Flexible working post-COVID: focus on productivity, teamwork and communication

Every job should be flexible unless there is a business reason for it not to be, argues Sam Smethers. But when work takes up permanent residence in your home, you need to ask these key questions in order to protect worker productivity and wellbeing. 

As we reach the end of the strict “stay at home” instruction in the UK, opinion seems to be polarizing on whether working from home has become the new normal or whether we are all desperate to return to the office 9-5 with its associated commute.  

The Chancellor, closely followed by the Prime Minister, (no doubt driven by the prospect of permanently hollowed-out city centers and a financially unviable transport network), have both declared that employees cannot wait to get back to their offices and face-to-face meetings. While that may be true for some, many employers appear to be moving in the opposite direction.  

Nationwide has announced it will allow 13,000 office staff to work from home from now on and Lloyds Bank…