During the pandemic period, employees have been working from home and/or their normal work premises. Where they were working a combination of both, it is referred to as Hybrid Working. During the COVID pandemic, substantial numbers of employees were working from home. As the lockdown restriction begin to ease, and more employees return to work, employers may begin to think whether hybrid working could be introduced. Employers may have realised that such working arrangements provided a good work and life balance. This in turn may create a happier workforce, leading to performance and sickness absence improvements. Empirical evidence has shown that a happy workforce is a productive workforce. The pandemic has given people experience of working in different ways.
Factors to Consider
- Where, when, and how the work should be done. Depending on employer’s business needs, employers may need site-based roles, or a combination of home working and site work. Others may prefer to work from home full time.
- Think about whether work could be done remotely or if it needs to be done on site. Can technology be used? How can teams communicate/cooperate? Are there any health and safety concerns?
- Think about how important it is for work to be done at a specific time. Are there core times that require employees to work together? How often should teams meet face to face? Are clients/stakeholders scheduled for a site meeting?
- How work could be done. Think about data protection, privacy, and cybersecurity. How to introduce new employees into the organisation. The need to carry out risk assessments. How will management/staff communicate with each other? Do employees remain concerned about their personal space and social distancing at work? How to check whether employees have the right equipment for the job and that workstation assessments are carried out?
- Think about the health, safety, and welfare of staff at home. How will punctuality, attendance and performance be monitored and measured? Is it necessary to provide training to those who have no experience of working from home?
- Meet and consult employees. Explain your business needs, discuss employees needs. Consider their home working environment, consider reasonable adjustments, consider the employees family and child caring responsibilities.
- Do not make general assumptions. An employer may reasonably assume that a wheelchair user would be happy to work from home. But, the isolation, lack of support and camaraderie may be off-putting.
Hybrid working
When an employer receives a request for hybrid working, they should give it serious and genuine consideration. Treat such requests as you would under the Flexible Working Regulations. Make sure you understand the reasons for such a request. It may well be due to a medical condition/disability or a family/domestic reason.
Once these consultations and discussions have taken place, consider how hybrid working could work and how your business and operation needs can be met. Thereafter, you can decide. You can introduce a trial period and should be subject to review on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. This will enable employers to see how its working, whether changes are necessary and whether there is flexibility than originally expected. If you decide to introduce hybrid working, this will impact on staff contracts of employment and will need to be incorporated into their contracts. Written addendums, outlining the changes will suffice. When the new system starts, you should inform your staff how you intend to assess the new system and what might happen at the end of the trial period.
This article is a summary of the ACAS guide. Employers are reminded that they should seek professional advice and refer to the ACAS website for more information (www.acas.org.uk). Alternatively, call us on 01455 852028.
