Don’t WFH, WAH

Renewed coronavirus restrictions provide a fresh chance for employers to embrace flexible working as a long-term option.

Speechwriter and long-time home-worker David Vigar asks if leaders have the courage to face down office Neanderthals and let staff work ‘at home’, as the norm, rather than ‘from home’, as the exception.

Working at home has become the norm for millions during the coronavirus pandemic. But will it become part of a permanent new normal? Will employers worldwide follow the example set those such as Twitter and Fujitsu, who have said their staff can continue remote working indefinitely?

A survey by the Institute of Directors this month suggested a majority of UK companies may be coming round to the idea. If this holds true, a revolution is at hand.

The lockdown has exposed the massive gulf between the number of people who can work effectively at home and those who, in virus-free times, actually do. Clearly some people can’t work remotely, like mechanics or nurses, but millions can, from IT to insurance, civil servants to counsellors.

The proportion able to work remotely in the UK looks to be around 50%. That’s the number calculated to have done so, at least some days, by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). By comparison, the proportion who worked remotely pre-COVID-19 was well under than 10%, according to another ONS study.

So why did so few people work at home when so many could?

What happened to the future?

Experience suggests that it’s because tradition trumps technology. Before the Industrial Revolution, pretty much everyone worked at home. Work was ‘put out’ to weavers, blacksmiths, craftspeople of all sorts.

Industrialisation not only made production faster and cheaper, with jobs migrating from homes to factories, but it created a culture of control that survives today. As the historian Thomas Carlyle observed in 1829: “Men are grown mechanical in head and in heart, as well as in hand.”

When the digital revolution began 150 years later, many observers predicted that work would migrate back to the home. ‘Telecommuting’ was a 1970s buzzword. Our computers became our libraries, work-stations and filing cabinets. Telework was promoted as good for the environment, work-life balance, job satisfaction and equal opportunities – as it still is.

In 1980, in The Third Wave, Alvin Toffler wrote: “… we find more and more companies that can be described … as nothing but ‘people huddled around a computer.’ Put the computer in people's homes, and they no longer need to huddle.”

So what happened to the future? Why do people still huddle? Toffler nailed it himself, saying: “Problems of motivation and management, of corporate and social reorganization, will make the shift both prolonged and, perhaps, painful.”

Over 35 years of working at home and in offices I have seen that pain up close. A good example came when I worked as a speechwriter for BT in the late 1990s. The business’s narrative was all about technology enabling us to work wherever we chose. A Silicon Valley vibe evolved. Executives took to wearing polo shirts.

Then came the dot-com crash of 2000. And everything reverted to type. Staff were recalled to base. Back came the suits. An old-fashioned City crisis culture prevailed, with executives huddling in offices long into the night.

All in the mind

It illustrated that office-working was the default mode and the comfort zone. And it showed that the biggest obstacles to home-working aren’t physical, but psychological.

Some barriers come from the employee side. At BT, remote working was resisted by staff who wanted their homes to be work-free zones and enjoyed going to work for the human contact, the banter and buzz. Indeed, no-one should be compelled to work remotely, except when their health is at risk.

But neither should people be compelled to go to the office by control freak managers. One employee showed me a picture his boss had texted to his team when they were working remotely. It showed an empty office which the manager had captioned: “Is this what a well-motivated team looks like?” I doubt that manager really believed his team lacked motivation. I suspect he just found bullying easier face to face.

Less aggressive but equally uncomprehending was the director who copied me on an email to a colleague on a day when I was working at home, saying “David could help but he isn’t around today.”

The Government betrayed similar attitudes in August when the easing of lockdown was accompanied by dark warning from a “government source” that when companies restructure, those who have been working from home will “find themselves in the most vulnerable position.”

Such failures to get it could not contrast more with the liberation fostered by managers who allow their teams to work anywhere and anytime.

I have seen an employee with caring responsibilities overcome with relief at being told they could work how, when and where they liked, provided they delivered. And people do deliver. Contrary to the lazy portrayal of home workers as pyjama-wearing skivers, survey after survey has shown they are highly productive.

In a progressive culture, ‘working from home’ feels outdated. It suggests that the office is the mothership and homes mere outposts. I prefer ‘working at home’ which suggests that home is a normal place to work. I don’t WFH, I WAH.

A chance to reboot

The return of Government advice to work from home if possible provides another chance to reboot. It’s a chance for employees to request flexible working, as they have a right to do under the Employment Rights Act (ERA) 1996, albeit that employers can refuse on subjective grounds such as ‘detrimental impact’ on ‘quality’ or ‘performance’.

It’s a chance for government to go further, it was minded, emulating Finland whose Working Hours Act allows employees to decide on their place of work.

But a voluntary approach would be best, with employers seizing the moment to trust more staff to work where they want to.

There may never be a better chance to face down the office Neanderthals and finally fulfil that 1980s vision of a greener, more flexible, more equal and more motivated working world.