Returning to the workplace - hybrid working

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good afternoon and good afternoon everyone my name is lee panglia and i'm delighted to be hosting today's
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session on hybrid working which is part of our returning to the workplace series and
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my role within cipd is to head up the team in scotland and northern ireland but please don't worry the session today is applicable to
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everyone and wherever you are joining us from and so don't think you joined the wrong
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session i'm delighted so many of you have joined us today which is testament to the fact that the
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topic of hybrid working is something that many of us are trying to get our head round
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as we plan for a safe return to the physical workplace in some form or another um so today
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we are going to explore how to prepare for that longer term move to inclusive hybrid working and
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to leverage the lessons that we've learned throughout the pandemic and to best meet this new employee
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demand to learn from what others are doing and to get a little bit of advice um on how
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to make the best decisions for your organization and for your workforce and i'm joined today by a panel of three
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speakers each who can bring a different perspective to the discussion so i'm joined today by my colleague
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claire mccartney claire is a senior policy advisor at the cipd and claire specializes in the areas of
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inclusion and diversity resourcing talent management and flexible working
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i'm also joined by jem dale jem is a lecturer at liverpool john moore's
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university and jem is experienced in leading and transforming hr functions
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developing people strategies and will bring some practical insight to the discussion and as well as being a chartered fellow
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of the cipd you may be aware of some of the books that gem has authored including most recently on
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flexible working and then finally matt rames cole is a legal manager with kroner
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and matt leads a team who advises clients across all different industry sectors and sizes of organizations
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on every aspect or of employment law so thank you to our speakers for joining us
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today before we go any further there are some little practical housekeeping tips um or
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rules that i need to give you and the session has been recorded and will be available on demand via the
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webinar section of the cipd website and where you can access not only this
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recording but also all previous previous webinar recordings and to sign up for future ones and just
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a wee bit of information our next session is on monday so the 22nd
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and that's also part of our returning to the workplace series and this time the title of the session
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is mitigate the divide so that is looking at as the workforce
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slowly starts to come back together and what you need to do as an employer as an organization to
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manage expectations and to rebuild trust and working relationships across your workforce
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um you are all muted as attendees to submit any questions to
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the panel please use the q a chat the sorry the q a box
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not the chat box and you can use the chat box to network with each other but if you're wanting to pose questions
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use the q a function and before we go on um
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to hear from our speakers i'd just like to draw your attention to some of our web member benefits
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and in particular some of the additional resources you may already be aware of that can
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support you in your role but maybe some ones that you're not um aware of as we continue to navigate
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these unusual times we're always updating the faq section and resources on our website and so go
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to i'd really advise you to go to the cipd coronavirus hub regularly to check on these resources
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which are open to all cipd members and i'd also like to draw your attention
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to the fact that all cipd members can get individual legal advice
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and via our hr inform helpline which is available 24 7.
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um you'll see from the the rest of the slides some of the other member benefits that we offer and then
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finally moving on to um the next slide all mem all cipd
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members in the uk and ireland can also access our new well-being hub and helpline
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and together with award-winning workplace well-being provider health assured
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we now provide cipd members with free help and support 24 7 365 days a year
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by a telephone or online consultations with qualified therapists
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members can access the phone number and the online services via the membership benefits webpage you'll see
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more details about this at the end of this session it provides unlimited free 24 7
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confidential telephone helpline online portal and a health ehub app
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okay so now let's go on now to the content of the discussion today claire will be our
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first speaker and she'll share some evidence and insight from cipd's work in this area
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followed by jem who will discuss how to introduce hybrid working into the
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workplace and give some practical insight and advice and then finally last but not
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least matt will cover some of the legal implications we will then open up for questions for
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the remainder of the session so if i can encourage you to send all your questions and to post all your
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questions into the q a section and we'll aim to get through as many of them as possible
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we may not be able to focus too much on individual cases but we will look to try and connect some
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of the questions into themes and so that's it for me now and i'm going to hand over to claire
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and who will get us started thank you claire brilliant um thanks so much lee uh great to be with you this afternoon
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so as lee said in my overview i'm going to draw upon some cipd survey findings to look at current and future employer
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plans when it comes to hybrid working and wider flexible working i'm also going to share
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some lessons learned from the pandemic research which was undertaken for us by dr
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charlotte gascoigne and we launched it just a couple of weeks ago and it draws upon interviews um with
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managers and case study organizations all experimenting to some degree with
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remote um hybrid working and flexible working um during this time i think the one
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thing that i think is really important to flag from the outset and i know um our other speakers will probably be
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saying this as well is that it's really early days when it comes to hybrid working and plans um no one has all the answers
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and there's certainly not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach but hopefully some of the strategies
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that we are going to be sharing with you today will be helpful in your stimulating your own thinking
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and your own planning in this area so if we move on to the first slide our survey findings show
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a really growing focus on hybrid working by employers with two-thirds of employers surveyed
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reporting that they they're planning to introduce or expand the use of hybrid working um to some extent within the next six to
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twelve months and i think this really um highlights the need for organizations to think
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quite carefully about how they can take a strategic approach to hybrid working and
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really try to harness its benefits if we move on to the next slide um just to think about some of the
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things to be considering when we are thinking about hybrid planning
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so the first point really if you haven't done so already i'm sure many of you will have done really useful
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to undertake a listening exercise with your workforce this will really help you to understand
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the specific working preferences of your people and for the future as well as learn a bit more about their
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experiences working during this pandemic line managers are going to be pivotal in
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creating a supportive culture when it comes to hybrid so really important to engage your line
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managers throughout the organization and also think about providing them with training to help them manage remote and hybrid
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teams as well i think you're going to have to plan to respond to the implications of hybrid working on a
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number of different areas like um technology employee well-being facilities and we've
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got a really good um hybrid planning guide on the cipd website which hopefully will help you
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think about all of those different areas so i'd really encourage you to take a look at that as well i think it's likely um that you're going
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to have to trial different ways of working and and to some extent learn as you go working with your managers working with
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your employees asking for feedback and providing the opportunity to ask questions and raise
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concerns and also if you're looking at hybrid working it's it's a really good opportunity i think
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to look at wider flexible working policies and procedures in your organization just making sure
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you know that they're fit for purpose and looking at flexibility when it comes to hours as well as flexibility in location
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and then the final point there is around putting inclusion and fairness at the heart of your strategy it's going to be so important
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to ensure ongoing access to development and career conversations for all your employee
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employees and the other point is also making sure that there's a fair allocation of of work and opportunities so those are
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just a few points really on some of the kind of thoughts behind initial hybrid planning
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so if we move on to the next slide um i'm going to talk about the research that i mentioned
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conducted by dr charlotte gascoigne into hybrid working and lessons from the pandemic and
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some of the case studies included in this might be um useful for you to take a look at again as i said no one-size-fits-all but for kind of
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stimulating ideas uh organizations included fujitsu compass group hong kong
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scance uk so um kind of cross-sector organizations grappling with um hybrid and flexible
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working so seven uh strategies um came through from this research
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around trying to support uh successful hybrid working so i'm gonna quite quickly at pace go
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through those um seven strategies for you um this afternoon
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so the first two i think you can see are probably very much linked to well-being so developing the skills and
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culture needed for open conversations about well-being and many managers that were interviewed
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for the research reported they found it much harder to pick up on how staff were feeling when working remotely
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so things that organizations are doing here upskilling their managers to discuss well-being confidently
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creating an organizational focus on well-being creating time within team meetings and space to talk about this and then
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also encouraging team members to help their colleagues by talking about the strategies that they use to
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keep wow so the second element of wellbeing is really trying to encourage people to
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set boundaries and routines and to make sure that they aren't over working particularly when they're
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working remotely and many interviews felt like that kind of loss of
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boundaries in time but also in place could lead to working longer hours i'm sure um you know many of us feel that too
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you've been working remotely and also that difficulty sometimes in taking um taking breaks that you need so
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some of the things again um organizations were doing around this were collectively encouraging teams to
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establish boundaries and routines and kind of monitoring those across the team
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and taking breaks between video calls well this sounds really obvious doesn't it but actually you know so important to think about the
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scheduling of those video calls perhaps finishing 10 minutes to the hour or um
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before the half hour so people actually can take breaks um blocking out times at lunch breaks as well so that you know
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meetings perhaps of limit so that people can go out and take a break have their lunch get some exercise and
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then also thinking about noticing signs of overwork so if you notice someone regularly starting early
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or working late checking out what's going on for them being aware of how someone's using their
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former commute time also so you can you know be sure that they're not over working
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the third area that came through from the research was around ensuring um focusing on the coordination
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of tasks and task related communication so a number of interviewees recorded having to
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change the way that they coordinated their work um when it was performed remotely
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um and so around this some you know simple things like setting really clear objectives developing more deliberate task related
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communication and establishing team rules about the use of different communication methods for different
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types of tasks the fourth area coming through was around paying special attention to
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creativity and problem solving tasks and you know as we might expect interviews
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we're finding this could be more challenging in doing this remotely particularly
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problem solving because some of the shared ideas energy and creativity can be lost in a kind of
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remote setting so some of the things that organizations were doing here were trying to identify which tasks are more
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effective face-to-face and thinking about scheduling in time in the physical workspace for this
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thinking about how they'd use the physical workspace to do this um some of the organizations were also developing apps so they could support
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um to schedule scheduling and people could schedule time together in the physical workspace and
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also if um people were um you know doing brainstorming and problem solving remotely um then
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thinking about facilitating these meetings as you would do a training workshop so you know being very clear about
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objectives building in some preparation time allowing participants to do some of the thinking before
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the meetings they could come prepared to those meetings or found to be quite helpful so the next
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area coming through from the research is around building in time including face-to-face time for team um
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cohesion and organizational belonging and i think you know the enforcement of total um
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homeworking without really any opportunity to meet face-to-face over quite an
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extended period of time has proved challenging for engagement levels and some of the hr directors in
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the research um were aware of this and really focusing on trying to support a strong
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organizational culture virtually some of the things that they were thinking about creating common purpose
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across the organization so holding town halls q and a's with senior leaders
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and trying to really focus on the connection between employees and the organization's goals and values
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building personal and team relationships online again building face-to-face time in the
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physical workspace once it's safe to do that and timetabling
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co-located working in the workspace um some were talking about you know keeping in touch
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social days within the physical workspace or social and team building events the sixth area that came through
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is really supporting hybrid working was around um helping to support facilitating
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networking and um into team relationships so while um lots of people were doing quite
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well in in you know supporting um within a team with online team meetings and socials
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perhaps that connection with other teams across the organization um wasn't necessarily being supported in
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the same way so thinking about creating opportunities for co-working also with other teams
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and encouraging relationships and networking and organizational level you know cross-company social events
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some organizations are thinking about mandating minimum amount of time in the office
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to help to facilitate that networking that into term relation into team relationships
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and also some were thinking about for people that are likely to continue to work from home
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fully and whether there are any opportunities for them an interest to join company-wide steering groups or special interest
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groups so they can maintain their connections across the organization
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so the final area for coming through from the findings was around organizing a wider support network to
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compensate for the loss of some of the informal learning perhaps um because of the um working remotely
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so and employers were thinking about trying to recognize the points um when learning
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needs are most intense so for example when someone joins an organization at any level
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after a promotion when taking on a new task or area of responsibility or maybe switching to
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a different project and really organizing more structured development opportunities and there mixing people up on project
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work perhaps when new people new starters are coming in developing a rotor so that colleagues
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can share time in the workplace to support new starters
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all of those sorts of ideas so hopefully that's given you some some ideas coming through from what
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other organizations are thinking about at the moment when it comes to hybrid working but you know do take a look at the the
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findings which are all available on the website if you would like more information so if we
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move on to the next slide so you know as we've seen while we're expecting this big shift in
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flexibility of location um there seems to be less focus coming through on other forms of
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flexible working which allow flexibility over hours and this does come with a bit of a risk
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because you know some can potentially benefit from remote working or homeworking and the flexibility that that can provide it
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doesn't always provide that and the others will need to continue to be in the physical workspace and are
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potentially afforded um little flexibility so again if we move on this really
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rationale forms part of the the key um rationale behind our flex from first campaign which you might have
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held heard about which we hope will support fairness and open up opportunities more
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widely and through the campaign we're calling on employers to make the right to request flexible working day one right
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we know from our survey data that around a third of employers actually already provide this
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so we're seeing this campaign really is about increasing the uptake of good practice
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and if this is something that you'd like to get behind do you use do you take to social media use the
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hashtag flexfromfirst and you can pledge your support or find out more information on our um website so
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i'm going to leave the presentation there and hand uh directly back to lee thank you so much for that claire
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um i mean there's clearly so much to offer for us to think about and as you said at
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the beginning some of it might seem very obvious but actually it's always good to remind ourselves
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because actually some of those things we think are obvious don't take place in practice and
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so now i'd just like to quickly hand over to jem who's going to be our next speaker
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in the session so over to you jim thank you good afternoon everybody and thank you to cypd for asking me to
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join you uh this afternoon i'm going to try and talk about two things and a little bit about some of
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the culture and the things that need to be in place if we're going to introduce hybrid working and a few thoughts as well about the
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practicalities that we need to think about um i could have my first slide
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i wanted to start with just where are we now and um these are just a few of the headlines
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with which we have all become familiar in probably the last 12 months or so
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and barely a day goes by when a new company doesn't come out and say we're moving to remote or hybrid and i think claire
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uh showed us you know that the just the quite big numbers um that are looking at this but one
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thing that's quite interesting to me is really how consistent the employee voice has been
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over the last year so those early surveys that came out in may and june last year
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many of them saying so around that 60 to 70 percent range and wanting to to work more
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remotely in the future and that's been really consistent even the surveys that have come out and in february march really saying the
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same thing so the employee voice is really strong um and and how therefore do we
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respond well it looks like employers are going to respond so um but let's just take a stock and if i
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can move on to my next slide i just wanted to continue this sort of reflection on where we are so before the pandemic cipd research
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said that the pace for flexible working was glacial in the uk um you know in terms of numbers about
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five percent of people work from home on a regular basis by the time we got to april 2020 and
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that was almost half of the uk working population 100 million people across
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europe went to work from home as a result of the pandemic and many of them for the first time
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so it's been a huge shift and it's quite difficult i think to sit here and think will we ever go back to the way we used
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to work before but we're in a really interesting space at the moment we're still living and working through the pandemic we're
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still subject to restrictions many of us still can't go back to our workplaces so we're in this sort of gap
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and and really people have got ideas around how they might want to work in the future but we
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won't really know how hybrid is going to work until we try to do it because um we know how to office we've done it
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for decades since the end of industrial revolution we've learned over the last year to do remote uh
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admittedly in sort of adjusted circumstances and then you may do if it had been a strategic organization decision
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but hybrid is very new view precedence good practice still yet to really emerge
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um you know not many organizations that we can look to and say they're doing it brilliantly so we're going to be learning as we go it's going
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to be one big experiment and i think there are some risks and challenges within that
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i think the one thing that we do need to be mindful of though is that regardless of a long-term strategic
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direction although we've sort of got this day in mind that we might be able to end restrictions and start thinking
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about going back to workplaces it's probably unlikely that companies are just going to go right
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june everybody back in one go because vaccine rolling out is still ongoing we're not quite sure what will happen
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with social distancing so we're probably going to end up with a hybrid
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type approach uh for a while whether or not that's our sort of strategic direction
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so we've got quite a bit of information about what people want we've got organizations starting to state
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their intentions what we don't quite know yet is how some of these things will play
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out but if i can perhaps move on to my next slide
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this is what i want to encourage people to to think about the office is how we've always worked
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and and we you know we had to do that largely admittedly you know technology did come along in more recent years but
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you know we at one point we had to all go to work at the same time and at the same place in order to collaborate
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that was a tradition remote was something that was forced upon us in the middle of an extremely complex
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crisis what i'd like us to think about hybrid as is a choice
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an opportunity um a once perhaps in a lifetime opportunity as i've heard
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futuralis futurologist linda gratton say a once in a lifetime opportunity to reset and to rethink how we work
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so moving on for those determined to make the change these are simply my ideas
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of some of the things that we need to think about doing some of those cultural pieces and yes
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with there's some practicalities in there too and and i will come on to those shortly but there are some things that
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we need to have in place and let me say you know we've claire sort of touched on this already
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um all of these require a huge amount of line manager competence and new ways
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of thinking and new ways of leading and managing so right at the heart of flexible
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working and hybrid working is trust now i know i'm probably talking mostly to your hr audience here
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in terms of flex working that was something that was in short supply before the pandemic i'm sure many of you have had
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those questions for managers about well how will i know somebody's working if i let them work from home or at a
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different time to me in the office well i have yet to meet a single hr person in the last year that says to me
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they're dealing with a tidal wave of skiving in fact as we know one of the biggest issues has been people working hard and
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not taking breaks so we've we've kind of moved on on trust a bit
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but at the same time i'm seeing organizations developing remote monitoring software
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and companies having that debate as well how do i make sure people are working i don't think the two work together
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trust at work is something we always talk about you know it's good for teamwork for collaboration you know high trust organizations can be
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high performing and and it's good for individual motivation as well so we need to really really focus on trust and put
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that at the heart of our policies we're looking at some of these other things now and again claire's touched on
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a few of these inclusion is so important and we have to design with inclusion in mind and make sure that hybrid you know
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supports it but doesn't detract from it fairness of opportunity no matter where people are and when and
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how they're working and challenging our own biases for example things like proximity bias how we
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default to the people closest to us in time and space challenging some of that flexible
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working stigma that just maybe if somebody isn't coming to the office they're not quite as committed
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so inclusion is fundamental so is technology and and hybrid working is really only
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truly viable when we've got the right tech and that's not about platforms that's about employees having the right
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access to tools and solutions and so that they can be effective anywhere and it's seamless whether
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they're in the office or whether they're remote and there's this complete ease of connection
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um wherever you are and that does need to include sort of those asynchronous tools those things that aren't just let's get into
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an online meeting and lift and shift how we used to work but use tech to collaborate
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as well communication then again hybrid working facilitated by strong
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communication everybody having the right information when and where they need it and not just being in the know because they're in the
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office and one of the ways we have to do that is is to encourage teams to see this as
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a shared responsibility because everybody benefits if hybrid is successful so everybody needs to
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communicate effectively one of the most useful things we can do is get teams to figure out what that means for them um and that
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will vary of course from role to role so how are we going to communicate what platform are we going to use
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um are we using teams chat are we using a zoom um how do we update and what kind of
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times do we come together for a meeting and what for and that leads me on to sort of this
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idea of meaningful face time so in the old days we would um we would go to a
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physical workspace often to do virtual work to sit in rooms and email each other nine times out of ten we even carried
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the tech in a laptop bag to do it when we got there and but actually rethinking why people
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come together being in the office needs to have a purpose and not just be the default because that's where we go
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but thinking about what type of work is most effective where longer term that's likely to involve
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redesigning offices to support that and to support better collaboration but that might not be a short-term option
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for all organizations we also need to think about energy and well-being
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um so you know there are the well-being challenges as we've already talked about of working from home
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need to help people work that out just because they've been doing it for you doesn't mean they've got it right we need to to educate people more on
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balance on transition on good habits especially around digital stuff but working flexibly you know as
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certainly with time flexibility also allows us to work a little bit to our own energies and rhythms
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because nine till five assumes that everybody's the same but they can work for three or four hours then they want an hour's break and then they do some
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another big chunk of work actually flex allows us to experiment with all of that
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and then of course there's performance now we have to fundamentally rethink how we assess performance we know
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we conflate performance and presence all the time
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we have to move to judging people truly judging people on outcomes value contribution
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and results so just some ideas as to the cultural
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changes that we need to make if i can move on now to some of the practicalities
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we're going to need a plan for dealing with interim hybrid there's a real risk there that if the interim stuff gets messy
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um it will derail longer term plans so we need to start thinking about that now you will need some policies and some
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principles and i've written a blog that i'm happy to share with anybody about some of the things that need to be in your policy
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but it's likely you're going to need some categories so unless your organization is very uh
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quite small or really simple in terms of its structure you're likely to have different roles
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which means you're going to need different categories so some people might be able to be almost entirely remote
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some people might be almost need to be entirely in the office some people might have a 50 50 blend
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so you might find you need three or four categories to describe the different types of hybrid working
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maybe try not to overcomplicate them too much three or four would be fine then we need to think about hygiene
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factors things like expenses practicalities are we giving people desks and chairs and all of that sort of
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thing as well um and then how do we help managers do this how do we
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create and guide them to have those conversations about what does flex uh mean what does hybrid mean in our
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team and of course and we're all hr professionals many of us here all those bits of the employee
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life cycle that we need to review how do we induct differently recruit differently
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and support learning and development differently too so um of course within that
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implementation support please you know do focus on managers they're going to need a lot of support
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and to lead and manage differently moving on again um this has already been covered by
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claire but just reminding you that let's not just focus on hybrid and forget that it is one form of
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flexibility we've really disrupted location in the last year but we haven't really um
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disrupted time most people still pretty much doing a nine to five-ish kind of day let's remember that flex is about more
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than that and people can benefit other forms of flexibility and we should be continuing to move that agenda
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forward too and the flex and first is a great campaign that i'm fully supportive of again if i can move on so a couple of
32:09
final thoughts then do treat this as an experiment um be prepared to change and get your leaders on board
32:16
with that as well and that you know you will need to measure as we go assess as we go find teams that are doing it well and
32:22
ask them what's working and share it and adapt recognize that some people are going to
32:27
find this really difficult we've just had this huge year or more of massive change this is
32:33
potentially going to be more change this idea of moving to hybrid and some people will feel nervous about that naturally so we need to listen to that
32:41
give those people time not just say to them come on move on um but actually you know let's let's
32:46
hear what they're worried about and how we can address it as i've said managers will need support
32:53
practical guidance on things like how to communicate with a hybrid team how to deal with
32:58
performance in a hybrid team and how to kind of set those little local rules that will make it work for
33:05
them so do think about that also well-being as well how do you support the well-being of hybrid workers
33:11
do consider getting some champions so find people when they're doing hybrid well but also find people in your organization that are really passionate
33:18
and interested in new ways of working maybe they've really benefited from the working from home in this last year maybe get a team
33:24
together uh to help drive this forward focus on upskilling i've touched on that
33:30
a little bit with managers but let's not assume that because we've all been at home we've got the skills now and some people will still have learning
33:37
needs around tech some people also have learning needs about how to have good boundaries and how to have good work-life balance so
33:43
let's also look at those skills and finally what i would say is persist this is
33:50
going to be a bit messy as we learn all of us together there is no single one best way to do
33:58
hybrid work only what works for you in your particular context
34:03
and success will depend on a number of actors having the right vision having the right working practices and
34:09
models sitting underneath that and having the right culture and having the right leadership
34:15
thank you very much for listening i can see somebody's posted can i have the links to those blogs and i'll pop them in a minute but in a moment
34:21
actually thank you very much jen for such an honest and genuine
34:26
reflection of where we are now um and some great
34:31
practical insight i think that's key is that practical piece um and now i just um like to introduce
34:39
our final speaker matt who's going to outline some of the legal implications
34:44
um over to you matt thanks lee afternoon and a bit of an odd thing to
34:50
say i suppose at this point of a webinar but effectively from the legal side there isn't anything uh hugely earth-shattering or
34:56
groundbreaking as far as the law is concerned here and we're taking existing concepts and rules and just applying them to
35:03
potentially a huge increase in in interest in this area and employees and
35:08
employees looking to implement it and the law is notoriously slow at catching up with trends and
35:14
managing to uh provide the the appropriate framework for dealing with that unfortunately um as far as the legal
35:20
implications go though uh employment law from the employment law point of view um it really depends on whether it's the
35:27
employee that's requesting the change or whether it's something that the employer is looking to introduce or potentially to enforce and
35:35
if you could put the slide please and health and safety implications though are the same
35:40
regardless of how we get from where we are into hybrid working and there are some
35:47
other aspects as well to consider which we'll touch on as we come to the end as well um as far
35:52
as employees requesting it in fact there's two uh ways legally that this could take
35:58
place so they may be requesting it on an informal basis insofar as they aren't looking to
36:05
invoke the formal flexible working process under the legislation so they are simply
36:11
just asking uh to make the change and to to to work in a hybrid manner um
36:18
if that's the case then the employer has a much freer hand in so far as how it actually manages and deals with that request
36:25
and how it responds um compared to a formal request whereby uh the employer has to follow um a
36:31
process uh in considering the request itself and now the slide refers to the acas code of
36:36
practice and uh within great britain and the statutory framework for how a flexible
36:42
working request had to be handled was changed and replaced by the acas code of practice and the legal test is that you
36:48
now have to do it reasonably in terms of how you manage it um northern ireland we still actually
36:54
have the um statutory process so with very prescribed time limits in terms of how you get from a to b in terms of considering the
37:00
requests and meetings and so on and so forth and that said the akash code of practice isn't actually drastically different
37:07
from the original statutory framework that was in place and that still remains in place in
37:12
northern ireland and in terms of and the request itself in order to be formal there are various
37:18
requirements that an employee should meet and again none of these are new um and they are the same as we've had in place
37:24
now for a number of years uh under the uh provisions of the employment rights act equally uh if we are considering uh
37:31
turning the request down or if we are turning the request down for any reason and then we must do so on business grounds and that have to fall in with
37:38
the permitted reasons for rejecting the request and again these are the same committed reasons that we've had in place for
37:45
um some time um ones that some employers may be looking to rely on if there are situations where hybrid
37:52
working isn't appropriate in that particular role would be things such as you know detrimental effects on ability to meet
37:59
customer demand or detrimental impact on quality or performance amongst the others in total there are
38:06
eight committed reasons and obviously they'll depend entirely on the facts as to which ones may apply in any
38:11
any given situation it's important when employees requesting away you have a number of employees requesting
38:16
um to be consistent and as soon as we're inconsistent in how we respond to these things
38:22
we inevitably potentially walk into claims of uh discrimination and also potentially things like
38:27
constructive dismissal claims as well and if we are just being completely unreasonable or employees can
38:33
um convince the tribunal that we are basically singling them out in treating them in a certain way
38:38
and there's also um some statutory claims as well for failing to deal with the flexible working request in the
38:43
correct way and so employees can apply to the tribunal for an order for the request to be
38:49
reconsidered and but also for an award of up to eight weeks pay capped
38:55
for failure to deal with the request in a reasonable manner and from a discrimination point of view
39:00
and we've obviously got direct discrimination where individuals claim that they are being treated differently because of a protected characteristic from their
39:06
colleagues and but also you have to be wary in terms of indirect discrimination and so if we're applying a policy that
39:13
we won't agree to flexible working and potentially some groups may be disadvantaged as a result of that
39:19
and we may be having to to effectively justify that in terms of our defence to uh to any claim
39:26
as well those that are um you know have suffer from disabilities and they may need it uh in terms of
39:31
flexibility and to work from home as a reasonable adjustment in respect of their
39:37
medical condition and next slide please um so where the employer is proposing uh
39:43
to introduce hybrid working now if we're offering it as an option as an employer and employees are free to
39:49
choose um and free to agree to the the terms of the arrangement if you like um then there's really very little uh
39:57
from an employment law point of view that will um have an impact on that or that will create difficulties
40:02
and as with all these things though it's advisable to make sure that we've got a detailed agreement and that everyone is entirely clear on
40:08
what the arrangements are going to be and the ins and outs of those some of which will come on too shortly
40:14
um if though we aren't having agreement or if as an employer for some reason we
40:19
are looking to enforce hybrid working and this is where we can get into some um further pitfalls and where we may run
40:26
into some issues as far as employment law is concerned and so this is where employees are not wanting to to engage in hybrid working
40:32
but as an employer for some reason we've decided that this is the model that we are actually going to follow and that we are
40:38
effectively pushing this um obviously the first thing to check as with all these things is the contract of
40:45
employment and to see whether we have a contractual clause that could allow us to require individuals to work from home um even in part um
40:53
i actually think this is likely to be pretty rare um because prior to the pandemic homeworking was um such a
41:00
a rare situation and generally something that was um only coming about where employees were requesting it rather than employers
41:06
wanting employees to to work from home as part of their working arrangement so
41:12
i think in terms of most employers standard clauses i think it's unlikely that there will be a clause in there that would cover it
41:18
um interestingly we've been debating in terms of if you have a mobility clause within the contract and that would allow
41:23
you to um require individuals to work from somewhere other than the office
41:28
um normally limited to geographical areas so you know within 10 miles of the office or something along those lines
41:34
and whether you could sort of rely on one of those clauses to require somebody to work from home
41:40
our feeling is that it's probably unlikely and you'd have to exercise any clauses reasonably in that way anyway
41:47
and there is quite a fundamental difference between somebody working out and about in the office uh in one
41:53
location or in an office somewhere else within a radius and compared to working from home
41:59
because of the the difference in in the nature of those two setups so we think it's unlikely
42:04
that there would be a clause allowing home working specifically and unlikely that an existing mobility
42:11
clause wouldn't necessarily cover it and that said it will be interesting to see if there are test cases from the
42:16
employment tribunal point of view if any employers do go down that route if we are looking to enforce anything
42:23
um in terms of um discrimination again so if we don't have the contractual right and we're looking to force this through
42:29
and then could we get into a potential issue with discrimination um you know with those that who do not
42:35
wish to work from home and could they look to bring a claim um again we're back to the usual things so
42:40
direct discrimination if people feel as though they are being forced into something on the basis of a protected characteristic or because of it
42:47
and potentially indirect discrimination as well and now it's interesting in terms of younger people being the ones pushing for flexible
42:55
sort of arrangements in terms of homework and as far as the surveys are concerned interestingly we were discussing this
43:01
recently in terms of you know who's likely to be disadvantaged by a push to home working
43:07
and just anecdotally amongst our teams we were thinking about potentially younger workers actually being the ones that may find it more difficult
43:15
in part because they're less likely to own their own property and they may be more likely to be in
43:21
house sharing situations or flat sharing situations and so they may not necessarily actually have the facilities to actually be able
43:27
to work work um as effectively or as happily at home um so
43:32
potentially in that way you could end up with an indirect discrimination claim if they are disadvantaged as a result of an
43:38
employer looking to enforce it um a lot of these areas whilst i said that the law is is pretty set
43:44
the arguments around this will develop over time and depending on on what happens and which route employers look
43:49
to go down and the arguments that sort of get put out as a result of that obviously if an employee is refusing to
43:56
work from home and then we potentially get into the unfortunate situation of a dismissal
44:02
and then the question then arises as to what would be the potentially fair reason for dismissal um if we were going down that route so
44:09
next slide please so some other substantial reason is a fair reason for dismissal um effectively
44:16
the idea here is that we would be varying the contract of employment and requiring somebody to work from home at
44:21
least in part and if they refused to do that then effectively we would be terminating
44:28
their contract on current terms and offering them a new contract with continuous service and to start at the
44:34
end of that notice period involving the home working
44:40
again a debate has arisen in terms of whether or not potentially could it be seen as a redundancy situation
44:46
now one limb of the definition of redundancy is if the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a
44:52
particular kind in the place where the employee was employed by the employer to work have ceased or diminished and now there
44:58
is an argument potentially that as an employee who is employed to work in the office if i am now required to go and work at
45:05
home because my employer is telling me that effectively as an employer we are reducing the number of employees working
45:11
in the office there is an argument that it may meet that definition and so yet to be seen really how tribunals will
45:17
interpret that but potentially there could be an argument there and regardless of which route there's an
45:23
employer we're potentially looking to go down so whether we take the view that it is um just a variation to terms or whether
45:29
we are actually going to go into a full-blown redundancy process to a degree doesn't really matter because either which way we have to make
45:36
sure that we followed a fair process we're going to need a sound business rationale as to why we're looking to force this
45:42
and also we must consult with the individuals over the proposal discuss the reasons for the change
45:48
invite them to raise anything that they wish to and then consider anything that they've put forward within reason
45:53
and feedback to them and we also need to remember as well that if there are 20 or more and we're proposing it
45:59
whether it's just looking at it as a variation to terms or redundancy and we're potentially going to force it through
46:04
and we've also got the collective consultation requirements as well that will kick in thanks a lot please and so from health
46:11
and safety point of view um again usual rules so we're under an obligation as employers to ensure that
46:17
as far as we can within reason and the health and safety and welfare of all of our employees
46:23
so in this area we're going to need to consider provision of appropriate workspace equipment so that everyone is working
46:30
safely at home and there's actually a higher burden where it's a permanent arrangement than temporary
46:35
i know that for the temporary arrangements that were put into place in the pandemic and the health and safety guidance um
46:41
was more to do with people if they didn't have uh desks and such equipment to look at making
46:48
more comfortable areas so using pillows for supports and those sorts of things but if we're talking about a permanent arrangement then we need to make sure
46:54
that we've got appropriate equipment in place we're going to need to do workstation assessments alongside that so self-assessments as we would in the
47:00
office and potentially individuals may be considered as loan workers and so we need to factor that in
47:06
potentially provisions in relation to first aid and we need to review risk assessments um if we've not already got home workers
47:13
you know potential issues in terms of trips and failure of electrical equipment and so on and so forth
47:18
and then making sure that we're providing enough advice and information and as has been a common theme
47:24
throughout the rest of this webinar make sure basically we keep in touch and potential for stress to be on the
47:29
increase for people working at home so we need to make sure that we're managing identifying and then
47:35
dealing with that appropriately and last slide please so just a few other aspects to consider
47:41
so from a data protection point of view obviously potentially sending a lot of data out to individuals homes over the
47:46
internet so we need to make sure that we're handling that securely and appropriately to ensure we're meeting our data protection requirements
47:53
hand-in-hand with that really is the information security side of it from the business point of view as well
47:58
insurance so who's going to ensure the equipment that's actually being sent out
48:04
is that going to be the employee um ideally you'll probably want it covered under your employer's insurance
48:09
and if that's possible um and then also the employees own home insurance as well um you know is that okay in terms of
48:16
them working at home as they're proposing to is that going to conflict with any of the terms there
48:21
um from a costs point of view um a bit of a gray area here insofar as whether
48:26
or not there's an obligation to pay um the idea really is that you want to get to a point where you're actually
48:31
agreeing and who is going to bear the cost of what um as far as providing equipment
48:37
and then things like increased use of electricity and so on and so forth and there's obviously been a lot of goodwill throughout the pandemic um
48:43
question if particularly if you're looking to enforce this whether or not that would continue on a permanent basis and potential
48:50
national minimum wage implications as well um so if we were requiring employees to
48:56
provide their own equipment and we're paying the minimum wage um it's potentially going to fall foul
49:01
of the minimum wage because the payments that they incur to provide this equipment and so on and so forth may be reducing
49:08
the amount of pay that goes towards minimum wage and from a cost point of view remember if we double back to our
49:14
position with some of the substantial reason or just generally we need to be acting reasonably um and part of that may be in terms of
49:20
ensuring that we're bearing the costs of the employer as the employer albeit there'll be a trade-off with a reduced commuting bill and so on and so
49:27
forth and then finally we have an obligation to health and safety so if an individual doesn't have the equipment
49:32
in place um we have to ensure that they have and potentially that means as meeting the costs of ensuring our own obligations
49:39
are reached okay thanks lee
49:45
oh um thank you so much for that um as i've said with the other speakers there is just so much for us to consider um
49:53
so thank you for everyone for posting your questions into the chat there's a
49:59
lot of them and we did see the beginning we might go not get through every every one um but we'll try and pick up on a couple
50:06
of the themes um so from at the earliest point they were quite um
50:12
a few questions around for individuals who are wanting to work abroad and
50:19
can employees work abroad if we permit them to work at home and what are some of the legal
50:24
implications um so mark can you just very quickly because i know you've covered a lot of
50:30
things in your session just very quickly pick up on anything from a legal implications point of view
50:35
yeah yeah absolutely sorry yeah it's fine basically from an employment law point of view there's no issue with
50:41
somebody working abroad and it's likely that uk employment law would still apply in the same way
50:47
and you'd need to check out the local employment law of the country that they're wanting to work in because that may have an impact as well
50:53
um employment law but all laws to be fair health and safety laws and everything else as well so you need to get local advice on anything you need to
50:59
be considering um and then the other things that i was thinking about so i saw that question at the beginning was
51:04
um you need to take advantage in terms of the tax treatment again whether there's a tax implication particularly abroad and then again from
51:11
a data protection point of view um it's quite complicated rules in terms of which countries you can and can't send data
51:17
data to and how it's managed and everything else so again you need to get advice on that
51:24
okay no thank you for that matt um there are lots of questions
51:30
um that's looking um at the i guess someone used it in the thing
51:36
them and us scenarios so those that work from home and those those that can work from home
51:42
and those that can't we've had a couple of examples about specifically about the nhs um
51:48
and managing that perspective those perceptions between clinicians and medical staff and and back office staff um so
51:57
claire maybe you could pick up on any suggestions for an angela to on how
52:03
individuals how we can manage that blended workforce yeah thanks lee yeah i saw those
52:09
questions and you know that that is going to be a challenge and i think you know it's not necessary to treat everyone the same because you're not
52:15
going to be able to but to have some kind of parity across workers that they feel that you know that that it isn't in them and our
52:21
sort of mentality um i think one of our case studies which is quite interesting skanska uk which is a construction
52:28
organization and not everyone is going to be able to work in the same way there people have to work on site
52:34
some one of the things that they were doing um they had created a diagnostic call flex it grid which basically um
52:42
people could map their roles where they were in the organization their responsibilities and that would give them some solutions
52:48
based on their particular circumstances so you know whereby they might not have flexibility in location always they
52:55
might be able to flex some of their hours and i think that can make people feel you know that there is some parity there
53:02
if you're able to flex hours and also a team checklist because in that environment actually it's
53:08
quite quite helpful to get the team together to agree where that flexibility could happen and they found that
53:14
actually you know working on a on a team basis you know people came to some quite useful solutions so
53:21
you know i think there will be challenges around that but it's about thinking about you know what other options can you provide
53:26
people so that they feel you know empowered and also treated fairly
53:34
okay thank you jim would you have anything to add to that i agree completely you know there isn't
53:39
uh an easy way around the fact that some jobs cannot work from home so it's about promoting those other
53:45
forms of flex wherever possible and where you can and recognizing the vast parameters of change within that
53:52
you know giving people autonomy so giving people if you can allow them to do things like schedule their own shifts
53:57
within teams and so on just trying to give as much control to those individuals as you can
54:04
okay no thank you for that so i'll try and cover another topic um
54:10
which is around leadership and line managers so there's there's lots of questions
54:15
um around if my senior leadership team isn't interested in a dialogue
54:21
around strategies like those seven strategies that clear refer to the beginning is there any advice
54:28
to help them understand the importance of those strategies um another question there's a few
54:34
questions around if there are line managers who prefer to be in the workplace but are
54:40
managing teams that might not necessarily all want to be in the workplace perhaps more traditional um approach to
54:48
line management so do you have any advice for those that find themselves in that situation
54:55
um gemma do you want to go yeah on the leadership piece there's quite a lot of research around
55:00
now and that actually says a lot of people will look to change jobs um if they can't get the hybrid or the
55:06
flexibility that they want so i think in terms of persuading your senior leadership um
55:11
that's a really really good place to start so you know what is your average cost per higher what is your average you know
55:17
cost when somebody leaves your organization and let's make some assumptions about actually if a certain percentage of people did decide to leave what's that
55:23
going to cost you um it's a good way of getting some real attention to the issue but we also know that hybrid can do a
55:29
number of other things it can when done correctly support well-being support inclusion support sustainability so i think it's about
55:36
linking that through to the organization strategic homes and emissions and where hybrid can play to
55:42
that but definitely have a look at that data around and the number of people that are just saying i'm going to move on
55:48
um so i think i think that's the strategic leader question i think the manager question is potentially to some
55:55
extent more complex because what we're talking about is somebody wanting to work within their preferred style
56:00
um and you know we can't assume that everybody in the last year has gone hooray where remote works let's all keep doing
56:07
it you know there are some people that just cannot wait to get back to the office so i think um
56:12
you know there's a number of different things that we need to do in that space we need to encourage managers uh
56:18
to recognize that their style is not necessarily their team style we need to also if they're concerned
56:23
about how they're going to manage a hybrid team and that's one of those things around kind of hearing people's fears and concerns and support them with making
56:30
that shift as well to managing it practically in a different way and i think to some extent
56:35
if people realize that that supports going to be there that guidance and training is going to be there that might help to allay some
56:41
of the concerns but getting buying for flexible working has was a challenge pre pandemic and i think you know it still
56:47
will be for for a little while to come yet great thank you um there are many
56:54
questions around um inclusion so someone's asking what are the most
57:03
what groups are the most disadvantaged by hybrid working um and also kind of related practical
57:10
questions around is there any advice for ensuring hybrid arrangements are fully inclusive
57:16
claire would you maybe pick up on that yeah i mean it's it's so important as
57:21
something that we've all been stressing you know inclusion needs to be at the heart of our strategies and there are there are risks here and you know even
57:29
just a couple of days ago there was ons data coming out which suggested that before the pandemic
57:34
people who work from home were generally lower paid and those who worked in the office and were less likely to be promoted or given
57:40
bonuses so we really need to look at this um we really need to ensure that
57:45
um everyone has ongoing career conversations opportunities fairness um possibilities of promotion
57:53
we need to avoid that presence bias where you know you talk to a person who's best suited to do
57:58
um the work or discuss the issue not the one who's sitting next to you in the physical workspace um and you know we need to review all of
58:05
our strategies on an ongoing basis making sure that people aren't being disadvantaged as gemma talked about at the different
58:11
employee life cycle points because perhaps they are more likely to work remotely or in a hybrid
58:17
fashion so i think we could have to be um you know really thinking about these sorts of things in the cpd hybrid
58:23
planning guidance there's a really big section on inclusion and some things that you can think through so i'd really encourage people to to go
58:29
through that and take a look at that because that should be really helpful
58:36
um thanks claire we are gonna run out of time we have so many questions um
58:43
so i'll pose another one or two and then um we'll need to round up so so there's
58:49
quite an interesting question completely different topic around how do we reconcile the terms flexible
58:55
working agile working and now hybrid working um
59:01
so as i say you've taken yourself off mute gems so you're you're ready to go to answer that one um
59:08
i think agile's a really um it's a difficult one because when you say agile it means different things to
59:13
different people you know it can mean everything from one responding quickly to a methodology um so you know for me i'm really clear
59:20
that hybrid is a form of flex and and that's how we should position it and and because
59:26
as we've said with the the other comments on flexible working if we're not careful we're going to focus so much on hybrids
59:32
and and forget about these other forms of flexibility and the other ways that flexibility can benefit people
59:37
um so i think that's that's very much the positioning for me and how we should use the language
59:43
and i think hybrid's a bit unusual term i'm not a big fan but i think we're stuck with it but i would tend to separate out agile
59:49
because i think it it does mean something slightly different for lots of people it means more of a methodology
1:00:00
sorry lucky error i forgot to take myself from you um no thank you for that um just
1:00:08
final comments claire or matt would you have anything to add to that before we finish off um no i mean just
1:00:16
completely agree with what gemma said i think you know the flexible working is the umbrella you know
1:00:21
overarching um piece and we need flexibility in hours not just location
1:00:26
hybrid or blended it's just one part of that so we need to think about we need to think about the whole picture really
1:00:32
um and think about you know what can work best within our organizations and for the business for individuals and
1:00:39
you know quite often from our previous research on flexible working is about trialling it's about piloting it's about learning and making
1:00:45
adjustments you know so i would encourage um organizations um and individuals to do that you know
1:00:53
i made the point ready from the beginning that from a legal point of view it is flexible working effectively what we're
1:00:58
talking about in terms of employees who want to do this and that's the legal framework as it stands at the moment whether that will
1:01:04
change we'll find out um thank you matt um jem and claire
1:01:12
so we we're out of time and we do like to finish on time with these sessions many of you have um asked
1:01:21
about you know will you receive answers to the questions
1:01:26
what what we can do is we can work our way through um what questions we didn't manage to
1:01:32
address a lot of them i think we have covered um and i would just argue as i said at
1:01:37
the beginning to always check into our coronavirus hub and to look at the faqs because what we
1:01:43
can do is look at the questions and make sure that um and as well as we can that the answers
1:01:50
are reflected in our rfa queues um and clearly there's still a lot of
1:01:56
discussion around this topic that um we need to consider
1:02:01
so so just really quickly i'd like to thank our speakers who i'm sure you will have agreed have shared great
1:02:08
insight knowledge and expertise and being very genuine in their responses because um i can't remember
1:02:15
who said it now but but i mean we don't have all the answers but
1:02:20
we are and just moving as quickly as we can with this and thank you to all of you that
1:02:25
submitted a question um and as i said you know please go back into our faqs
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and keep checking about what we're what what people are asking and what we're answering
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um so the webinar will be available um on demand later as well the slides
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and keep an eye out for future webinars as i said the next one is on monday and going by some of the
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questions that were asked i think it would be in the session on monday we'll cover
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um some of the the questions that were asked there um as a final reminder about our new
1:03:04
well-being support our recently launched well-being support for members in the uk and our land
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and that information can be found on our website that's our 24 7
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telephone helpline and provided by health insured so thank you and have a
1:03:20
lovely afternoon everyone