Managing the new
working from home
reality
Almost overnight, the Covid-19 crisis made working from
home a necessity for so many across the UK. For some,
this move was a welcome liberation from the daily chore of commuting and the monotony of office life; for others it presented the unwelcome nightmare of poor working environment, working alone and the loss of home/work
life distinction.
Since the Covid-19 crisis took grip on the world, it is extraordinary to witness how profoundly modern business practices have adapted to a new social distanced model and how quickly we have all embraced that change. Across every sector, the UK has, literally, entered a new world of work.
Infrastructure View speaks to Claire Matthews, Carter Jonas Head of HR, Neil Hayward, Human Resources Director at HS2 and Elaine Billington, Executive Director, Human Resources at Highways England to find out how they are meeting this new challenge.
Working from home is now accepted as a realistic office alternative; Zoom and Microsoft Teams have shifted video conferencing from the preserve of expensively equipped board rooms to become the communication of choice; life without the morning and evening public transport crisis has become the norm.
According to Claire Matthews, Carter Jonas Head of HR, Covid-19 has fundamentally changed the workplace to the extent that, in truth, there is now no desire and no real business need to row back completely from this new reality.
“I honestly believe that there has been a shift in culture towards more flexible working,” she explains, pointing out that businesses like Carter Jonas had no choice but to embrace this new world of working from home. “The business has changed for good. The future will be a blend, but the emphasis will continue to be on outputs and what you can deliver rather than visible input and time spent in the office.”
Leading from the front
Supporting the health, safety and wellbeing of staff throughout the Covid-19 crisis has also been a critical for key Carter Jonas clients such as HS2 and Highways England as they have worked to properly and effectively function under lockdown restrictions.
Neil Hayward, Human Resources Director at HS2 explains that the project reacted quickly in March 2020 to Government’s clear message that construction should continue across the UK. HS2 Ltd activated its Gold
Command Incident Management Team. This, he says, was crucial in helping to make quick and efficient decisions and implement new ways of working across the project and its vast supply chain.
“The last ten months have been a tremendous challenge, but our leadership team’s commitment to listening, learning and acting on our employee voice has been invaluable,” he says. “We’re proud of everyone’s achievements and the speed at which they have adapted and responded to the many challenges we have faced.”
Immediate actions included asking office-based staff to work from home, coupled with a programme of rapid investment to ensure IT tools were in place. Understanding and supporting each individual’s personal circumstances was vital to provide the right equipment needed to enable effective work from home, while also accommodating any new child and carer responsibilities.
“Flexible working has always been encouraged at HS2 Ltd, so working from home wasn’t an unfamiliar practice for a large proportion of our staff and neither was using IT to collaborate as a team,” says Hayward.
Highways England also made a rapid and early decision to encourage home working. From 17 March, one week before the official lockdown, some 95% of office-based staff were home based, a figure that reached 99% within five days of the lockdown announcement.
For those in critical operational roles, such as traffic officers and control room staff, safety measures were put in place quickly and ‘Key Worker’ status assigned, enabling them to access support such as allowing their children to attend school.
“Communication has been key to keeping staff well-informed, motivated and engaged,” explains Elaine Billington, Highways England Executive Director for Human Resources. “We are supporting our managers to make unique and flexible decisions based on their teams’ circumstances and have put measures in place to support and protect colleagues, such as providing IT and office equipment, and special paid leave for those with caring responsibilities or those in vulnerable health categories.”
Technology to meet the WFH challenge
Claire Matthews explains that, from the start of the pandemic, Carter Jonas has benefitted from the on-going roll out of its People Strategy 2025. At its heart, this champions flexible working and, she says, meant that the business had already begun to take the difficult technical and cultural steps needed to make it both possible and practical for staff to work remotely.
Throughout this transition, putting the right technology in place has been critical to allowing businesses to effectively function. For Carter Jonas, that has meant not only providing employees with laptops, screens and office equipment to facilitate home working, but also putting in place the necessary private networks to allow teams to communicate and share information securely.
“Ensuring our IT systems were fit for purpose, and capable of supporting home working has been a huge challenge for our IT Team,” she says. “But, from 23 March, we had the technology in place, and early trials gave us the confidence to rapidly move the whole of the Carter Jonas operation – that’s over 800 people – to working from home".
The experience over the last 10 months has underscored the value of this new way of working. But technology is just half the story when it comes to creating an effective working from home strategy; developing a true focus on people and wellbeing has been the critical step for all businesses.
Building and maintaining remote collaboration
Helping individuals to stay in touch with their teams and have regular discussions with line managers has been key to retaining focus on business objectives and, crucially, to maintaining staff health and wellbeing while working remotely.
As the organisation responsible for keeping the country’s strategic road network operating safely, Highways England had to focus beyond internal staff to include the vast number of people across the supply chain who play a vital role in operating the network. That meant reassuring the supply chain with clear and consistent messaging.
“Major organisations in our supply chain have risen successfully to the challenge, and we have benefited hugely from the strong collaborative relationship we foster with our supply chain,” says Billington. “They have engaged and supported their people and supply chains in a way that has enabled them to continue working to keep the Strategic Road Network (SRN) operating through very challenging times.”
At Carter Jonas, the senior management team also formed a Covid-19 task group to meet the staff and client communication challenge, meeting daily in the first couple of months, and then weekly, to plan communications and react to the constantly changing government guidelines.
Leadership by design
A Managers Guide was created to set out best practice for supporting teams during this period – whether working from home, furloughed, returning from furlough or returning to the office – along with a guide on how to work effectively from home. This covered best practice and top tips, such as:
In many respects it has been a success. A Carter Jonas staff survey carried out in May 2020 showed that 69% felt they were more productive working from home, 73% said that working from home had had a positive impact on the amount of exercise they did and 69% of people said that working from home had created a positive impact on their mental wellbeing.
“Out of sight is most definitely not out of mind,” says Matthews, pointing out that, throughout the crisis, emphasis has been on the importance of regular contact with people working from home, in whatever format. “Nothing beats face-to-face, but video conferencing comes a close second, particularly when supported by regular 1:1 meetings, phone calls and feedback.”
Despite the positive aspects of this new way of working, the HS2 team also quickly understood the huge challenge that many staff faced when adapting to remote and online working and took steps to ease any burden that this new culture might bring.
Understanding the personal challenge
“Not everyone has a quiet space to work in every day, and that’s certainly true for those who have also had to juggle home-schooling, or who live in shared accommodation,” says Hayward. “We’ve challenged ourselves as to whether online meetings are always necessary, recognising that spending long periods of time in front of a screen isn’t the most effective way for anyone to work.”
The result was that, after a short two week pause in March to assess ‘on the ground’ operations and ensure that Covid safe working practices were in place, the vast majority of activities have continued as normal. Collaborating online, rather than in person, was something people were able to adjust to relatively easily.
This included the launch of a public consultation in October 2020 on proposed design changes to the Crewe to Manchester section of the railway. Covid restrictions ruled out public meetings or events, so the IT, events and engagement teams collaborated to create a virtual exhibition room, supplemented by a programme of webinars to encourage two-way engagement plus 1-1 meetings held online or over the phone.
Despite the huge effort put in to support individuals, life away from the office has, without question, taken its toll on many people’s mental health and wellbeing. The Carter Jonas staff survey revealed that 49% of staff had felt isolated at some point while working from home.
Supporting staff wellbeing
“Many employees will not feel comfortable in speaking up about mental health,” says Matthews. “Therefore, line managers should be reminded of – and assisted in – their role to support teams. Employers have a duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees, and this includes their mental health and wellbeing.”
Matthews explains that it is now crucial for employers to treat people with compassion, to communicate with each person as an individual and to put in place the right support systems. This includes the need to continually remind staff that resources such as counselling, advice and HR support are available during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Some will have anxiety about the ongoing health crisis and fear of infection, as well as social isolation. Many will have experienced challenging domestic situations, such as juggling childcare or caring for a vulnerable relative, or financial worries,” she says.
HS2’s Neil Hayward agrees that the focus on staff welfare and mental health continues to be critical to business continuity on the project and points out that in a pandemic there is no right or wrong answer; listening, learning, adapting and responding is key.
“Caring for people’s mental health is just as important as ensuring they have the right working environment and equipment to do their job safely,” says Hayward, adding that all staff have access to mental health and wellbeing support sessions and a confidential 24-hour Counselling and Advice Line. “‘I care, you count, we matter’ is our Safe at Heart mantra – and everyone has recognised the importance of that during the pandemic. Our willingness to look out for one another really demonstrates the strength of our response.”
HS2 has initiated regular “Wellbeing Pulse” staff surveys to help engage, listen and learn from staff about the impact of the pandemic. Continual assessment is also important, explains Hayward – how people felt at the start of the pandemic to how they feel today is often very different.
Surveys: Listening and acting
Staff have also been encouraged to diarise an hour of ‘My Time’ each day, so that they can get outdoors, in the fresh air, to support their mental health and wellbeing.
“We’re proud of the fact that our staff believe we are listening and responding to their concerns, and that we have been focused on doing the right thing in accordance with our values of Respect, Integrity, Safety and Leadership throughout such a challenging period,” he says. “Just before Christmas, we ran our main HS2 Ltd Staff Engagement survey and achieved an 82% response rate and an engagement score of 76%, both of which were significantly above external benchmarks.”
Highways England has also been regularly monitoring the pandemic’s impact on staff and Billington explains that colleagues have been encouraged to share their experiences and support each other.
“Our focus throughout the pandemic has been on colleagues’ health and wellbeing, being specifically mindful of the mental health challenges our colleagues might face,” she explains. “Colleagues have told us they felt the business was showing care and concern for employees. As we continue to tackle this crisis together, the health, safety and wellbeing of our colleagues will remain central to our response.”
It is clear that many employees across the UK workforce have adapted well to working from home during the pandemic. Carter Jonas’ survey revealed that some 85% of people enjoy the autonomy of working from home and that 84% felt they had developed new and better ways of doing their jobs.
Preparing for the next normal
A more recent Return to Work staff survey underlined this point. More flexible working practices have made it easier for people to manage caring responsibilities and to save on the cost and stress of a daily commute. Line managers who previously resisted remote working now recognise that employees can be very effective even when out of sight.
“Covid-19 has led to unprecedented levels of flexible working for Carter Jonas and we expect some of this to continue long-term,” she explains. “I believe that a shift in culture will enable us to be more flexible and agile with our working arrangements and focus on output and deliverables rather than input.”
“We will continue to support our people to work from home and, going forward, agree the appropriate blend of home and office working in consultation with their managers, to fulfil their job role, their work/ life balance and their career ambitions,” she adds.
“I believe that a shift in culture will enable us to be more flexible and agile with our working arrangements and focus on output and deliverables rather than input.”
“We’ve challenged ourselves as to whether online meetings are always necessary, recognising that spending long periods of time in front of a screen isn’t the most effective way for anyone to work.”
Structuring your homework environment,
including workstation risk assessments
Targets and deadlines
Keeping in regular contact with the team
Creating routine
Use of IT
Scheduling breaks
Taking care of your wellbeing and mental health
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“putting the right technology in place has been critical to allowing businesses to effectively function"
It was a similar story at Carter Jonas. Their Return to Office Guide was produced to enable staff to return to the offices where desired, appropriate, and with the support of their manager. And before being allowed to return to office working, staff had to complete on-line training and confirm they had read the Guide.
Life beyond lockdown – return to the office
Yet, despite clear evidence that teams across the UK have adapted well to the new culture and reality of working from home, Hayward emphasises that, for many, the last ten months have been challenging. Not least those living alone, shielding, juggling care needs and/or home-schooling, who have faced extraordinary pressures.
“We learnt that home-working simply didn’t work for everyone,” says Hayward. “We made the decision to reopen our offices on a limited basis, by prior agreement, after the first national lockdown. This ensured that those who needed a place to work away from home could do so in an environment that was safe, secure, and Covid-compliant. Recognising that everyone’s needs and circumstances are different is really important.”
“We do recognise that some prefer to work in offices, and we have ensured that there is a Covid secure environment for them to do so,” explains Matthews. “But we continue to follow Government advice, which is: where people can work from home, they should continue to do so.”
While around 68% of Carter Jonas staff said that they would like to work from home more frequently after Covid crisis, it is also clear that many remained very keen to return to the office as soon as they were able.
Understanding the needs of younger staff
This is backed by recent national research by YouGov for housing association Aster Group in October 2020. They found that found that 56% of under 35s were worried that changes to how they work will affect their professional development, particularly trainees, apprentices and graduates, who require closer supervision and coaching, as a significant amount of their personal development is on the job, and through experience. They require regular support and feedback from more experienced team members and their supervisors and counsellors. They are also less likely to have the dedicated workspace at home.
And while people of all ages enjoy the social interaction of working in an office, younger staff clearly are more dependent on the support that a separate workplace provides. To meet the needs of this cohort, it is essential to engage with young people and ensure their training and development plans are comprehensive and delivered, albeit via different methods to the traditional routes.
“The solution is to communicate, communicate, communicate,” says Matthews. “It is really important for line managers to create channels between team members, as well as between themselves and individuals, to ensure that everyone feels included and updated.”
Try to speak to their remote employees at least every day,
if not more often
Make use of the communication technology provided to keep their team connected
Agree clear-set expectations for communications with their team members and make a conscious effort to communicate more than they would do in the office
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The challenge, she adds, should be to:
Forward planning is crucial to minimising risk on a project like HS2 and so, in November, the project released £12 billion worth of supply chain contracts to be let over the next 18 months. Given the pandemic restrictions, a 4-day virtual event was organised in place of face-to-face roadshows to showcase the opportunities and advise businesses on how to get ‘contract ready’.
The event demonstrated that, despite the massive impact that Covid-19 has had on UK business, supply chain demand is still out there, with businesses eager and able to get on board and benefit from the estimated 400,000 contracts available.
It was the first time such an event was held in a virtual setting but was a huge success, with over 6,200 “seats” filled at 24 webinars, and over 800 1-to-1 meetings delivered between contractors and potential new suppliers.
Taking the
roadshow
virtual
In the new environment of flexible working, with many staff continuing to work from home, one of the key challenges for any business will be to maintain proper and effective training and development programmes.
An online Learning Library has been established, with 51 topics covering general business skills and health and wellbeing – a resource that has seen a 60% increase in usage throughout the pandemic.”
Claire Matthews points out that virtual training has become core as the firm’s training plan for 2021 has been adapted to become 100% virtual. That meant working with training providers to move all workshops and training
Virtual
training and
staff
development
modules online, via e-learning, webinars or virtual workshops using video conferencing. They have also developed courses, such as managing remote teams and networking virtually, that are more relevant to this new way of working.
“Learning and development will also continue to be a far more blended approach going forward, tailored to the individual, using remote resources and virtual platforms to give more people access in a timely and cost-effective manner,” says Matthews. “Covid-19 has accelerated the need to update our approach. The use of e-learning means that we were able to provide essential information in an interactive and time efficient way, and we are also able to monitor who has read and understood this information.”
Highways England has been specifically mindful of the mental health challenges faced by colleagues throughout the pandemic – both for the office-based teams working at home and those in site based and public facing roles.
Managing
mental health
Alongside these measures, an Employee Assistance Programme was put in place and staff actively encouraged to make use of this service at every available opportunity.
As well as providing clear and timely information and resources, colleagues have been encouraged to share their experiences with and support each other. A buddy system was quickly established for workers who might have been feeling isolated, and systems set up to liaise with Staff Support Networks so as to better understand and react to the impact the crisis was having on various diverse communities.
“Continual assessment is important - how people felt at the start of the pandemic to how they feel today is often very different”
