productive homeworking needs wellbeing support

homeworking seen as productive, but needs wellbeing support

Two thirds of employers report home workers are more, or as productive as when in the workplace, but cite a need to support their mental health.

The new CIPD research also highlights the risks of creating a two-tier workforce, as a gap is set to grow between home workers and other employees who have to go to the workplace as their job does not allow the flexibility of homeworking. The research shows the shift to home working over the pandemic has been a positive experience for most employers, who report people’s improved work-life balance (cited by 61% of employers), enhanced employee collaboration (43%) and improved focus (38%).

Overall, 28% of employers report that the increase in home working has boosted productivity, while 37% say it has not impacted productivity levels, with 28% of employers reporting a decrease.

However, the research also highlights the challenges of managing home workers with employers highlighting reduced staff mental wellbeing (47%), problems with staff interaction/ co-operation (36%) and difficulties with line managing home workers (33%) and monitoring their performance (28%). Nonetheless, the CIPD research Embedding New Ways of Working, based on a survey of more than 1,000 employers and 12 in-depth organisation case studies, shows the benefits significantly outweigh the challenges, and that a large majority of employers are planning to introduce or expand the use of home working once the crisis is over. However, employers are much less likely to be planning to introduce or increase other forms of flexible working, for example: annualised hours, term-time working, compressed hours or job sharing, which can be used by workers who are unable to work from home. Peter Cheese, CIPD CEO, comments: “The lockdowns has taught us all a lot about how we can be flexible in ways of working in the future. This should be a catalyst to change long held paradigms and beliefs about work for the benefit of many. Employers have learnt that, if supported and managed properly, home working can be and we can give more opportunity for people to benefit from better work-life balance. This can also help with inclusion and how we can create positive work opportunities across our economies.”

“But it doesn’t suit everyone and increasingly organisations will have to design working arrangements around people’s choice and personal preference over where and when they would like to work, whilst also meeting the needs of the business. Employers will also have to redouble efforts to introduce flexible working arrangements for staff unable to work from home otherwise they will increasingly have a two-tier workforce of those who have opportunity to benefit from home working and flexibility and those who don’t.”

Key findings from the research include:

In all, 65% of organisation report that the increase in home working has either increased productivity (28%) or had no impact on productivity (37%). In contrast 28% of employers reported a decrease and 7%

step-change shift to home working to adapt to • as productive and innovative as office working • don’t know Employers expect the proportion of their workforce that works from home regularly to interaction (36%) and the effectiveness of line double to 37% of the workforce on average to support homeworking. Of these, two after the crisis is over, compared to the thirds of employers (66%) plan to change pre-pandemic incidence average of 18%. organisational policy to promote more Organisations also predict the proportion of homeworking. A majority of employers said the workforce that works from home all the they were going to increase investment in time to more than double to 22%, compared technology in terms of improving the quality to 9% before the crisis. of technology (59%) and the quantity of laptops and computers (51%). The main benefits associated with more homeworking are reported to be a • Overall, just a third (33%) of employers say better work-life balance (61%), greater they plan to introduce new forms of flexible collaboration (43%), greater ability to focus working or increase the uptake of existing with fewer distractions (38%) and IT upskilling flexible working arrangements more broadly, (33%). once lockdown restrictions ended. Where The biggest challenges reported by regularly (70%) or all the time (45%) are employers include the unsuitability of jobs most commonly cited, followed by partto be done from home (48%), reduced time working (40%), flexi-time (39%) and well-being among staff (47%), reduced staff compressed hours (25%). changes are planned, working from home management of home-based workers (33%). The CIPD research entitled Embedding New Ways of Working can be viewed by visiting 44% of organisations are planning to put in https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/work/ place additional measures or investment trends/working-post-pandemic