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The CIPD has just issued a report on “Embedding new ways of working – implications for the Post-Pandemic Workplace”.  Here’s what is says about working from home and productivity. “Looking ahead, it is possible that changes in practice will strengthen the potential link between working from home and higher worker productivity post-crisis. Many employers will have learned a great deal about how to effectively manage people working from home and identified the main problems that need to be addressed during…

It’s clear that city centre businesses are suffering from a lack of office workers buying their coffee, eating their sandwiches and using their other services. So the way the government in the UK wants to fix this problem is to insist that civil servants travel into their offices and then hope that they spend money whilst they are there. If there was ever a case of “the tail wagging the dog”, this is it. The world of work has changed…

The UK Government have now issued instructions to the Civil Service to start forcing employees to come into the office against their will. They are expecting 80% of staff to attend their old workplace at least once a week on a rota basis. This makes no sense from a work effectiveness point of view. The only benefits will be a possible increase in trade for the cafes and sandwich bars that rely on passing traffic. There is ample evidence that…

I’m getting very frustrated at hearing politicians and others encouraging people to “go back to work”. What do they think people have been doing at home for the last six months? They’ve been WORKING. In many cases they’ve been working so successfully that they can’t see a good reason for returning to the old way of working, involving stressful, time consuming, commuting and unnecessary exposure to a potentially deadly virus. There are many surveys showing that people who have been…

Every day there is a new announcement from a major employer about the way they are treating the “return to work” phase of the Coronavirus Crisis. The vast majority are taking a very different attitude to remote working than they did before the pandemic made them rethink. Some sectors have managed to survive well during the lockdown because they are essentially “knowledge industries” and exchanging products and services over the Internet was a natural progression anyway. They have now discovered…

From the Prime Minister downwards there are many influential voices asking “When will we get back to normal work patterns”.  The simple answer is “Never”. The question is based on the assumption that we can just turn the clock back and return to the way we worked before the Coronavirus crisis occurred. But that would mean ignoring all the lessons we have learned over the last five months. It seems that the main motivation in getting people to return to…

After two months of lockdown we are entering an even more challenging time for managers. When everyone had to work at home if at all possible and there was no choice, we all pulled together. It was an emergency and people were prepared to adapt and cope as best as they could. Now some people are able to come back to the workplace whilst others have good reasons to stay away. As more businesses open up, some children get back to school…

If you were not already employing people working from home you will have had to send your staff into lockdown with whatever you had available. Fortunately many desktop computers had been replaced by laptops already and smartphones are now commonplace, so you have probably sorted out the hardware and software. The bigger question is not WHAT you are using but HOW it’s being used. We are used to using email as a way of sharing factual information even when working…

With everyone working from home and showing they can be trusted to get on with their work, it’s easy to forget to involve people in what else is going on. Back in the old days, when you were working alongside members of your team, you could casually ask their opinion on things. You might be having a coffee break and chatting about what’s on your mind or raise something in a team meeting to seek some additional views. You probably…

Despite the worst fears of managers, evidence is now growing that productivity hasn’t slumped because of the lockdown. In fact in many cases it has increased. People have saved time by not commuting, they waste less time in meetings and they can choose to work when they feel most productive. A survey of about 1,000 employers across theUK and Europe, carried out by Willis Towers Watson, found that only 15% of companies reported a moderate or large loss of productivity.…