Government plans to offer a default right of flexible working will make staff more productive and loyal, a minister has said.
Earlier this summer, research by Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy and Research pointed to a 10%-20% decrease in productivity as a result of home working - and business giant Amazon has today ordered staff back to the office five days a week.
However, Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said that giving employees the right to work from home or ignore work emails and calls in the evening will make them more “motivated and resilient”.
In an interview with The Times this morning Reynolds defended plans for flexible working and a right to switch off, despite opposition from business groups.
“It does contribute to productivity, it does contribute resilience, their ability to stay working for an employer,” he said.
“Good employers understand that their workforce, to keep them motivated and resilient, they do need to judge people on outcomes and not a culture of presenteeism.”
Corporate culture 'diluted'
One business judging people on outcomes is Amazon - and it has decided to end its hybrid working policy and bring staff back into the office five days a week.
The change will come into force from January, Amazon's chief executive Andy Jassy said in a memo to staff.
"We’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of Covid", he said, adding that it would help staff be "better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other".
In his message on Monday, Mr Jassy said he was worried that Amazon - which has long prided itself on preserving the intensity of a start-up while growing to become a tech giant - was seeing its corporate culture diluted by flexible work and too many bureaucratic layers.
Bill within weeks
Next month, Mr Reynolds will publish an employment rights bill which will give staff more protections from day one, ban zero-hours contracts and make flexible working a default right, in a package billed by Sir Keir Starmer as the biggest overhaul of workers’ rights in a generation.
Mr Reynolds rejected Tory accusations that Labour was in hock to the unions as “cliched Seventies lines”. He boasted of the party’s success in raising money from business donors and insisted employers had nothing to fear from the reforms.
“These are popular changes, both with the public and actually with businesses themselves,” he said.
“Every time we have a session with business where we are able to talk candidly, they are reassured by what we are saying and actually they support it”.
Businesses 'have nothing to fear'
However, in the interview, which has been published today, Mr Reynolds accepted there were times when bosses would need to contact staff out of hours, saying there was “a balance” to be struck, as there was on rights to work flexibly.
“There are times when it is absolutely necessary, it’s legitimate to need the workforce in the office,” he said. “We want the default to be that people have access to flexible working, but that doesn’t mean that everyone will just work from home.”
Reynolds likewise insisted he would not “compel every workforce” to allow working from home or insist on a compressed four-day working week.
“There is genuinely nothing to worry about for any business in this area,” he said.