Can we work from home forever?

Welcome to October’s Castle blog – in the week that saw more lockdown measures imposed on parts of the North, at the inevitable cost of jobs and businesses.

…And in the week when one inescapable fact should have become clear to us. It is time to stop using the phrase ‘new normal’ – with its unspoken implication that we will, at some point in the future, return to the ‘old normal.’

We won’t. This is normal.

As I wrote last month, Covid-19 has accelerated some trends that might otherwise have taken 20 or 30 years to arrive. The shape of our towns, our education, our leisure and – above all – our working lives will be irreversibly changed.

And that has left owners and directors of SMEs everywhere wrestling with one question above all others. Can my team work from home forever?

Opinions are sharply divided. On the one hand we have the BBC telling us that ‘home working is here to stay.’ After all, if Google is telling staff they’ll work at home until at least summer 2021, surely smaller firms should follow suit?

But wait a minute. City AM wrote last week that businesses are planning a ‘long-term return to the office.’ So much for the home working boom. Some bosses are even telling staff to forget the pandemic and get themselves back to the office. Good job you didn’t start converting the back bedroom…

What have we done at Castle? Like many companies, following the Government’s guidelines has led to an office version of the hokey-cokey. In, out, in, out. Let’s hope we don’t reach the next stage…

On the face of it working from home (WFH – an acronym most people didn’t even recognise at the start of the year) has its attractions. A better work/life balance, more time with the children, more flexibility, less money spent on commuting.

Most people report an increase in productivity, as managers gradually lose their fear of ‘shirking from home.’

But six months is a relatively short time for the great ‘work from home experiment.’ I think there are some counter-arguments which owners and directors of SMEs would do well to heed before they jump completely on the ‘future of work is at home’ bandwagon.

A study done by Microsoft’s Data Analytics Team found that – on average – people were working an extra four hours a week during lockdown. Yes, there are at least as productive as they were in the office – but the downside of being at home was more time spent working.

As employers and business owners we need to be concerned for the welfare of people who work for us – and some simple maths suggests that’s a worrying finding. Four hours a week is 200 hours a year: that’s five full working weeks – or the equivalent of someone’s annual holiday.

Then there’s the weather. Working from home in the spring and summer is one thing. If you need a break, you can step outside into the garden. In the autumn and winter it may be a different matter as the rain pours down and it’s dark by three in the afternoon. Especially if you’ve lost the battle for the spare bedroom and you’re still working on the kitchen table.

Not everyone has the idyllic work-at-home conditions the newspapers like to portray, and there have been a few members of the Castle team who’ve breathed a sigh of relief when they’ve walked back into the office.

But most people would still argue that WFH has worked well so far. “Zoom’s been great,” as so many people have said. Zoom has been great, but as an equal number of people are now saying, it is no substitute for real face to face interaction. Zoom has also been great because right now we’re using it with people who we know well – people who understand how we work.

What about two years from now, when there’s been the inevitable staff turnover? When you’re no longer Zooming to people you’ve built long-term ‘cultural capital’ with.

Taken together, all these factors have led some business academics to warn against a sharp drop in productivity in the longer term. Octavius Black, CEO of performance consultancy the Mind Gym says, ‘There is a risk of productivity collapse as people burn out, can’t cope, feel exhausted and opt out. Companies won’t notice until quite far down the road, and will find it hard to recover.’

So as we approach winter there is going to be yet more for the owner/director of an SME to consider. There will be more lockdowns, more complicated support schemes, more job insecurities and plenty of businesses under pressure. But on top of that you need to keep the longer term in mind – and as the above comments suggest, a blind acceptance of WFH may not be the long-term solution many people think it is.

But let me finish with a nod to one of my favourite films, Casablanca. As Sam reminds us, the ‘fundamental things apply.’ And for Castle there’s nothing more fundamental – wherever we’re working from – than providing outstanding service to our clients and candidates. And in all my time at Castle, I can’t remember a more heartfelt endorsement of that service than the one Samantha Manning received a few days ago. It was from a candidate who’d finally found a permanent job:

Just over six years ago my wife and I decided to move to Filey as we wanted to be there for our retirement. It was our dream: many people do not fulfil their dream but thanks to Castle we are living our dream.

First one of your colleagues found me a job: then – when that didn’t work out – she found me another job in Filey.

This year Covid put a large dent in our plans but again Castle came to our rescue. A piece of brilliant work by you, Sam, has given me a dream contract and I can work for as long as I’m fit.

You have made our dreams come true and I could never thank you and your colleagues enough for giving us a better life and a wonderful standard of living.

In your debt always.

Covid has – and will continue to – put a dent in a lot of plans. But letters like that remind us why we do what we do – and why the short term struggles and long term planning are always worth it.

 Written by Suzanne Burnett, Director: October 2020