Work, school, home, take the best seat!

Many of us may have seen a silver lining when remote working became mandatory during the lockdown; money saved on travel, no overcrowded tubes, saving valuable hours on commuting to work and more time with family. Due to the pandemic when our offices closed we hastily set up workspaces at home thinking "it's only temporary, it will be fine!" Well it's been 6 months and its just not ideal anymore is it.

Many home workers struggle with the lack of office equipment, furniture and innovative IT solutions that we take for granted to obtain in our modern offices. Civica found that, by the end of the first two weeks during lockdown, more than half of the 500 people, who responded to an Institute of Employment Studies homeworking wellbeing survey, reported experiencing new aches and pains. 58% complained of neck pain, 56% experienced shoulder pain, and 55% had experienced back pain. So, by now you may be facing more frustrations beyond crouching over wobbly, old tables or sitting for hours in agonizing chairs – there are so many other issues to think about, such as mental health, that could go on to be a serious global problem.

This also goes for children and schooling; literally thousands upon thousands of children of all ages and abilities who have had to work from home this year, and remain there, have struggled with home schooling equipment. In fact, our experienced team at Capita discovered that, at the start of the pandemic, there were at least 5,000 disadvantaged young people in the city of Birmingham alone who did not have the necessary technology to continue with their education at home. Without suitable access to digital devices, such as laptops and a robust internet connection, this group of children were likely to fall behind while they were unable to attend school. So, not only have we teamed up to provide the right facilities to help these children, Capita have spread our arms further afield to help support other parts of the country.

Capita has secured a five-year contract to migrate Suffolk County Council’s on-premise education software to a new cloud-based system. Capita will use software applications to support the council’s statutory education functions, such as managing admissions, school transport, meals and special educational needs. Capita’s applications are built into Microsoft Azure, a public cloud service. Once the council’s data is migrated to the new cloud system, upgrades and fixes will be able to be done remotely and out of hours. This will be a significant improvement for parents that still have to home school, and children who need a smooth-running system at home to help stay focused.

When discussing our futures over this last few months, uncertainty is a word we see being used a lot, but one thing we can be certain is, that more needs to be done to support adults and children get access to the right equipment and online services to ensure otherwise unseen needs are met. Capita has made a start and needs to continue to do more, I’d love to hear from others in my network who are meeting needs in this space, and as always suggestions and comments welcome below.