Productivity in the UK has been a concern for many years. Fears that we are lagging behind our European cousins is nothing new. There are many complex factors in this debate, but the argument has raged particularly strongly around working from home in recent years. The WFH revolution in the wake of the Covid Pandemic looked as if it might help to encourage productivity. However, there is growing commentary to suggest it was all a mirage. The recent surge in companies curtailing flexible working and working from home policies appears to signal a return to something closer to the old normal. But will productivity be helped or hindered by this apparent change in direction?
The Pandemic heralded a seismic shift in the way we work. Suddenly a global health catastrophe made working from home a necessity. And we embraced it. According to recent figures UK employees now work from home for an average of 1.5 days a week, compared with an international average of 0.9 days. Initially, the ‘new normal’ of WFH was not just effective in our battle against the coronavirus, but also appeared to be the shot-in-the-arm that our flagging productivity figures needed. Now, some argue, the initial gains seem to have been lost. Certain companies are attempting to row back on their flexible arrangements and WFH policies. Zoom and Google have been cited as two major brands encouraging colleagues back into the workplace. Whilst earlier this year JP Morgan and Lloyds Banking Group were other big names exerting similar pressures.
So, will forcing people back towards the old normal really boost productivity? Spending more time with colleagues in a traditional working environment can certainly help encourage productivity. It can also improve morale, increase collaboration and the spread of ideas. One of the things I observed, especially among those starting out in their careers in a working from home world, was a sense of isolation. Being around fellow workers can certainly remove the danger of feeling cut off, or excluded, which can have a very real impact on mental health. But is forcing anyone back through the revolving door really the answer to the productivity conundrum?
There are obvious benefits to working from home. From a purely recruitment perspective, the ability to take advantage of such a benefit is a real attraction to certain prospective employees. It also helps blur geographical lines in attracting talent. Furthermore, working from home has helped remove barriers for some strata of society (disabled people for one).
Against this backdrop, the view that more hours spent in the workplace will halt a slide in productivity does seem a little clumsy. Greater productivity does not necessarily simply come from more time spent behind an office desk. It is far more nuanced than that. It comes from feeling more positive, valued, engaged and empowered. Far from being curtailed, if productivity is to be boosted, greater ability to work from home needs to be embraced fully as part of a real and true policy of flexibility.
Crucially, however, this must be accompanied by businesses and leaders who are capable of getting the best from their colleagues in this new, more fluid environment. It is uncertain whether companies have had the chance to spend sufficient time developing new management initiatives whilst supporting their leaders to adopt and hone them. A new way of working demands a revised approach to leadership and new tools and management styles. Far from going back in the direction of what has been before, we should be striving to develop these new strategies reevaluating our metrics around performance and productivity and reimagining how we go about achieving them.
Nobody is the same, after all. Some may absolutely perform best spending more time in a traditional workspace, whilst others may be at their most efficient with a more blended approach or by working from home 100% of the time. Arbitrary workplace quotas feel a little too ‘one-size-fits-all’. If we really want improved productivity, we need to encourage the creation of environments that enable us all to flourish. Perhaps we should be seizing the opportunity to go further still and challenge our own preconceptions on productivity and how we construct the working environment most conducive to nurturing it. Maybe then we can finally start creating a genuinely new productive normal.