Recent research from LinkedIn has given an interesting insight into the issue of hybrid, flexible and remote working. While some companies are attracting headlines for insisting workers return to the office, LinkedIn’s inaugural Work Change report found UK office workers are happy to come in, but only if the visit had real value.
Half of survey respondents did not want their employer to dictate office attendance beyond their current hybrid arrangements, but 72% agreed it was fair for bosses to expect effective in-person collaboration.
Going further, the survey even found certain types of interactions preferred in person – planning meetings (57%), creative brainstorms (62%), and review meetings (62%) were all popular in-person occurrences. It was also clear that face-to-face meetings had some influence on budgets with 59% of professionals saying that they would spend more with a supplier they’ve met in person.
“The companies that get this right – those that create spaces for meaningful collaboration, idea-sharing, and relationship-building – will be the ones that keep their best talent engaged.”
“The future of work isn’t about forcing people back into the office,” commented Janine Chamberlin, Head of LinkedIn UK when the report was published, “it’s about making sure that when they do come in, it’s worth it. The companies that get this right – those that create spaces for meaningful collaboration, idea-sharing, and relationship-building – will be the ones that keep their best talent engaged. That starts with listening to employees and making in-person moments truly valuable.”
Five years after the pandemic the issue of hybrid and flexible work remains an evolving one for businesses – and one where HR has potential to steer the ship. LinkedIn found that 39% of UK C-suite leaders are redesigning their hybrid policies this year, with 41% planning to offer more flexible in-office hours to support productivity.
Questions emerge, however, as to who has real control over where anyone should work. As Kathryn Evans, Partner & Head of Employment, Trethowans points out, under under the Flexible Working Regulations all employees are entitled to make up to two flexible working requests per year and they can make these requests from day one. In broad terms, employers can refuse such requests if they believe it interferes with business needs and instead can require employees to work at their contractual place of work.
“Unsurprisingly, the starting point for an employee is to look at their employment contract and see what it says about the place of work,” Evans says.
Custom and practice
Hybrid working has, says Evans altered the meaning of ‘place of work’ so understanding what the term refers to and whether or not the stipulation is contractual must be carefully considered. At the same time, attention needs to be paid to what is happening in practice. “If there is no written contract, the place of work will be determined through ‘custom and practice’,” notes Evans, “in other words, what has traditionally happened in the past.”
“If there is no written contract, the place of work will be determined through ‘custom and practice’.”
Evans gives the example of an employee who has worked from home permanently since the start of Covid, and would therefore have good grounds to argue that home is now their place of work.
Whether an employee can be dismissed for not coming to work in the office again comes down to whether that demand is contractual. If an employee’s refusal to work in a particular place is a breach of contract the company’s disciplinary policy should kick in.
However, notes Evans, the employer must still follow a fair process. “We would look at a number of factors,” she says, “such as the reasons for the request to return to the office, the amount of time they have been working from home rather than the office, whether home working has been interspersed with office working or not, the reasons the employee is refusing and so on.”
Discrimination implecations
Evans also makes the point that when determining where someone should work, employers need to be mindful of discrimination legislation, especially where the request is related to childcare or constitutes a reasonable adjustment for someone with a disability. What emerges, then is that even if a company decides it is time to bring its employees back into the fold the decision to do so might not trigger a straightforward road to full desks.
Mark Mortensen, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD suggests there are other factors at play determining where someone should be carrying out their work. While employee and employers might have different ideas about this who finally wins out might be due to market conditions rather than anything else.
Supply and demand
“Candidates have the power to demand, but that doesn’t mean employers have the obligation to provide,” says Mortensen, “Who has the power is determined by labour-market economics – whoever controls the more scarce resource – jobs or talent – has more power. Remote work is simply one of the chips being played.”
This is an interesting point of view. While many organisations and employees may be considering this issue or a more personal level at the end of the day employers may have to employ people in a certain way because that it the only way they’ll access those skills. Even in today’s challenging economic conditions businesses are still struggling to fill certain roles. Work location therefore becomes another area of negotiation in getting talent onboard.
“It is important to remember that tasks and jobs are not the same thing.”
Mortensen goes further, however, suggesting that employers can address how work is done in order to make this part of an employment relationship work: “It is important to remember that tasks and jobs are not the same thing,” he says. “Organisations CAN be creative in how they design jobs – think: do you have a sales associate and a customer-service representative or do you have two employees who split their time 50/50 between sales and customer service? Adopting the latter is a creative way to allow for remote work for those in sales roles – IF that is what the organisation wants to offer.”
Mortensen’s second point equally ties in with the economics of business. What is the cost-benefit of where someone works? “Nothing comes for free,” he says, “so any organisation evaluating remote work needs to think about what they hope to get relative to what it costs them – in both cases we need to think beyond financials to intangible costs and benefits as well.”
By example he points out that in today’s world, remote work is seen by some as a right and by others as evidence that the organisation prioritises employees. While the finical position of hybrid and remote working must always be considered (how productive is everyone in their particular setting) companies must ultimately make a conscious decision about where employees can be located because the signals their policies send are extremely important.
The matter of hybrid and flexible work may have arisen from at the exceptional circumstances of the pandemic, but it is not one that can be put back in the box now those circumstances have passed. As Mortensen notes, at the end of the day, organisations exist to serve a purpose, so any organisation’s remote work policies need to support that – if you work as a sales associate in a retail store, for example, remote work is never going to be an option. Ultimately, where work is needs to be demonstrably the right place considering the needs of the individual and the contribution they are able to make to the business as a result.
