No full-time return to the office for over a million British workers
Almost all of 50 of the UK’s biggest employers have said they do not plan to bring staff back to the office full-time.
Some 43 of the firms told the BBC that they would embrace a mix of home and office working, with staff encouraged to come into work for two to three days a week.
Meanwhile, four firms said they were keeping the idea of hybrid working under review.
The BBC questioned 50 big employers, ranging from banks to retailers, which covered around 1.1 million workers in the UK.
Employees are currently being advised to work from home, but that is likely to change next month when the government hopes to end all social distancing rules.
Lack of data risks ‘knee-jerk’ decisions
Rupert Morrison, CEO of analytics firm orgvue, has questioned how the companies have come to their decisions.
He pointed out that a lot of workplace learning “has been achieved through osmosis” and stressed that leaders must work out how to reproduce the same effect when people aren’t in the same physical space.
“We’re seeing a lot of leaders get off the fence and broadcast their plans for where and how their teams will work going forward. What is missing is recognition that these decisions must be grounded in data.
“Leaders need to gather information on how work takes place within their organisation, such as who interacts with whom and what competencies people need to do different jobs well.
“Not having this type of data risks making knee-jerk and short-sighted decisions made on gut instinct alone.”