IS WORKING FROM HOME HERE TO STAY?

"If you said three months ago that 90% of our employees will be working from home and the employer would be functioning fine, I’d say that is a test I’m not prepared to take because the downside of being wrong on that is massive." CEO – Morgan Stanley (2020)

by Savvas Christou

Imagine never wearing a suit to work again. Or imagine going pyjama shopping for your new work wardrobe attire. Sounds far-fetched? In some cases, perhaps not.

As the world takes small steps returning to some form of normality post-COVID-19, the corporate world now faces significant challenges concerning the logistics of its workforce.

COVID-19 was a great disruptor in the workplace. A research paper published by the Australian Government’s Productivity Commission (Sept 2021) revealed that 40 percent of workers in Australia had to work from home during the pandemic. While some of those workers are returning to their offices the levels of remote working are expected to be much higher than pre-pandemic levels.

The 2016 Census reported that 35 percent of workers had jobs which were amenable to remote working, yet only 8 percent of workers had formal remote working arrangements in place according to data sourced in 2019. The low take-up was believed to be as a result of management practices and cultural norms in the office. And the stigma of “working from home”. Those norms have now shifted considerably.

The benefits of remote working have been apparent to both employees and employers. The former has experienced the benefits of saved time and money (in Australia’s big cities commuters saved an average of 67 minutes per day in commuting plus $57 per day of commuting costs plus foregone earnings) plus increased flexibility in their daily lives while the latter has realised cost savings and potential increases in productivity.

"If you said three months ago that 90pc of our employees will be working from home and the employer would be functioning fine, I’d say that is a test I’m not prepared to take because the downside of being wrong on that is massive."

CEO – Morgan Stanley (2020)

From a wellbeing impact employees have more time and control over things like exercise and sleep, yet there is data to suggest the average UK employee loses 21 minutes per day

of incidental exercise formerly part of their commute. Furthermore there has been an elimination of boundaries between home and work life and most worrying is increased isolation.

However in contrast a recent study of 61,000 Microsoft employees concluded that remote work negatively impact communication within the organisation (18pc of Microsoft’s employees worked remotely before the pandemic) and some CEOs have concluded that working from home is to the detriment of company culture and employee relationships. The CEOs at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have questioned the impact of remote working company culture, team collaboration, and worker wellbeing. In addition Deutsche Bank’s UK and Ireland CEO, Tiina Lee, expects graduates to be in the office full time as the belief is that graduates learn more talking directly with their colleagues rather than over video calls.

Many organisations have now embraced the disruption by implementing hybrid working models whereby staff are expected to return to the office on a part-time basis. This goes some way to addressing some identified issues of stifling creativity, reduced opportunities for collaboration and networking, reduced face-to-face interaction with managers, and consequences for long-term career prospects.

One of CCG’s focus areas is organisational health checks within Finance and Operations which enables management better understand where their organisations operational model can be enhanced to provide a more optimum operating structure for the future.