Conflicts were recently reported at technology multinational Apple concerning its approach to post-Covid home-based working. The company introduced a new flexible working policy requiring that employees spend a minimum of three days a week in the office and some employees protested. While Apple sought to ensure regular face-to-face collaborations, these employees argued that the lack of flexibility would impact their family lives and well-being. The letter sent by employees to CEO Tim Cook expressing these concerns made news internationally.

Since May 2020, I have been working with colleagues on a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to study the experiences of those people across the UK who, owing to Covid-related restrictions, have had no choice but to work from home. In the past 16 months, many people have had the chance to see for themselves the benefits and challenges of working remotely. For some, this has created a new potential for flexibility alongside increases in productivity and well-being. However, this has not been the case for all, with some people negatively impacted by working from home and desperate to return to the office. Now that restrictions are being eased, it is not surprising that there are debates about what the future of work should look like and the extent to which people’s preferences can be accommodated.

Our research has found significant variation in employee preferences. There are a range of factors that shape these preferences, including personal circumstances such as care roles or living arrangements. While there are benefits of working at home without distractions, for some people there may be less space and more distractions at home than in the office. People often report the benefits of face-to-face support and collaboration with co-workers, but this varies by job role and the ways in which different people prefer to work or to interact with their colleagues as well as a more general need for forms of social interaction through work. There are also important differences for people with health concerns or disabilities, which can create strong preferences for home-based working.

What employers want to retain (increased productivity, adaptability, decreased costs) and the range of alternative arrangements that employees might want to retain (connecting with family and community, flexibility, lack of a commute) will not always be compatible. These differences have led to debates over what rights employees should have, including the right to request to work from home. A crucial factor may be the extent to which individual preferences can be accommodated and how people working more flexibly can work together productively. These challenges have highlighted the potential importance of other rights such as the “right to disconnect”. This refers to laws that have been introduced in several European countries that establish employees’ right to not respond to emails or other forms of communication outside of working hours.

At Apple, it was reported that complaints were not just about the creation of a policy restricting people’s ability to work from home but how the policy was perceived to have been introduced. Employees commented on poor consultation and communication, saying that they felt unheard or ignored.

Recent interviews conducted for our project have also suggested a worrying trend of a lack of consultation with employees before organisations change the ways in which they expect people to work. For example, while there are examples of great practices, other organisations have made significant changes such as moving the site of their office (radically reducing office space) and transitioning employees to “hybrid working” with little or no discussions and only limited communications. Employees in such circumstances are understandably uncertain about their futures and feel greater insecurity and precarity.

For organisations to work effectively with healthy, engaged workforces, they must take seriously what has been learned over the past 16 months. This applies not only to lessons about productivity or potential cost savings, but also about the diversity of employee needs. For both employers and employees to realise the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of home-based and other forms of remote working, communication about what people want, what options are available and the rationale for decisions that are made need to be openly and fully discussed.

Professor Oliver Mallett, University of Stirling Management School