USAirtours founder Guy Novik has insisted his company’s staff are more productive than ever since the introduction of working from home full-time.
Novik (pictured) told C&M Recruitment’s ‘ABC Live’ event in London that 99% of the operator’s staff have been working remotely since the pandemic and results have generally been very positive.
“Working from home isn’t about shirking from home,” said Novik, adding: “There’s a tonne of research that says productivity is better at home.”
Some additional challenges are presented by full-time homeworking, he said, such as the extra lengths that managers must go to make sure staff feel well supported, but these can be overcome.
“We have to build the ‘water cooler conversations’ into online working,” he said. “I accept that when people are not in front of you, there needs to be more outreach.”
Since moving out of the office environment, Novik said staff were contacting him with much greater regularity and this was a welcome development.
“I have far better communication with everyone across the organisation by working remotely than I ever did when we were in the office because in the office people didn’t want to be seen by everyone else coming to speak to me in my glass-fronted office,” he said.
Expanding on the productivity improvements, he added: “If you’ve got people working from home, they must truly understand the idea of working from home.
“We measure everything and we share the data with people so they can compare their performance with the average across the rest of the team.”
Recruitment has also benefited from the move to remote-working, according to the USAirtours chief executive.
“We’ve been able to access talent from all over the country and recruit people who function a lot better at home than in the office,” he said.
The company has been trialling the use of a co-working space for employees who prefer working in an office, he added.
Resort Marketing International managing director Colin Pegler told delegates he was a strong believer in the office environment being superior to remote-working.
“There’s always going to be the need for some flexibility, but the harsh reality is that if you want a culture and you want to develop new talent, you need people in front of you,” said Pegler, who owns Essex-based travel agency Vaycay Luxury Travel and holds the role of chairman at the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (UK and Europe).
“How is a 21-year-old supposed to learn if they’re sitting in their back bedroom for four and a half days a week? It’s not possible, and it’s not sustainable,” he said.
He dismissed research suggesting productivity is better when people work from home, adding: “We’re humans and we do things better face to face, not over a screen.”
He also went on to question the wisdom of anyone who hampered their ability to work in an office.
“If someone sells their car, moves far from the office and gets a dog, they might need to review their employment prospects,” he said.
If people do use video calls, he said they should appear professional at all times.
“We don’t want laundry up in the background or a child on the lap during a call because it’s inappropriate,” he said.
Jude Harvey, an equity, diversity and inclusion specialist at RealiseHR, said she could see benefits from both office-working and homeworking and suggested a hybrid model was best for inclusivity.
Referring to neurodivergent people, she said: “Going into the office can take its mental toll and lead to sickness and absence. If they’re working from home they can have the light and sound that supports them.”
On the productivity debate, she said: “You can’t link presenteeism to productivity. An underperformer will underperform whether they’re in the office or at home.”
A company’s success with recruitment can be lifted by a hybrid or flexible approach to working from home, she said.
“By not giving people the choice, you’re narrowing your opportunity to recruit,” she added.
Xian Mayes, chief of people at The Advantage Travel Partnership, said technology and effective management were helping the partnership to maintain a positive company culture while staff work from home full-time.
On the prospect of moving back to full-time office-working, she said: “We would lose two-thirds of our staff overnight if we said that was going to happen.”