LEGAL Pam Loch, solicitor and managing director of employment law specialists Loch Associates Group, discusses how managers can best motivate, supervise and manage staff within a hybrid working regime
Working 9 til 5 – no longer the way to make a living? Who would have thought five years ago that we would be discussing the demise of the traditional working day? However, here we are with 36% of employees reportedly working from home at least once in the last seven days. With Covid still doing the rounds, rising fuel costs and potential strikes hitting commuters, this percentage is likely to increase with more staff working from home to avoid the increasing costs and the challenges of travelling to work. There are, however, negative aspects to working at home which we are increasingly encountering with our clients seeking help to find a way forward. Most notably is the rising number of remote workers who are being signed off sick due to mental ill health. So how do you manage your teams effectively when the standard working day and working week looks like it has gone for good?
CHANGING PRACTICES
Looking back at 2019, the percentage of employees working from home was just 4.7%. This rose to 43.1% during the pandemic. The latest statistics suggest that working full-time in an office environment is unlikely to ever return. Some of the UK’s biggest employers, including BP, Nationwide and British Airways,
have confirmed that they have no plans to require staff to return to work fulltime in an office for the foreseeable future. It’s not just remote working that has been a game changer, though. More employers are offering unlimited holidays and compressed working hours as different ways to address mental ill health concerns. Goldman Sachs recently announced its senior staff would be able to take unlimited holidays, subject to a minimum number being taken, as a way to try to address that concern. However, they have taken the view that staff should not be working remotely, as they recognise the negative impact of not being together in the workplace with less collaboration and learning opportunities being available. The concerns around mental ill health appear to apply across the board, and managers do need to be trained to know how to engage with their team in the office or at home to address those concerns. Inherently most managers do engage better on a face-to-face basis, and remote or hybrid working brings its own set of challenges; including, motivation and supervision, knowledge sharing and team building.
❛❛ Managers essentially have to revisit the way they have operated to create a cohesive team ❜❜ 36
TIME FOR A SUPERVISION RE-THINK?
Employers will need to rethink how they motivate their staff. The absence of supervision can lead to employees becoming easily distracted by family, deliveries or other factors found within the home. Critically it can also lead to the increased risk of costly mistakes. Isolation from the team can also weaken communication channels. The all-important ‘corridor conversations’ and “cooler chats” don’t take place which is likely to lead to the team culture being adversely af fected. More worrying we are seeing the creation of division and a two-tier workforce - with “homeworking shaming” taking place.
