The virus has made staff, now and in the future, to expect flexible working to be offered. But businesses will need to offer staff continued support for this to work long term.

Recent research conducted by 02, ICM and YouGov, revealed that employees are reluctant to give up working remotely after lockdown. Many are hoping that their employers will now view working from home as a new approach to working as a result of the crisis.

Despite many employers being forced to let staff work from home due to lockdown a separate survey from Willis Towners Watson, found staff remained productive while remotely working, despite some initial challenges.

Without added distractions from a normal office environment, it seems people who previously worked in offices have embraced ‘getting on with the job’. This has, in turn, educated some businesses as to how widespread remote working has the potential to work on a permanent basis.

But going forward, HR will be critical in managing the flexibility of your workforce. HR will be central to engaging with the workforce, from ensuring the right equipment provided in order to work remotely, new systems and processes put in place to support for their mental health and well-being albeit from their home.

As the virus has sped up businesses needing to offer flexible working, so will it speed up HR policy changes. This could cover everything from how an employee logs sick days to re-writing the company handbook to reflect this new way of working.  There also needs some consideration around how employees use company property, IT security and data, and logging of working hours.

At this time businesses need to think carefully and long-term of how they can start to offer flexible working and the processes that they need to put in place, for their business to adapt to what is going to be expected from staff now and in the future.

Pride in People