What if you can't work from home?

I know the pandemic is not over, but for most countries there seems to be a concerted attempt to pretend that it is and get back to "normal" - whatever that is.

We see this in many walks of life. Cinema's and theatre's have no restrictions. Sports venues are back to their heaving best. Most cafes, bars and restaurants are fully functioning and even public transport - including flights - have removed the requirement to wear a mask.

For them getting back to "normal" is pretty simple. Things are back to the way they were before the COVID outbreak.

But there is one environment where the way forward is a little more fuzzy. That is the world of work. Not because the risk of infection is higher there than in social situations (although I am sure for some professions it must be).

No the reason there is some doubt about the best way to operate is that many people quite liked the working from home option.

It depends on which survey you read and whose figures you believe as some reports say that up to 65% of employees don't want to return to the workplace on a full-time basis.

I was shown a report recently that said 41% of employees would rather have a hybrid working environment over a pay rise!

We have to look at these figures in the light of the kind of work you do. One of my nieces is a nurse. It's pretty obvious that she has to go into her place of work (and did have to when the infection rates were at their highest).

If you work in a factory or need specialist equipment, then of course you need to be where that equipment is located.

Most people in the hospitality industry need to go to a physical location. It's a bit hard to serve a meal to someone if you are not in the same place as your customer!

As is usual with these kinds of surveys, the people that run them don't provide you with enough background information on the sample size and demographics to determine whether these issues have been taken into account.

But it is safe to say that if you are not in one of these groups, then you probably don't relish the thought of coming back to a central location day after day - particularly if you are just using the computer, making phone calls and the odd video call.

There is some evidence to suggest that not being together in one place can hinder creativity and innovation, although much of this is anecdotal and I have yet to see an empirical study that supports this hypothesis.

Another school of thought is that prolonged working from home can lead to breakdowns in communication and team relationships. It seems that people miss the camaraderie formed around the coffee machine or water cooler and that the spark of an idea that may have been generated in a random corridor conversation is also lacking.

Again, I have no real study based evidence to support this.

This has led to numerous "new" ways of working being discussed. The main options seem to be placed somewhere on a continuum from 100% coming to the workplace at one end, to 100% working remotely at the other.

The most commonplace of these seems to be the "hybrid" solution with people coming to office but less often than they used to. People get specified days when they come to office and hopefully they can wrap those around certain issues that make their personal life a little easier (picking up the children from Karate class perhaps, or the piano lessons you have been wanting to take).

Others have taken the "only come to the office when it is absolutely necessary" approach. Maybe a creative session requires us all to be in the same room or an engineer is coming to fix some vital equipment, or a sales person is coming to demonstrate a radical new product that you need to see in situ.

These approaches obviously have value for the people that are able to come to the workplace intermittently, but how do you square that with the people who cannot?

For example, let's say I am the managing director of a chain of restaurants. I can offer a hybrid working environment to my back office staff, but not to those that actually run the outlets. They need to be there. They may already be feeling that they get a raw deal as servers and waiting staff often get paid lower rates than administration and back office team members, and now we compound that by letting others have the benefits of working from home when it suits.

Management need to look at this whole issue in a slightly different way. It is not a binary choice of working from home or working from the shop floor.

People are now starting to re-evaluate the whole concept of getting the most from their team. The term that seems to be coming though is "Empowered Flexibility".

My understanding of this is how do I create a flexible working environment where all employees, remote or physically present, are able to produce their best work whilst at the same time enhancing their qualify of life?

Can we be more flexible with the shift rota?

If you have people who absolutely cannot work from home is there a way to make their shift patterns more compatible with their out of work commitments? One of the best ways to establish this is to let the team talk about it amongst themselves. Sometimes they can agree to swap shifts when they have nothing special planned in order to help a colleague that may need to attend an event or family function. Certain conditions need to be in place to make sure there is adequate cover and that no legal requirements are being broken, but the team often respond well to being trusted to come up with their own solutions.

What about financial rewards?

The pandemic has shown that most people feel there are benefits to working from home. No cost of commuting. Less spending on new work clothes. No buying expensive lunches from chain store cafés and restaurants. So the opposite must also be true. Those coming to a central work place are incurring extra costs. Is there anything you can do financially to offset this added expenditure?

You can also look at the holiday allowance.

We know that those working from home do not always stick to office hours. On a nice sunny day someone might take an extra long lunch break to walk the dog and soak up a few rays. The odd trip to the doctor or dentist doesn't always need to be booked as holiday. Admittedly people often work later into the night or on the weekends to make sure things get completed on time, but those coming into the workplace don't have that flexibility.

Perhaps one or two days per quarter for "personal" activities would be a nice gesture.

Now I know many of you will be thinking "where do I find the money to pay for all this?"

If we don't figure out a way to provide " Empowered Flexibility" for all employees, many of those that still have to come to a physical location will look for work somewhere else where they might just have the luxury of working from home!