Now we’ve made the change, will we work from home forever?

In 2019, according to the Office for National Statistics, only 5% of us worked mainly from home, with up to a quarter having some experience of homeworking. Now, with mostly all but key workers working from home due to coronavirus lockdown, the question is whether businesses and their employees will ever completely return to the office once the social restrictions are lifted.

Businesses that had not previously embraced homeworking and were reluctant to, have had to adapt in order to survive and go through the somewhat painful processes of changing the way they work. But the forced change, now endured, means the worst is behind them, and that they may be similarly reluctant to go through yet another period of upheaval by changing back.

In amongst the many pros and cons of homeworking, a business that has made the switch to homeworking and found that it is no worse, and possibly better, than it was before may consider it for the long term. Many people working from home report being more productive, happier and just as engaged as when they were in the office. So why would a business want to return to the expense of rent, rates and utilities of office premises when their workforce is doing more and more switched on working from their respective homes? Not to mention the investment they’ve had to make to get homeworking to happen.

“Many businesses have tweaked their setup to allow temporary homeworking, which is an improvement at least in terms of business continuity, whilst others have taken the full leap to a cloud setup. Whichever way, there has always been an amount of investment.” Shaun Wilders, Managing Director, Cultrix

The process of adapting so that employees can work from home is not just one of investment and practice, it’s also an emotional one, to do with trust. The employers who were reluctant to allow homeworking because they thought their workforce would spend their time sunbathing and decorating instead of working, have had to drastically alter their mindset.

But research shows that employees who feel they are trusted are more committed to their job. Plus, if homeworking is preferred by employees, they are likely to be eager to show just how serious they are by working hard in a bid to get their bosses to let homeworking stick around more permanently. But the research is their already, that employees in the office find more reasons to avoid work than those at home.

Aside from the obvious savings in rent and utilities, and the increased revenue associated with more and better work being carried out, for more forward-thinking businesses there is also the sudden opening up of a labour market that is no longer geographically limited. Incoming talent from all four corners of the globe is accessible and possible.

It’s difficult to imagine why businesses would want to go back completely to office-based working in the face of so many advantages of an entirely flexible workforce. And it may be that some are using the time of lockdown as a means of testing future innovations in their working practices. But either way, the many innovations and investments that businesses have made during COVID-19 are unlikely to be undone and discounted overnight, and for some, working from home will actually be what they do now, forever.

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