Has work changed forever?

The Covid-19 pandemic understandably changed how we work significantly, with social distancing, home-working, furlough and redundancy all having an impact. Major corporations such as Microsoft have announced new levels of flexibility for their staff, and the ‘platformisation’ of work seems to be spreading to new sectors. But are these changes temporary, or has work changed forever? I’ll explore the issues in this short series of posts. 

First, I’m looking at remote and home-working: is it as big a shift in our working lives as it appears? 

The answer depends a lot on what job you do 

Despite endless articles about home-working (yes I’m aware I’m adding to the pile), just over a third of working people in the UK worked from home during 2020. Yes that was up about 10% from 2019, but it’s far from a universal experience. Home-workers tend to be better paid, but also likely to do more overtime, and to work outside their normal hours. 

Existing gaps in job quality between higher and lower paid work seem to be opening up further, including along remote and non-remote working lines. In the US, those who can work remotely have enjoyed an improvement in their job quality; those who can’t have seen a deterioration. How many people will continue to work remotely when UK government guidance changes remains to be seen, but the ability to do so looks set to mainly belong to those in better paid jobs. 

We need to be cautious about painting home/ remote working as an uncomplicated perk

The benefits of home-working for primary caregivers (normally women) are mixed at best, with plenty of evidence that women have taken on more than their share of tasks like childcare and home-schooling during the pandemic. The knock-on effects of this on women’s careers may take years to undo, with a dubious end goal of just getting back to the already unequal state of gender pay gaps and the like. 

Not seeing colleagues face-to-face might be a bonus in some cases, but many people enjoy the social side of going into work, and the chance meetings, discussions and ideas that spark in person are tough to recreate online. Home-working might feel like an escape from your boss hovering over your desk, but for many it has actually increased the level of surveillance they are under, just performed through different means. Software to track employees’ online activity is being used by as many as one in five UK employers. It can take screenshots, track keystrokes and even have your webcam on constantly, as well as arrive at an overall ‘productivity’ score, as a controversial bit of Microsoft kit (now pared back) demonstrated last year. Employees tend not to be consulted properly when these technologies are introduced, and their legal and ethical justification is sketchy at best. 

do we need a right to switch off?

Finally, the increase in home-working has, for some, meant they feel under increased pressure to be constantly available, working longer hours and responding to emails out of working hours. Without a commute eating up several hours a day, there is certainly the opportunity to use those hours to do more work, and in some cases an expectation. The idea of a ‘right to disconnect’, in which workers would be protected from the obligation or expectation that they work outside their normal working hours, is once again a hot topic in the UK, while Ireland is looking to follow in France’s footsteps with their own, Covid-appropriate rules. Designing guidance or legislation that protects workers while also allowing for the benefits of flexibility which some people have only just begun to enjoy is not straightforward of course, so we should watch Ireland’s progress with interest. 

In the next post I’ll look at how the pandemic has accelerated some trends at work, and whether they they are now irreversible.

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(c) Anna Dent 2021. I provide research, writing, expert opinion and project development in Good Work and the Future of Work / In-Work Poverty and Progression / Welfare benefits / Ethical technology / Skills / Inclusive growth