If all your staff can and wish to work from home, is there an option to give up the lease and overheads of running an office and become fully wfh?

In reply to Nina Waters:

Thank you Nina, I understand it has recently been renewed. Not all the staff want to work from home permanently and we did have trouble sourcing a suitable venue because of our client base. We also see these clients from our office as not all staff want to use zoom and due to the nature of our work we have some staff who are concerned re "seeing" clients in their own homes (even via zoom) particularly when they have young children. I do think if it weren't for the office base staff would have no reason to personally meet another member of the team - at least this way we do still see each other.

What are the other implications of a mainly remote workforce? Is there an impact on training and learning from peers? Would moving to this cause any adverse effects on anyone i.e. people who don't have enough space/ a safe space to work at home?

We have found things are settling and most people have gradually returned to the office for 2-3 days per week. We are planning to lure them back a bit more (free catering!) but we are open to some ongoing flexibility. We have found that people were able to see that their learning had slowed down, and there was an impact on quality of output, so they were pretty positive about being able to work together again.

In reply to Sarah:

I think it keeps coming back to the fact that senior management do not particularly want a totally wfh workforce. Our work can be distressing so the opportunity to discuss with colleagues is a great help; however granted they could do this via zoom/telephone if they have dealt with a particularly difficult case.

I understand new starters would need insight into the business and our way of working but for longstanding employees, not so sure that this would be a requirement but I do appreciate coming to the office and seeing people. If I wfh permanently I would never see another person from the office face to face until our 6 weekly meeting.

I guess if we disposed of the offices we would just need somewhere to hold our 6 weekly meetings when we all get together - even then we have instructed staff to only attend 3 of them a year in person (for which we provide lunch).

Mmm lots to think about.

Thank you.

In reply to Louise Andrews:

Precedent is not a valid legal reason and neither is policy

In reply to Peter Stanway:

What I meant to say further is that the genie is out of the bottle.
Personally I think there is much to be said for hybrid working but some people manage quite well without social interaction and boss's 'supervision'. The world has moved on and it requires very strong evidence to justify a refusal to allow WFH.

Hi Louise

just wondering if you had made progress with this? I am expecting an influx of requests due to a relocation (only an additional 12 miles but a more complex, time consuming 12 miles). Management are reluctant to grant requests but on what grounds can you reject it on? I'm thinking 'proposed structural changes' but I still don't know if this is sufficient. Appreciate any additional insight you have!!

thank you

Helen

In reply to Helen Walter:

Throughout the 21st century there has been a growing demand from employees for more flexible working arrangements. Many employers chose to ignore this until they were forced to allow people to work from home during the lockdowns.

What many people want is more flexibility around their working arrangement that enables them to combine work with other aspects of their lives. For some the preference would be for flexible hours, but if hybrid is the only option on offer they will take it as it's better than nothing.

I recommend asking your 'reluctant' staff what sort of flexible arrangement would help them manage their work-life balance. For example, they might like compressed hours where they work five days in four. If two of these are in the office, they would be there for longer, but the payoff would be an extra day not working, Or the reverse might be true: they might like to work shorter days in the office to compensate for travel times, but be willing to work longer hours from home.

A focus on outputs rather than location will open up new possibilities.

In reply to Helen Walter:

12 miles means you may well be facing redundancies, never mind FWRs

In reply to Anna:

Thank you Anna,

As a company we do offer some flexibility and the office move is prompting an increase in support towards this to hopefully encourage more attendance at the office.
We already have hybrid working with a minimum of 2 days in the office but even with this I'm expecting remote working requests - which I'm struggling to find grounds we would be able to reject on based on the regulations - if the needs are met the other 3 days a week why wouldn't they the extra 2!

In reply to Peter Stanway:

This has been taken into consideration, it's going to be a challenging few months!

It's definitely a challenge. We are currently reviewing our office set up and location, and are keen in doing so to try and incentivise (rather than mandate) presence in the office. Through Covid we moved from fully office working to fully remote working. Post Covid we took serviced office space in London to enable hybrid working, but only a small cohort of people regularly use it. Meanwhile, headcount has grown significantly. A number of new hires throughout and since Covid were recruited as remote employees (in a challenging tech market this had its advantages as it opened up a wider talent pool for us). So we now have a mix of contractual terms and geographical locations, as well as the usual variance of those who prefer home working and those who prefer office life. As a management team we see massive benefit in encouraging a hybrid approach to enable socialisation, teambuilding, collaboration, learning and efficiency. But we have numerous challenges ahead of us in persuading people to take on the time and cost of travel, especially as lives have now grown roots around home life (e.g. ability to be at school gates) and as cost of living increases will likely make people reluctant to take a hit on their take home income by paying for commuting. I'd be interested in any creative (and low budget impact!) 'carrot' approaches that CIPD community members have taken in order to draw people back to the office environment.

I have said on this forum multiple times - and to my employers at least as often - that the moment you vaguely stick one finger in the air and go "yeah, I reckon two days a week in the office sounds about right" with no operational justification for that number, you are acknowledging that the work can be done equally well from home and opening yourselves to FWRs for fully remote working with no reasonable objection.

Now, I happen to support 100% remote working for the vast majority of white collar workers *but note* that "remote" does not have to mean "from home". I spent a very productive five hours the other day doing my job in a Costa while my car was serviced. There are technical challenges in supporting 100% remote working which aren't without financial implications - but they are entirely surmountable obstacles.

But if an employer believes, sincerely, that 100% remote working isn't suitable for their workforce, for whatever reason, they need to make an effort to articulate those reasons in concrete, well-evidence terms. For example, it is reasonable for universities to expect lecturers to attend to teach in person because there is ample evidence to show that in-person teaching produces better outcomes for students than remote teaching.

"But we've already paid for the lease!" is not a justification.

For a start, even if you've already paid for the lease, having fewer people in the office will considerably reduce utilities bills for the site. And, if you're smart about the contracts you sign, you can sub-let unused space. Hey, guess what - there's a market for convenient co-working spaces! If you were less smart, talk to your landlord or letting agent about options and make a judgement call on the penalties for breaking the lease early if you want to move to a smaller location.

That's not to say that there are no good arguments for pursuing in-person workplaces. But many of the most common arguments are unevidenced. People talk about isolation and social contact as if "work" is the only place you get social contact when remote working frees up time for people to pursue more meaningful contact through hobbies, community groups, volunteering and activism. Some employees might need help realizing that this is the case and need advice on how to utilize the time they no longer spend commuting more productively.

There's also a lot of talk about "water cooler" moments. Well, the research evidence is that these occur far less frequently than people imagine and have less evidence than they believe. The benefits of remote working to retention, engagement and productivity (typically 6-13% better) tend to outweigh the unevidenced benefits of in-person working. Remote working reduces absenteeism and sickness. It increases your recruitment candidate pool. And it demands higher standards of performance from managers who have to pay attention to data, standards, objectives and KPIs rather than simply using physical presence as a metric for performance*.

If you really want to dive into the evidence, the best model so far supported by the academic research is one day per week in the officer - but *only if* everyone is in the office on the same day. Otherwise results are better from full remote working.

*This, of course, is the real reason why many business leaders want to reverse the trend towards remote working: they simply lack the competence and skills to effectively manage remote workers and fear losing their power and status. It's the great lie in Adam Smith's invisible hand that assumes that a rational market will pursue the most profitable course available within the regulatory framework. In fact, businesses are led by people and those people are often motivated at least as much by the power they are able to wield as by the money they earn. Remote working is a threat to their power, despite the potential returns in financial terms, and therefore to be resisted at all costs.

Force them to rationalize their positions and their arguments are swiftly reduced to "but what about MEEEE?"

In reply to Robey:

Funny how many seem to only see the bright side of remote work. For my part, I can’t say I don’t dread a work context where there will be no collective activity whatsoever, no examples or memories of work together either, just isolated individuals getting directions through a computer -from their manager, obviously, in the beginning, who knows who from later….

In reply to Petros:

I can’t say I don’t dread a work context where there will be no collective activity whatsoever, no examples or memories of work together either, just isolated individuals getting directions through a computer -from their manager, obviously, in the beginning, who knows who from later…

Did you just join the forum to predict that default remote working would lead to a robot apocalypse?