The labour of workers has changed incredibly over the past 100 years, especially in Britain, where workers have switched from the majority of agricultural and industrial to the tertiary sectors. Providing services is a major part of the British economy, but now more than ever, we see just how many of those services can be done online. The Government is trying to get many people back into the office, but many companies are not as enthusiastic at sending their employees back into work. What will the future of labour in Britain look like?
Regulations in the Short Term
Immediate regulations that the Government has instated aren’t particularly encouraging in the short term. You need to keep lifts half empty and use two-metre distancing tape everywhere. The tape won’t cause too many problems apart from in old buildings with narrow walkways, but keeping lifts half empty will cause huge bottlenecks in tall buildings. When combined with distancing, this might equate to long queues forming in the lobby and even out of the office. Working hours also have to be staggered, which might be bad for worker mental health as the working days will feel longer. Hot desking, a popular activity in creative and tech companies will now not be allowed, stunting the atmosphere of collaboration that many feel stimulates creative growth. With all these regulations, it wouldn’t surprise many commentators if workers continue to work from home until restrictions are eased.
The Cheaper Reality of Digital Work
Digital work, or working from home, is how many Britons have been working over the past few months, and it has demonstrated that it is a model that can work relatively well. The Chief Executive of Barclays, Jes Staley, has said that “the notion of putting 7,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past”, which highlights the changing attitudes of big corporations. On the surface, this makes sense, why would a company pay for real estate when they don’t need to? Even if they bought every employee a computer and paid for their internet, the price of renting an office would far exceed the cost of working from home. Twitter has said that it’s going to allow employees to work from home forever and Facebook is planning a similar scheme, where 50% of its workers will work from home permanently. With the advent of technology like a remote hosted desktop, working from home is easy and efficient, especially as 60% of polled workers say they are more productive when working from home according to Change Research.
Contract Stipulations
There is one problem facing companies – many rental contracts have been made for decades at a time, especially those renting high-rise offices. Having employees work from home would feel like a waste of cash, though this might be a case of sunk cost fallacy. If it is cheaper to have employees work from home than pay for the utilities and running costs involved in staffing a real office, it might still be cheaper to go to the work from home route.
Productivity and Morale
Techies are notoriously okay with limited social contact, but this stereotype might not stand up in the real world. As people get less excited by the benefits of working from home (like waking up later and being able to work in your underwear), the negatives will start to sink in. Humans are social creatures and working from home cuts out the socializing opportunities that the office provides. Long term home working will reduce worker cohesion, potentially impacting how well employees coordinate and more. Loneliness is also bad for health, releasing stress hormones that can increase the chance of employee burnout. A quarter of office workers have found that their mental health has become worse when they have had to work from home.
There is also the risk of morale being worn down by increasingly apparent inequality. When you are video calling your colleagues, you will no doubt notice that some will have their own offices and desks, while others work on messy kitchen tables with terrible WiFi. This can create resentment and friction among workers, and not everybody can work from home, to begin with.
Cost-Benefit Ratio
As working from home comes with both costs and benefits, a cost-benefit analysis probably needs to be studied before the future of digital work in Britain becomes clear. Would the long-term efficiency, productivity and reduced burnout benefits of working in an office outweigh the rental costs? This seems unlikely, especially for non-creative industries. The future of British labour might then be one that needs to formulate special enhancements to employee wellbeing, applied from a distance.