Steve Herbert explores the growing pressure on organisations to end home working, and the very real risks HR faces in enforcing return-to-office mandates.
More than three years have passed since the last of the Covid restrictions in the UK were lifted, and for most businesses the pandemic now feels like a distant, if rather disturbing, memory.
Yet one people-issue from the pandemic persists for many employers and their HR professionals. That issue is whether working from home (WFH) should continue, and if not, how HR teams can implement return to office (RTO) mandates without damaging workforce relations and productivity?
Last decade
Before looking ahead, we should perhaps look back and see how rapidly things changed.
In 2019 it was estimated that 95 percent of the UK workforce were fully based on-site. Interestingly it was already recognised that this was not necessarily the best environment for all workers. Indeed, many HR events focussed on the use of home working to improve candidate appeal, staff retention, employee engagement, diversity, inclusion, and worker output too.
The 2020s
And then Covid happened. Overnight the nation moved from on-site to home working. The only exceptions were key workers and those on furlough.
The last of the Covid restrictions was lifted in 2022, yet today more than one in four of the UK workforce still work from home for at least some of the working week. This rapid change to UK working practices is now facing a significant challenge.
RTO pressures
In January Lord Rose (the former boss of both Asda and Marks & Spencer) accused those working at home of “not doing proper work”. This deeply unfair statement is difficult to justify, and probably not a view he would have advanced in the middle of the pandemic when reliance on home workers was critical.
And in May Nigel Farage’s “Reform” party swept to power in no less than ten county council elections. His victory speech included this quote clearly aimed at local government employees in Reform-led councils: “Anyone who thinks they can go on working from home… better be seeking alternative careers very, very quickly.”
Rhetoric versus reality
Yet the above rhetoric is not aligned with the reality being experienced in most UK workplaces.
The King’s Business School “Return-to-office mandates” report states that: “There’s been a slow increase in average permitted WFH days, from less than 1 day per week in 2022 to about 1.3 days in 2024.”
Their research also highlights the challenges of implementing RTO mandates. For instance, the number of employees willing to comply with an enforced return to office mandate are decreasing, from 54 percent in 2022 to just 42 percent in 2025. Of the remainder, 9 percent said they would quit their job immediately, whilst the other 49 percent would comply but begin looking for another position.
Interestingly, and concerningly, there are also demographic differences to consider in these statistics. Women are more likely than men to seek a new job, parents of younger children more likely still, and younger workers more likely than older workers to resist such a mandate.
The reality is that employees like, value, and in some cases need home working. And many have demonstrated that they can work just as productively at home as they do in the office.
HR pinch-points
It follows that HR will experience at least some resistance if tasked with implementing RTO mandates. And enforced returns also have the potential to negatively impact so many other key HR metrics including:
- Recruitment & retention
- Engagement & productivity
- Diversity & inclusion
- Workforce wellbeing (mental, physical, and financial wellbeing)
Lastly HR should be conscious of the dangers of workforce-wide mandates without considering individual circumstances. For some employees home working has now become a reasonable and necessary adjustment. Overlooking that reality can be a costly mistake, as the Employment Tribunal’s recent £29,000 award against the Ministry of Justice for ignoring an occupational health recommendation for home working clearly demonstrates.
Penalty or reward?
Despite all the above concerns it is inevitable that at least some HR experts will soon be expected to deliver a viable return to work plan. So how to incentivise employee compliance with that edict?
One approach taken by large organisations in the USA was to threaten a pay reduction for those still working at home. This approach virtually guarantees disharmony, disengagement, higher staff turnover, and lower productivity.
Another tactic might be to offer increased pay to those following RTO mandates to compensate for the extra financial loss and additional time spent commuting. Yet this would represent a significant increase to the cost of employment and might be difficult to deliver on an equitable basis.
A more palatable option might be to continue some limited hybrid working now, with a potential carrot of further embracing homeworking and/or more flexible working at a future date. Yet even hybrid working comes with some baggage, not least how you facilitate a decent working environment when all the returning employees attend the workplace at the same time.
Home working to persist?
All options bring their HR challenges, and maintaining the status-quo by continuing some home working might remain the most pragmatic position.
Our survey at the July Benefits Unboxed: Live! webinar is also instructive in this context. More than half of the HR leaders questioned expected that there would be the same level or more home working by the end of this decade. Not only that, but just 1 in 20 of the employers represented currently required all employees to be on-site 5 days a week. The truth is that in 2025 home working has actually become the norm and not the exception for millions of workers.
My final thought is this. Home working was considered the Holy Grail of flexible working just 6 short years ago. Circumstances have since proven that it can and does work. It follows that you should think carefully before your organisation turns the clock back and potentially worsens workforce relations.
