Remote Future for Work

“We are not requiring people to work in the office” says Steve Huffman, Chief Executive of Reddit in a Times interview (17th April 2021). “Gonna be more like a coffee shop, come as you please situation, for at least the next year.”

“We are not going back,” Hiroki Hiramatsu, the head of global HR at Fujitsu told Lynda Gratton (Harvard Business Review May/June 2021) “The two hours many people spend commuting is wasted—we can use that time for education, training, time with our family. We need many ideas about how to make remote work effective. We are embarking on a work-life shift.”.

Half of UK workers have been working remotely during the past year. Under government plans for coming out of lockdown, the advice is still to work from home where possible at least until June 21. But when we can go back into the office again, how many of us will actually want to? A UK survey reveals that only 7% of employees want to go back to the office full time when the pandemic restrictions are lifted. Half of office workers may even look to change jobs if their employer does not allow them to continue working from home at least part of the time. (hrnews.co.uk 25/02/21)

It’s clear that the pandemic has caused a fundamental and perhaps permanent shift in both the way we work and where we work.

Working from home used to be something that was allowed grudgingly at best. There was often an issue with trust; how did we know that someone was really working if we couldn’t see them?

It turns out that remote working has resulted in many cases in an increase in both employee satisfaction and productivity.

 If your job involves answering emails, talking to customers, dealing with suppliers, writing reports, it largely doesn’t matter where you are as long as you have a laptop, phone and internet connection. And for work requiring deep concentration or focus, the open plan office can be a terrible place with constant chatter and interruptions.

On the other hand, remote working has been difficult for a lot of people – people who lack the space for a home office, or who share with others or have been trying to balance work with home schooling.

Overwhelmingly, people working remotely say they have missed connection with their company and their colleagues. This can be felt particularly by certain employees including those at the start of their career who benefit from more coaching and support from colleagues or managers and for people who have relocated for work and suddenly find themselves living in a new town where the only people they know are the work colleagues they don’t actually see any more.

So, what are some of the lessons of the last year and what can employers do to make remote working work better for their staff.

When everyone was the same building it’s easy to spot when something isn’t right; it’s more difficult when your team is working remotely. Employees appreciate regular calls from their manager to ask how they’re doing. It’s worth managers making an effort to do this as a specific conversation rather than a quick question at the end of another call about work. Working from home, despite all its advantages can be isolating and impact negatively on employees’ wellbeing. A personal call can make a massive difference in showing your team that you care.

A lot of teams have also lost connection with each other. Meetings still happen but a lot of the random, daily get togethers we used to have may have fallen away. Many ideas have their origin in chance encounters – not just by the hypothetical water cooler, but in corridors, walking to the car park at the end of the day, waiting for the kettle to boil, arriving a bit early for meetings.

We know that, for all the benefits of zoom, it is never going to replace meeting with our colleagues in real life; having a chat, a laugh or helping each other out. But if we are working remotely, it’s worth looking at ways of using the technology to try to replicate informal interactions. You could open up the zoom meeting early so that people have a chance to chat beforehand or use technology to create virtual spaces where people can meet for coffee breaks and lunch. Or you could schedule regular meetings with no agenda where the purpose is to reconnect and exchange thoughts and ideas.

It seems that many of us will be working remotely at least for part of our time as we head towards ‘hybrid’ working. Giving some thought as to how to improve this for your employees could make a big difference to well-being, motivation and retention.

Richard Sanders

Richard is a coach and consultant with a particular interest in employee engagement. He can be found on LinkedIn or at

www.sanderssolutions.co.uk