The pandemic has left a lasting imprint on the way in which lots of businesses now operate, with many continuing to allow their pre-pandemic office workers to work fully or partly from home. Having been forced to continue business as best as possible under public health restrictions, many employers learned first-hand that continued functionality within a remote working model was, in fact, possible. In some cases, businesses gained, seeing an increased rate of progress and innovation.
Employers, however, have also encountered the need to adapt to a variety of new trends, challenges and risks, as well as new legislation and other implications relevant to the working from home and hybrid phenomena.
The Right to Request Home Working Bill gives statutory entitlement to employees to submit a written request for remote working (once they have been employed for a minimum of 26 continuous weeks), and a timeline for an employer to respond with the justification of their decision set out under specific grounds. Employees can exercise the right to appeal the decision, and following that, may raise a formal complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission.
While most employees report overall contentment with working remotely and hybrid working arrangements, employers are faced with a whole new array of key issues that nobody could have predicted in a pre-COVID landscape.
Communication and Connection
Employees who were once united under the same roof for up to 8-9 hours per day, exchanging verbal and non-verbal cues continuously and often having lunch or commuting together, are now apart, working randomly under their own rooves, loitering potentially in their own empty kitchens and exchanging nothing but zoom links and emails. Many employers have had to push towards developing a method of compensation for the loss of in-person communication and information sharing from what feels like a bygone age. For some, this has meant having more regular video conference meetings with a newly developed ‘video on’ policy. Also, for many, there is a new expectation that personal responsibility for strong WIFI connectivity is maintained and that employees are suitably tech savvy with features such as PowerPoint, appropriate virtual backgrounds, muting and screen sharing. Tolerance for the muted-yet-talking host, profile pictures of dogs wearing sunglasses, and backgrounds revealing clothes horses and drinks cabinets, has long waned.
There have been rising concerns for employers around staff morale and mental wellbeing arising from the separation of employees from the central working location and the subsequent loss of in-person communication. Employees’ dependency on their work colleagues and friends to motivate them, guide and inspire them varies; not every employee has been fully able to embrace being home alone working in their slippers and lunching in an empty kitchen five days per week. This, in turn, has for some businesses given rise to higher rates of work-related stress leave, productivity and performance issues, or, to put it directly, lonely, unmotivated employees.
Many companies who facilitate working from home have and continue to invest heavily in compensating for the disconnection of their now remote teams, as they recognise the benefits of a close-knit team and positive working relationships. Examples are introducing the provision of ‘wellbeing days’, a discretionary addition to statutory leave, for the sole purpose of devoting time to employee mental wellbeing. While this may not be a feasible or affordable option for many businesses, some no longer have the same office costs and therefore have shifted their focus. Many businesses have invested in training devoted to the management and supervision of remote working teams, and to developing detailed mandatory remote working policies.
Work Performance
Now that remote and hybrid working is a long-term reality, employers have had to find ways of effectively managing work performance from a distance. Under-performance and disengagement may be difficult to prove when you cannot see it, leading employers having no alternative but to resort to trust alone, perhaps the random “check-up” by way of an unscheduled video call, or firmer and more regular lines of reporting on targets and progress. The necessity for clear, regular communication may never have held as much importance for employers.
On the flip side, remote working has also raised issues of employee burn out due to the inability to switch off from their work given its location and accessibility inside their homes. While the Code of Practice sets out the Right to Disconnect, some employees will struggle to exercise that right. Working through lunch and beyond office closing hours is a common trend that comes with its own risks. The pace and volume of work may have increased due to the ease of online connection, feeding into an “always on” culture. Where two in-person meetings may have occupied a morning schedule, the loss of the commute and physical requirements means four or five back-to-back zoom meetings may now occupy the same window of time. The “anywhere-anytime” culture of instant connection has blurred some boundaries that may have contributed not only to employee burn out, but overall job satisfaction and mental wellbeing. In certain cases, expectations have naturally arisen from how easy it is to schedule, invite and ‘hop on’ a quick zoom. Continuous, intense, virtual daily connections from the same corner of your own home can leave employees exhausted and with larger, poorly managed workloads as a result.
The Risk and Reason Behind Hybrid Arrangements
Many employers who invested in an office or base location clearly recognise the waste of space as a result of the remote working phenomena. For some, there may be the fear of having an office-less business. Hybrid arrangements have seen employers setting specific days where employees are expected in the office, not only to make use of the base location itself, but to fulfil the necessity for in-person connections too. The risk employers face with implementing hybrid arrangements is that employees whose preference is to work from the comfort of their own homes will seek an alternative employer who facilitates remote working on a full-time basis.
Safety
Employers are now having to expand their mandatory obligations towards employee safety to include multiple work stations of all shapes and sizes inside houses and apartments. As a result, many businesses now have audits of the work station carried out, and/or an ergonomic assessments and consultations regarding the functionality and safety of the work station. Many of these consultations result in recommendations for additional equipment to be provided to the employee and many employers fund those costs, although there is no legal obligation to do so.
Safety concerns for employers also include the security of sensitive personal data and confidentiality within their employees’ own homes. GDRP implications are a serious headache for employers so the necessity to put measures in place to minimise the risk of a potential breach includes often includes encryption on devices, multiple authentication systems and a higher dependency on IT and technology support.
Some may describe the working from home and hybrid phenomena as an ‘employee win’ as many employers have experienced a sense of loss in the unexpected lasting invisibility of their teams and offices. Some may also struggle with the feeling of a loss of control, particularly around supervision and performance management.
The Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022, as well as the new Code of Practice published by the WRC, looks promising to contain necessary further detail and guidance to employers around effectively managing the phenomena and maintaining compliance.