How to manage staff that don’t want to return to the office

The past two years have accelerated the remote working revolution, with 86% of people working from home during the pandemic. However, with everyday life now returning to normal, many companies are keen to get their teams back into the office.

But what happens when a member of staff wants to continue working remotely? How can you integrate their movements with office-based employees, so everyone can communicate clearly when they’re in two separate locations?

For many companies, people management technology has been essential to enabling a hybrid working environment that suits all their team members.

Employees have mixed feelings about returning to the office

The end of legal restrictions on work travel and social distancing have been met with mixed reactions from professionals. 9 in 10 US workers have embraced the return to commuting, while 1 in 4 UK workers want to be back in the office full-time. However, a significant proportion don’t want to return to a shared working environment five days a week.

Research carried out by the University of Southampton has found that the proportion of UK employees working from home has increased from 25% to 40% since before March 2020. Meanwhile the number of fully remote jobs has increased from 3% to 16%.

Many professionals now feel more confident about asking to work remotely, as they proved their job could be done from home during the pandemic. However, employers may not yet have the infrastructure in place to support people remotely longer-term.

Are staff legally entitled to work from home?

It’s been a confusing time for business owners, as workers’ rights frequently changed during the pandemic. For example, having been told that everyone should work from home where possible in March 2020, companies are now being proactively encouraged to get people back into the office.

There are many benefits to being office-based, from face-to-face communication to finding it easier to focus without domestic distractions. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, even admitted he struggles to concentrate while working remotely.

However, some people find they’re more productive in their home environment. And these employees are entitled to ask for a remote set-up.

Under the flexible working agreement, staff that have been with a company for at least 26 weeks can request to adapt their working patterns and locations to suit their needs. But unless it’s written into their contract, companies are not legally entitled to accept their request. Ultimately, it’s at the individual firm’s discretion.

Many businesses are keen to accommodate remote working requests, as it’s simpler and more cost-effective to retain current employees in a flexible format than recruit new office-based staff. However, others believe that people work better in the same space – and worry about the wider impact of saying yes to one member of staff working from home.

In addition to differing cultural standpoints, a significant proportion of companies want to say yes to remote or hybrid working, but lack the systems to coordinate their teams across multiple sites. This is where office management software can make a valuable difference.

How can people management software support remote working?

Strong communications and transparent processes are important in every business, but they become critical when team members are working remotely.

People management systems like WhosOffice increase collaborative capabilities because they enable companies to record where someone is located on any given day. This way, their teammates know when they’re on annual leave versus when they’re at a meeting or working from home.

Investing in an online work roster that every team member can access remotely brings new clarity to workforce coordination – particularly within companies where staff work shifts or flexible hours. Employees can easily check someone’s status before contacting them or booking in a meeting, to support proactive, productive business operations while respecting people’s work/life balance.

Centralising staff management also makes it easier to decide whether flexible working requests can be approved. For example, companies may require a minimum number of people the office at all times to cover jobs that can only be completed in-person. Choosing a system with integrated task planning and management tools (like WhosOffice) enables team leaders to assign those tasks to people working from the office – if the quota is filled, other team members can work remotely.

Hybrid working: the future of employment

It’s unlikely we’ll return to the levels of home working seen during the pandemic, but there’s certainly been a shift in both employee expectations and companies’ views on remote working.

As we outlined in our recent guide: 7 steps to making flexible working simpler, many firms recognise the benefit of a hybrid approach – they just lack the infrastructure to make it work.

Investing in an online people management platform like WhosOffice enables companies to capture data on when and where employees are working, to create digital rosters that the whole workforce can access. Using this information, business owners and team leaders can give employees the location set-up that works best for them, without compromising on overall performance.

Make flexible working easier for your business to manage: start your free WhosOffice trial now.