Professor Mark Stuart quoted on remote work pushback
On 25 July, Professor Mark Stuart was quoted in an article discussing the pushback from companies against work-from-home set-ups.
When asked whether remote work may disappear altogether, Professor Stuart commented that we are more likely to see a post-pandemic ‘renegotiation’ between companies and their employees on what remote work will look like in the future.
Professor Stuart argued that despite more companies requesting for workers to return to the office, employers are actually ‘quite comfortable’ with the idea of workers staying at home. He also points out that not all employees want to continue working from home full-time and so we may instead see a compromise along the lines of hybrid-working.
Professor Stuart predicts that there will be ‘various tensions’ in light of the pushback which are only amplified in the current protests around stagnating wages.
While there are workers who have never been able to work remotely, not even during the pandemic, there are plenty who still have flexible arrangements with their employees and work either full-time or part-time from home.
A lot of it’s going to come down to local agreements and supportive line managers. Line managers have to get used to having teams and staff that aren’t in the office all the time and that are remote working remotely, but it’s got to be a sort of mutual acceptance of this.
