Post lockdown will we be back in the office, working from home, or some form of hybrid?

There is much speculation about how lockdown and the pandemic has changed the world of work, with the hottest topic being whether employees will continue to work from home or not.

In our experience the vast majority of employers were sceptical of employees working from home prior to the pandemic but the evidence does seem to suggest that there are benefits to both employers and employees of working from home for at least some of the working week.

Although working from home has generally worked better than expected, the answer to the question posed above is that for many office based roles the negatives of full time working from home means it is unlikely to continue on anything like the current scale but hybrid working, where individuals spend several days of their working week in the office and the remainder working from home, is expected to be the norm in future.

In this article we’ll explore whether employers can now legitimately decline requests to work from home following the lockdown experience; the benefits and drawbacks of working from home that have become apparent during the pandemic; and we finish by looking at the 7 strategies CIPD research suggests employers should adopt in order to thrive in this new way of working.

So first of all let’s look at whether employers’ hands are now tied and they need to accept requests to work from home. We can be pretty sure that a large number of employees who previously worked 5 days a week in the office will undoubtedly wish to continue working from home for some or all of their working week and will request to do so.

Where an employer doesn’t agree to such requests the employee has two options to force the issue. They can either claim that after the last year or more, working from home is now ‘custom and practice’ and therefore a contractual right, or they can submit a Flexible Working Request to work from home. We’ll look at these in a little more detail so employers know where they stand.

Custom and Practice contractual change

Even where an employment contract is clear regarding a particular term e.g. the location where an employee is based for work purposes, if there has been a different arrangement in place for a considerable period (the period is not defined in law) that has been accepted by both parties the employee can claim that due to the ‘custom and practice’ of this change being the norm it is now contractual.

Employees may try and argue that having worked from home for over 12 months this is now custom and practice and therefore contractually they are entitled to work from home permanently.

This argument is unlikely to succeed.  Although employers have agreed to their employees working from home and have accepted this for over 12 months, as it was a forced change due to the pandemic rather than their choice to allow it, it is unlikely that such a change will be found to have changed the employment contract.

Flexible Working Request

This may be more troublesome for employers who wish employees to return to the office permanently, especially if working from home has worked successfully during lockdown.

Employees have had a legal right to request flexible working, including working from home amongst other things, since the Flexible Working Regulations were introduced in 2014. To be covered by the regulations employees need to apply formally for flexible working, following the statutory process. There are then certain requirements and timescales the employer needs to comply with.

The employer can only legally reject flexible working requests if they can show one or more of the following reasons as specified in the 2014 regulations:

• a burden of additional cost on the Company
• a detrimental effect on the Company’s ability to meet customer demand
• an inability to re-organise work among existing staff
• an inability to recruit additional staff
• a detrimental effect on quality
• a detrimental effect on performance
• insufficient levels of work during the periods of proposed work
• a planned structural change.

The reason that declining flexible working requests may now be more difficult is that employees may be able to better challenge decisions rejecting their request. For example if the employer refuses a request due to ‘a detrimental effect on quality’, the employee may be able to show that there was no detrimental effect on quality when they worked from home during lockdown. So, especially if the employee worked from home 5 days per week during lockdown but is now applying to work only e.g. 2 days a week from home they will have evidence supporting their argument of a lack of impact on quality whilst working from home for over 12 months. Therefore their application, or their appeal against the outcome decision, is likely to succeed due to this evidence.

Prior to lockdown it was not unusual for flexible working requests to be turned down due to the impact on relationships with customers, suppliers etc. However if such relationships didn’t suffer during lockdown it is now much harder for employers to rely on this as a reason to reject requests.

In our view many employers had quite an old fashioned attitude towards working from home prior to lockdown. It is likely that they will need to be more open in future to different working patterns than 5 days per week in the office 9-5.30, which will be difficult for them and may necessitate a change in culture, which is notoriously difficult to achieve successfully.

There are various benefits, but also many drawbacks of employees working from home for some or all of the week that need to be considered, as follows:

Benefits of working from home

Evidence from before and during lockdown shows that employees clearly favour working from home for at least part of the working week rather than being in the office 5 days every week. They like the flexibility it gives them and also the extra time with family etc due to not having to commute to the office.

Benefits to the employer are the reduction in office costs, which can be significant, along with increased employee satisfaction with their working life which should translate into improved performance and reduced attrition rates. Initial evidence also suggests that absence rates are lower when employees work from home.

Performance does not seem to have suffered and, in fact, evidence shows that many employees have worked longer hours for their employer during lockdown than when they had to commute to the office.

Disadvantages of working from home

From an employee perspective, during lockdown it has emerged that there are various mental health impacts associated with employees working from home. Increased levels of anxiety and depression have been reported, along with loneliness. We are generally social animals and Zoom calls et al have not been able to make up for the lack of personal interaction face to face. For many, continued permanent working from home will exacerbate these issues.

There has also been evidence of an ‘always on’ culture in some organisations, where employees feel that they are under an obligation to check emails etc outside working hours and this reduces the vital time away from work where we rest and recuperate i.e. employees don’t ‘switch off’.

The other main negative for employees of working from home is the impact on development and career progression. It is well proven that working as part of a team develops individuals as they observe good and bad traits of others and are challenged by colleagues and managers. Individual development areas also become apparent to line managers through observation. This will reduce significantly when working from home and the resulting lack of development then has a knock-on effect on future career prospects and also the opportunity to impress the boss and show readiness for promotion.

From an employer perspective, in addition to their employees suffering mental health issues, there is no doubting that it is significantly harder to manage a team remotely than when the team are all in the office. The positive impacts for the organisation of developing high performing teams cannot be underestimated and have been proven to improve results time and again, along with the positive effects of employees bouncing ideas off and learning from each other in the office.

On the subject of learning from each other, whereas working from home may suit those who are experienced in their roles, it is so much harder for career oriented or recently appointed employees to develop when working remotely as they gain so much from operating in close proximity to colleagues when based in the office, observing them and asking questions based on what they have seen or heard.

Managing individual performance is made so much more difficult when a line manager cannot see and hear how an employee interacts with customers, colleagues etc. Giving examples of how the employee did well, or can improve, and quoting or describing what they said and did when compared to how another employee does it is vital to the development of employees but this is next to impossible when the individual works remotely and the manager cannot observe the behaviour of their team.

Success or failure of individuals in a team depends in large part on how well they are managed. Recent CIPD research has identified five key behavioural areas that are important for line managers to support the health, wellbeing and engagement of those who work for them as follows:

• Being open, fair and consistent
• Handling conflict and people management issues
• Providing knowledge, clarity and guidance
• Building and sustaining relationships
• Supporting development

Simply allowing people to work from home without considering these 5 areas and how management style needs to be developed accordingly has been shown in the pandemic to result in various negative outcomes for employees such as the above mentioned mental health issues and ‘always on’ culture.

Also it’s clearly not just about performance. The social benefits and camaraderie of working in an office are well documented and lead to all sorts of benefits for the employer, leading to improved results, retention and individual development. 

If, as seems likely, flexible working in terms of working from home for at least part of the week will be more widespread in future than it was prior to lockdown employers should ensure they have policies in place to deal with this. An effective flexible working policy should include:

• Introduction, including the benefits of flexible working and why the employer has introduced it, along with a brief explanation of what is included in the policy.
• The business need, explaining that this will dictate whether applications are accepted. In this section employers should reassure employees that they will be sympathetic to applications and also state what the employer will take into account when making a decision
• Eligibility to make a request. According to the legislation employees must have at least 26 weeks’ continuous service to make a request for flexible working and to not have made a request for flexible working in the 12 months prior to this request.
• Scope of a request. The various types of request that employees can apply for should be explained, such as requesting to work from home, changing to part time or reduced hours, a change of working hours etc. Employees should also be informed that any request, if accepted, will be a permanent variation to their contract of employment.
• Application procedure. The statutory process would normally be explained in this section e.g. the need to apply in writing.
• How the employer will deal with the request, including timescales for the process e.g. an initial discussion within a maximum 28 days according to the legislation. What will be confirmed in writing etc.
• The 8 reasons the employer may refuse a flexible working request, as explained above.
• Procedure for handling an appeal.
• Non-statutory requests for flexible working.
• Optional section – that Ineligible employees may make an informal request for flexible working which should be made in writing to their line manager and will be seriously considered but not via the statutory process.

If you would like to introduce a flexible working policy 186hr will be pleased to supply a CIPD approved policy for £99 plus vat. Likewise we can supply application forms and model letters for organisations to adapt to the individual circumstances. Please contact us for further details.

Of course, as touched on above in the areas to include in the flexible working policy document, flexible working isn’t just about the number of days employees spend in the office. Employees may apply for flexible working due to myriad different reasons e.g. they may wish to amend working hours so they can be effective at work whilst also caring for children or other loved ones.

Hopefully the past year has made employers more open to such requests to work flexibly, as their workforce will most certainly be more motivated to do a good job if their employer is sympathetic to their needs and circumstances. It will also help with employee retention both in terms of individual loyalty to an employer who has supported them but also prospective future employers they consider applying to may not be so willing to accept these flexible hours, meaning it is harder for the employee to find an alternative employer quite so easily.

Conclusion

For both employees and employers a degree of working from home is likely to be beneficial in numerous roles. Although many UK managers will be uncomfortable with this, the success of working from home during lockdown is likely to give employees strong justification and evidence to back up their requests, which must legally be accepted unless the employer can show there would be a detriment to the business in one or more of the above 8 areas.

It is highly likely that most requests will be for ‘hybrid’ working where the employee works in the office for part of the week e.g. three days, and from home for the rest of the working week rather than one hundred percent home working where the difficulties of managing employees and the loss of the benefits of working together as part of a team may justify employers refusing an application. 

Therefore, rather than employers focusing on whether to accept requests, the debate should now move on to how to make the most of hybrid working where employees work from home for part of the week. CIPD has done extensive research on this and their paper ‘Flexible Working: Lessons from the Pandemic.’ is available free online. It’s worth a read if working from home will be an issue, or an opportunity, for your company in the coming months. They quote 7 ‘lessons’, or strategies for success in this area, which are briefly summarised as follows:

1. Develop the skills and culture needed for open conversations about wellbeing.

Five-day homeworking during lockdown clearly increased mental health issues for employees, which were exacerbated by feelings of isolation through not being able to spend time with colleagues, family and friends. Although this should ease as we come out of lockdown, for those employees who continue to spend significant time working from home CIPD recommends managers hold more conversations with them about wellbeing. They suggest regular 1-2-1 meetings with such employees, where wellbeing is included as well as normal management topics.

They also advocate encouraging employees to be open with each other about anxieties and coping strategies, although I suspect a large number of employers will not be comfortable doing this. One step at a time perhaps!

2. Encourage boundary-setting and routines to improve wellbeing and prevent overwork.

The evidence suggests many employees felt pressured (whether imaginary or real) to work longer hours during lockdown and took fewer breaks. CIPD therefore recommends employers encourage managers to set boundaries for their teams such as start and finish times and to build breaks into the working day especially if there are a lot of calls, where employees should be urged to schedule break time in between them.

They also suggest managers lead by example e.g. by discouraging employees to reply to emails late at night. They suggest monitoring individuals’ start and finish times and raising this if the hours seem excessive. Although evening working may not necessarily always be a bad thing e.g. It may be that employees have chosen to take time out during the day to be with their children and then caught up with work when they have gone to bed, which is generally fine as long as deadlines are not missed.

With regards to workloads, managers should be clear about their expectations for each team member and then find a way to accurately measure outputs and other relevant data.

 3. Ensure effective co-ordination of tasks and task-related communication.

This may necessitate a change in approach as, in an office environment many managers get a feel for how things are going with the team just by being there. They may not consciously listen or observe but they seem to just know whether things are ok or not. It’s as if they use some form of osmosis! But if team members are working remotely managers will need to develop other techniques to keep on top of things, such as better KPI analysis, setting clear goals for the team and for individuals, along with having more regular informal one to ones, team meetings and structured reviews.

Regarding communication, keeping team members engaged on a Zoom call is a very different skill to when everyone is in the same room, it is important to ensure all on the call are kept involved and engaged. It can also be very easy to unintentionally favour some people over others when staff are working remotely e.g. to always use the same person as a sounding board, or only run things past those who are in the office.

Effective use of IT is so important in terms of access to documents, and the various types of colleague conversations that need to happen for work and social reasons e.g. you may wish to enable chat rooms or other ways for people to keep in touch with each other. New technologies should be considered and brought in if they will help with this new type of relationship and engagement.

4. Pay special attention to creativity, brainstorming and problem-solving tasks.

In the CIPD research, managers overwhelmingly preferred to do this face to face, and found doing such deep thinking tasks less effective, more difficult and tiring when done on video calls. Such meetings therefore will need to be well managed and facilitated. The research showed they worked best when managers had sent out pre-call material and included breakout sessions between groups to improve engagement and ownership.

5. Build in time, including face-to-face time, for team cohesion and organisational belonging.

Unsurprisingly, most interviewees felt face to face meetings were essential for trust and relationship building. CIPD advise that managers include this and also develop a mix of other activities, including social events, online and via video calls e.g. quizzes and other games. I would caution though that although some managers love this kind of thing, some employees find it excruciating!

6. Facilitate networking and inter-team relationships.

The above points relate mainly to how managers can effectively manage their individual teams. However, clearly it is crucial for different teams and departments to also work well together and departmental managers should discuss this and agree how best to ensure communication, relationships and cooperation can be carried out as effectively as possible if some or all workers may be working from home either permanently or in a hybrid arrangement.

7. Organise a wider support network to compensate for the loss of informal learning.

Whereas organisations will generally have ensured that planned training and development will continue to take place, the loss of informal learning between colleagues is one of the main drawbacks of remote working. Individuals learn so much from each other in terms of how best to approach situations and also how not to do it!

CIPD recommends that interventions such as arranging a buddy system should be considered, along with recognising who can learn from each other and ensuring they work closely together remotely. They also advocate involving employees more in project work to ensure they contribute as much as possible to organisational success.

One of the main challenges regarding informal learning will be new employees. We know that a poor induction massively increases staff turnover of new employees so a plan of how to ensure the individual gets up to speed with the role and also the culture of the organisation as quickly as possible is crucial. Even the most competent new recruit will need support adapting their work methods to the company’s individual culture, processes and procedures and this will be so much harder, and need so much more planning, if the individual or manager is home based.

We hope this article was useful, if you would like to discuss flexible working or any other HR matters further please do not hesitate to contact us.