Two years into the pandemic, employers are now keen to lure office workers back into the building, but many are "holding on to the flexibility they have with white knuckles", says human resources CEO Ben Thompson.
Businesses should not be concerned about this and people who want to remain working from home should be accommodated, he tells Jesse Mulligan.
Photo: Cristian Tarzi / Unsplash
While some workers may miss the office, many are aware of the benefits working remotely affords and don't want to lose them, says Thompson, who is CEO of the staffing platform Employment Hero.
“I think they’re holding on to the flexibility they have with white knuckles. They’re very keen to maintain the flexibility of working from home they’ve had over the last two years. They’re willing to resign if they’re forced back to the office and that is removed.”
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Employment Hero surveyed over 1,000 New Zealand workers and asked whether remote working was something they’d like to continue doing - 92 percent of people said that it was.
“We surveyed them again in 2021 and that had increased from 92 percent to 94 percent,” Thompson says.
The survey also found that, as regards reasons for moving jobs, 51 percent were motivated by paid increases, but flexible working was the next biggest reason.
Corporates should have figured out working flexibility has not led to a drop in productivity - quite the opposite in many cases, Thompson says.
“We have seen evidence of productivity increasing ... People have more time. I think the biggest concern has been the inability or difficulty to separate work from normal life when are working from home. But certainly, we haven’t seen any decrease in productivity.”
Thompson says there has been talk about people missing conversations in the office, issues with training and integrating new employees into a business, and workers not picking up skills from others in person.
He doesn’t agree these are issues of much concern to businesses.
There's no reason an employer can provide people with every resource and support they need at home, Thompson says.
It’s simply a question of whether they have the will to organise an effective means of delivery.
“I think that if you’re relying on serendipity as your number-one training method in a business then you’re probably not thinking hard enough about the best way to educate your employee. There’s a very well-established framework to get people integrated into a business and trained into the skills that they need.
“You need trust. You need a regular cadence of how and when you speak and coach people. You need new management skills around goal-setting and alignment and coaching of employees. You need to do effective reward and recognition and motivation as a manager.
“You need to be checking in with people to make sure they feel valued if they’re not sitting beside you. And then lastly, you need to invest more money in learning and development, coaching and feedback.
“If you’re doing all of those things, which we should all be doing, anybody, including a graduate, can come into a business and feel just as much of it as anybody else.”
He says employers must consider the downside of forcing people back to the office before making any decisions. They should take cognisance of the fact that flexible hours is sustaining people in the workforce who would otherwise struggle. It also builds social cohesion and family stability.
“When you work remotely you have the ability to engage with people who can work online but may not live in a city.
“The ability to engage people who live in rural and remote areas, the ability to engage with parents and carers who need to be at home to look after children and people who are living with the elderly and those with disabilities is really important.
“The ability to help people who have disabilities work in a remote world is incredibly fortuitous as well in this environment. So, I just think the social benefits and inclusiveness that remote work offers are far more valuable than the desire to have people commute to the office.”
