get­ting rid of the office entire­ly, with oth­ers expect­ing employ­ees will work from home two to four days a week.

A Twit­ter thread he wrote about the 2020s being the “remote work decade” went viral with thou­sands of likes, and Herd insists gov­ern­ment advice is focused on the wrong future. He says: “Work­ers every­where have thrived dur­ing the most dif­fi­cult con­di­tions imag­in­able. The gov­ern­ment should be look­ing at remote work as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for mass ben­e­fit: bet­ter work-life bal­ance, clos­er rela­tion­ships with fam­i­ly and friends, reduced pol­lu­tion through the reduc­tion of com­mut­ing, and increased inclu­siv­i­ty, diver­si­ty and acces­si­bil­i­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ty.

“The econ­o­my will like­ly redis­trib­ute to wher­ev­er remote work­ers hap­pen to oper­ate from, lead­ing to a renais­sance of small­er cities and towns. Remote work isn’t just about the future of work, it’s about the future of liv­ing.”

This view is backed by Opini­um Research on behalf of Ricoh Europe, which found 53 per cent of the pub­lic believed the tra­di­tion­al office space would no longer exist in ten years; in Sep­tem­ber 2019 it was 24 per cent. Sev­en in ten also thought remote and flex­i­ble work­ing terms will be writ­ten into more con­tracts in the future.

But Nico­la Down­ing, chief oper­at­ing offi­cer of Ricoh Europe, believes a blend­ed approach would even­tu­al­ly be log­i­cal, where staff can choose how to return to work, split­ting their work­ing time between the office and else­where. She explains: “I’ve ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed the extra time with fam­i­ly and lack of com­mute, but we must remem­ber not every­one has had the same expe­ri­ence. For most peo­ple, the office is undoubt­ed­ly the place where they’re at their most social, spon­ta­neous and effec­tive.

“Lead­ers must equip them with the right tech­nolo­gies and process­es so they can be con­nect­ed, pro­duc­tive and dynam­ic from any­where.”

A full return to the workplace appears unlikely

How­ev­er, even before the gov­ern­men­t’s lat­est guid­ance, a poll by the TUC released in ear­ly-Sep­tem­ber showed how three quar­ters of work­ers had at least one con­cern about return­ing to the work­place, with 34 per cent cit­ing social dis­tanc­ing as a fac­tor.

Mean­while, a sep­a­rate study by TUC and Britain­Thinks found that just 38 per cent of work­ers said they knew their employ­ers had car­ried out COVID-secure risk assess­ments ahead of the return to work.

When speak­ing to Par­lia­ment on Sep­tem­ber 22nd, the prime min­is­ter appeared to give one indi­ca­tion of coun­ter­ing this on a wider scale. He explained how retail staff would have to now wear masks and that Covid-secure guide­lines with­in retail, leisure, tourism and oth­er sec­tors would become a legal oblig­a­tion.

Steve Vatidis, exec­u­tive chair­man at Smartway2, a smart build­ings com­pa­ny help­ing organ­i­sa­tions to adapt work­places, believes ensur­ing work­places are safe, clean and adher­ing to guide­lines can be pos­si­ble with the right tech­nol­o­gy in place. He said: “The new nor­mal may be easy for a small office of ten, but for offices with over a thou­sand staff, mul­ti­ple floors and var­i­ous meet­ing rooms, it’s a logis­ti­cal night­mare.

“Under­stand­ably, some employ­ees will feel wary of return­ing. Busi­ness­es need safe­ty nets of advanced mon­i­tor­ing to ensure social dis­tanc­ing, hygiene and con­tact trac­ing of staff, which can help work­ers feel com­fort­able to ven­ture into the work­place.”

Taking vulnerable people into account

How­ev­er, with the Ricoh Europe research also show­ing 26 per cent of peo­ple had felt pres­sured to return to work at the office, Jason Braier, an employ­ment and dis­crim­i­na­tion bar­ris­ter from 42 Bed­ford Row Cham­bers, explains there are legal risks in adopt­ing a “come back or there will be con­se­quences” approach.

He says: “Old­er employ­ees and those with dis­abil­i­ties may be most resis­tant to return­ing to the office out of fear of catch­ing the virus. Dis­miss­ing them, or sub­ject­ing them to detri­ment for refus­ing to return, places the employ­er at risk of var­i­ous dis­crim­i­na­tion claims.

“Statu­to­ry pro­tec­tions are also in place for employ­ees who gen­uine­ly fear being at work would place them in dan­ger of catch­ing coro­n­avirus and arguably for those whose refusal to attend stems from fears they might catch the virus when com­mut­ing.

“Employ­ers should treat con­cerns with sym­pa­thy and work togeth­er with staff to reach an accept­able solu­tion rather than tak­ing dras­tic action they might lat­er come to regret.” 

---