2 hours ago
5
Ministers could encourage employers to allow more hybrid and remote working to help get greater numbers of disabled people and carers into the workplace, according to a House of Lords committee.
A report by a cross-party committee says the government should set out whether it has considered including remote and hybrid working in back-to-work initiatives to offer more working flexibility to people with disabilities and long-term health conditions.
The home-based working committee was set up in January to investigate how the rise of remote and hybrid working has affected employers, employees and the wider British economy. It heard evidence that remote and hybrid working made it easier for disabled people to manage their condition, partly through avoiding the commute.
“Many disabled people, parents and carers may have an improved experience of work or may even be able to work where this would otherwise not be possible,” the committee found.
Hybrid working – where employees split their time between the office and home or another location – has become the new normal for more than a quarter (28%) of working adults in the UK, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
However, the committee found access to home working was unequal and it was more likely to be available to professionals, university graduates or people living in London.
It said a hybrid approach could offer the “best of both worlds” by giving employees a better work-life balance while also helping employers to bring teams together to collaborate for part of the week.
The report warns, however, of a lack of investment in training bosses to support hybrid or remote workers, and it calls on ministers to incentivise employers to put money into management training.
Amid a string of return-to-office mandates from some large companies over the past year, the committee found most employers and their employees were broadly in favour of hybrid working.
However, there remains a “preference gap” as most workers said they would like to spend two days a week in the office, while their employers would like to see them there three days a week.
Rosalind Scott, the committee’s chair, said: “There are obvious advantages for employees not having to commute in every day, and flexibility around work-life balance, particularly if you’ve got caring responsibilities. But there are also ways it’s really working for employers. They told us they can recruit from slightly further afield, they get more job applicants if they advertise hybrid working and there is also some evidence sickness absence is reduced.”
Policies at most companies to have ordered staff back to the office “amount to formalising hybrid working”, the committee found, with full-time office attendance demanded by only a few outlier firms, including the US retailer Amazon.
The committee recommended employers and employees should be left to manage hybrid working arrangements themselves rather than it be included in government legislation. However, peers believe there is a role for ministers to provide more guidance to staff and businesses.
