The impact of increased home working

Chris Cook explores whether working remotely will become the new normal, and how will it change the role of the people profession.

With the coronavirus pandemic and consequential lockdown forcing many to work from home, the question arises as to whether working from home will become the new normal. Although lockdown measures have started to relax, many employers are seeing their staff either wanting to continue working from home, if possible, or refusing to come back to the office.

In UK, all employees with at least 26 weeks continuous service have been entitled to ask to work from home since June 2014, although many have been reluctant to invoke this. Before Covid-19, approximately 5 per cent of UK employees worked from home. This number is expected to rise substantially with the news of some businesses deciding to give up their office space altogether and introduce flexible working as standard practice.

Employee requests

Many employers would like their staff to return to the office rather than continue to work remotely. Employers should make sure they have practices and procedures in place to ensure the health and safety of their employees before asking them to return.

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Employees who would like to continue working at home on a permanent basis should be encouraged to make a flexible working request. Employers should consider requests in a reasonable manner and only refuse them if there is a good business reason for doing so based on one of eight prescribed grounds. Good business reasons can include the burden of additional costs, a detrimental effect on the ability to meet customer demand and a detrimental impact on performance.

Businesses should ensure they take extra care when handling flexible working requests post- lockdown. The coronavirus pandemic has proven that employees are able to meet customer demand and perform while working remotely, and declining a request based on a sound business reason will need to be sufficiently robust given that it is likely to be subject to more employee scrutiny than was the case before lockdown.

Concluding remarks

On a more general note, employers should also be thinking about creating a culture that is inclusive to those working remotely, including diversifying their work systems and ensuring remote employees are supported sufficiently, both mentally and by the employers pre-existing systems (eg IT systems).

It is likely that working from home (at least in part) will become the new normal in the short term while the world recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. Whether it will be a long-lasting change will only be determined through time.

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Answer ALL questions.

Question 4 (25 marks)

As managers reduce face-to-face interaction with staff who work from home, the Early Theories of Leadership may not work, then what do you suggest as the most feasible leadership approach under this contingency and why?