Flexible working is here to stay despite resistance from some employers because the office regime was not working pre-pandemic.
That is according to writer and consultant Christine Armstrong who will address Abta’s Travel Convention in October on the changing workplace.
The author of a book on work and motherhood entitled The Mother of All Jobs, Armstrong told Travel Weekly: “I’ve been researching the world of work for a long time and had a clear picture of what wasn’t working pre-Covid.”
She argues office work was “designed for a household where one person works full time and the other either doesn’t work or works part time” and says: “It suits people without caring responsibilities or who have a partner at home. But in the last 30-40 years we’ve moved away from that.”
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Laptops and email saw work “seep out of the workplace into the home” while “days got longer”, she says.
“Covid ripped a plaster off a wound. For large numbers of people who have been able to work differently it has been liberating.”
Yet employers and senior employees sometimes don’t get it. Armstrong argues: “Offices reward seniority and as you earn more you think the office works.
“A lot of senior people are keen to get back to five days a week. They like people in their offices. It makes them more confident. But there is enormous resistance.”
She suggests: “If you want people in the office, how much are you willing to pay for that? It may be sensible to offer greater flexibility rather than more money.”
Some employers have touted paying lower wages to those working mostly from home. Armstrong argues: “If you believe an organisation can only function if everyone is in the office, you need to pay for it. But what are you trying to encourage? Are you trying to punish people or trying to increase your talent base?”
When it comes to hybrid working, she says: “Some people tried to apply office work practices to hybrid or remote working, and you can’t. You need to think about how to communicate and how to onboard people.”
She notes contradictions in the way people view working from home, saying: “When you ask people if they are productive at home they say ‘yes’, but if you ask them if others who work from home are productive, they say ‘no’.
“Yet we know people who are happy at work are more productive.
“If you ask people do they want their employer to choose the days they come into the office or to choose their own days, they prefer to choose. But those told which days to come in are calmer because there is a lot to consider if you have a choice.”
Armstrong insists: “Previously, flexible working was seen as ‘second tier’, offered to women who had just had children. It was a ‘privilege’ and it ruined your career. Hopefully, it will be seen more positively now. It’s a change that is going to stay.”
But she is not a fan of ‘hot desking’, noting: “If you want to upset a lot of people quickly, introduce hot desking. It causes a huge amount of anxiety.”
Armstrong hails the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse and harassment which has also transformed the world of work, saying: “In the first job I had there was soft porn on the office walls. It’s fantastic that it has become unacceptable to do things that were completely normal when I was younger.
MeToo has been “massively positive”, she says, although she adds: “There may be some unintended consequences. Some men are less likely to mentor younger women and nervous about taking women on work trips.”
The Travel Convention 2022 is in Marrekech on October 10-12.
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