Office Return
The government is dragging its feet on guidance about the return to office working as it promises to legislate for the right to work remotely, writes Nick Mulcahy
Employers are pencilling in a return to office working from September. They would appreciate immediate government guidance
Banning people from working in their office workplace for the past 14 months has opened up a Pandora’s Box about how employers can manage their staff in the future. As people have become used to working from home and not having to commute, unsurprisingly a lot of them want this new way of life to continue.
The preference is especially strong in public-sector employment and in large companies, according to recent research from NUI Galway. In a self-selecting survey of 6,400 employees, college researchers found that among whitecollar workers who can work remotely, 95% are in favour of working remotely to some extent on an ongoing basis.
Eighty per cent of the NUIG survey cohort work in organisations with over 50 employees, and enterprises of this size constitute under 5% of all enterprises. Of the survey respondents, only 6% work in organisations with under 10 staff, which make up threequarters of Ireland’s employers.
The worry now for managers of SMEs and micro firms is that there is an inexorable policy drift towards enshrining remote working rights in law, on the basis of giving the people what they want. Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar commented recently that government wants to make remote and blended working a much bigger part of life after Covid.
“The benefits are obvious – less commuting, fewer transport emissions, better quality of life for workers, but we are aware that there are challenges to manage too,” he stated. “We are currently implementing a strategy on remote working, including a code of practice on the right to disconnect, legislating to provide employees with the right to request remote working, and ensuring we have the right tax incentives in place to make sure the move to a more permanent arrangement is a smooth one.”
The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council has lined up in the enterprise minister’s corner. A recent bulletin issued by the state quango declared that remote working has the potential to convey economic, social and environmental benefits and could offer a better quality of life.
In the NCPC’s opinion, remote working can deliver improvements in work/life balance and increase social inclusivity in the labour market, while also reducing environmental costs by lowering commuting times and transport-related carbon emissions and air pollution. The NCPC view is that remote working also has the potential to boost regional development and alleviate pressures in large urban areas for accommodation, schools and other constrained infrastructure.
But what about the implications for competitiveness and productivity? The Council notes that remote work could be cost effective if it allows an employer to reduce the net cost of housing its employees. However, employers may still be obligated to pay for centrally located office space despite fewer individuals on site, and will have the cost burden of setting up and managing two workplaces. There may also be additional costs in terms of insuring company property at a worker’s home, as well as contributions to an employee’s increased costs of electricity, heating and broadband.
The Small Firms Association believes that for many smaller enterprises the feasibility of remote working will be negatively impacted by the cost of providing additional equipment and resources, insurance, data protection, the cost of renting hubs, and the HR and administration burden.
Upskilling of staff is another cost for firms in a future with more widespread remote working, says the Council. Remote staff have to be trained to use communications tools and online work collaboration platforms, and their managers have to be upskilled on how to motivate remote teams, measure staff performance, and onboard and support new recruits in a virtual environment.
The NCPC bulletin referenced research by the OECD, Cisco and Microsoft on remote work productivity. In the latter study of c.9,000 managers and employees in large European firms, executives reported a decrease in innovation around core products and services. This was due to less close-knit teams, workers feeling more distant from company culture, and less collaboration. Overcoming this requires investment in training and coaching for executives managing remote staff.
Across the civil service and large service businesses, remote working for most office workers continues for the moment. The official government line is still unequivocal: ‘All staff should continue to work from home to the greatest extent possible.’ And despite the extensive vaccination programme that protects the most vulnerable from Covid-19, official paranoia about the disease runs deep.
The government’s latest Work Safely Protocol runs to 63 pages, and is backed up with the threat of workplace inspections by the Health and Safety Authority. The protocol requires employers to implement a huge range of Covid safety measures and precautions, and nowhere in the document does it state: ‘If all your employees are vaccinated, none of the above applies.’
Nevertheless, private-sector employers are preparing for a gradual return to workplaces in the coming weeks and months, according to Ibec. Danny McCoy, CEO of the business lobby group, says clarity from government on the timing of graduated workplace reopening is urgently required for companies, in order to reignite collaboration and confidence in their workforce.
“The government’s roadmap must be aligned with an ongoing review of reopening timelines that reflects the risk reduction that the vaccine programme is delivering,” says McCoy. “This means a potential earlier gradual return to workplaces than the previously flagged expected return time of September. As swift a return as possible to office work is also vital in order to preserve the future of the many experience economy businesses that rely on office worker footfall for their survival.”
In a recent survey of 370 HR executives in member organisations, Ibec found that over a quarter of respondents will plan their return to the workplace in line with government advice or finalisation of the vaccination rollout. One third expect to return in September, and one in five organisations expect to be fully back in the workplace before then. Ibec concludes that if government guidelines permit, four out of five organisations could be returned to the workplace by September.
However, even when offices re-open, a large majority of Ibec members expect they will operate a hybrid model of remote and on-site work, and only one in six corporates will require all staff to return to the pre-Covid working pattern.