techUK evidence to the House of Lords Home-based Working Enquiry published
techUK’s written evidence to the House of Lords enquiry on Home-based Working has just been published on the Parliament website.
The enquiry was to establish the effects of remote working on employers, employees and the wider economy, as well as to investigate possible remedies for any issues associated with remote working.
Our full written evidence argued that home, hybrid and office working each have their advantages and disadvantages and that what matters is implementation. Therefore, employers and employees need to be empowered to ensure they can do what works best for them, and therefore the government should not mandate any one working pattern, but should focus on empowering employees and employers to make decisions that work best for them. We also emphasised that home and hybrid working are impossible without tech, from communications hardware and software to cloud technology and other systems needed to allow employees to securely organise, access and communicate information.
Before any discussion of home working, it is essential to note that without tech, such work is impossible. Remote working requires suitable connectivity infrastructure, for employer and employee, as well as devices adequate for accessing this connective infrastructure. It also requires systems that allow employees to access essential work remotely, communicate with colleagues, and collaborate on projects. Modern remote working would be impossible without a whole host of tech companies that keep the entire economy going, and this must be borne in mind throughout any conversation on remote working.
The impact of Covid
The Covid-19 pandemic is the seminal event in the conversation around home and hybrid working. Despite home and hybrid working practices being used before 2020, the pandemic was the first time that the vast majority of workers who could potentially work from home did so. The effect of this has been, in some ways, like releasing a genie from a bottle for the UK’s workforce. Nearly 40% of working adults in Great Britain were hybrid or home working in the Summer of 2024 according to the ONS, and one LinkedIN survey found a third of office workers would quit if they had to return to the office full time. Clearly, many employees who first experienced hybrid and home working during Covid-19 enjoy the benefits of hybrid and home working and want it to continue.
Employers have been forced to confront the suitability of their current arrangements in light of both changed employee expectations and the potential for retaining or expanding upon emergency measures taken during the pandemic. This, principally, is an opportunity.
Good management can make the most of the new moment
Good management is indispensable to ensuring that the needs of employers and employees are all taken into account, and that whatever working pattern is adopted by a company maximises the potential benefits while minimising disruption.
Employers can have good reasons for wanting employees to work from home or an office some or all of the time. For the office, this may be because staff work directly with hardware, needing them to be on site, or so a company can maintained a closed network of computer terminals for classified information. A firm may also have found the spontaneity of in-office collaboration to be of best benefit. Conversely, a firm may want employees to work from home to save on office costs or so employees can be stationed in different locations for business reasons.
Balancing these needs with the potential advantages of different working patterns is an essential task of management. For example, there is great opportunity for home and hybrid working practices to form part of a toolkit to help those who face greater barriers to working in traditional working patterns, including mothers and people with disabilities, to enter or re-enter the workforce. Often, these adjustments help people work at above-average levels of productivity while balancing caring responsibilities and increasing overall wellbeing. Office working meanwhile can be better at fostering a company culture and passing on institutional memory, which particularly benefits younger employees beginning their careers.
If management implement a new working environment badly, often without communicating with employees, it may have serious negative effects on moral. It can also lead to a loss of the very advantages that management is trying to secure. For example, employees may be left feeling isolated in the office, or the potentially wider hiring pool offered by remote working may go unutilised.
It is up to company management to ensure they maximise the benefits of any working environment, and tech companies are leading the way in showing how this can be done. We highlighted examples from Zoom, Day One, Red Hat and Principle One (among others) where a variety of new working practices were all successfully deployed because good management communicated with employees and ensured that everybody’s needs were considered.
We do not think that legislation to mandate certain kinds of working practices is necessary or desirable here. It is employers and employees that know what works best for them, and they should be allowed to communicate and come to a solution that works best for them. Any government intervention should instead focus on the environment in which employer and employee’s choice of working environment is made, for example by continuing the rollout of 5G and gigabit-capable broadband and by providing the right to request flexibile work from day one, including remote working. Full recommendations can be found in our response.
Government cannot legislate for good management though, and it is this that is decisive in making remote or office work a success.
If you have any questions about techUK’s response, please get in touch with[email protected].
techUK's Skills, Talent and Diversity Programme activities
techUK work with our members to signpost the opportunity of digital jobs and ensure these opportunities are open to people of diverse backgrounds. We strive to help our members attract, recruit, and retain a diverse workforce, whilst showcasing their work on workplace innovation. Visit the programme page here.
Jobs and Skills
To make sure that the UK is a world-leading digital economy that works for everyone, it is crucial that people have the digital skills needed for life and work. Rapid digitalisation is creating surging demand for digital skills across the economy and the current domestic skills pipeline cannot keep up. Digitalisation is also leading to rapid changes in the labour market that means some traditional roles are being displaced. There is an urgent need to better match the demand and supply.
The future of work is changing. Technology is powering a growth in flexible work across the economy, whilst emerging technologies such as robotics and AI are set to become common place. techUK believes the UK must consider the implications of digital transformation in the world of work now, equipping people and businesses across the country with the skills and conditions needed to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the 4IR.
Diversity and inclusion sits at the heart of digital growth. The tech sector understands that innovation thrives from diversity of thought and is continually looking to attract, recruit and retain a diverse workforce. techUK is proud to support a number of initiatives that promote this, from doing outreach work to ensure that people regardless of their background are inspired into tech, to initiatives that help build more inclusive workplaces for those with different accessibility needs.
Returners programmes offer a supported bridge back to work for people who have taken a career break. Providing ways for people to ease back into work after a career break is a vital way to make sure we do not lose out on their talent and experience. The techUK returners hub was created as a one-stop-shop for people looking to return to a career in digital.
Our members develop strong networks, build meaningful partnerships and grow their businesses as we all work together to create a thriving environment where industry, government and stakeholders come together to realise the positive outcomes tech can deliver.
Archie Breare joined techUK in September 2022 as the Telecoms Programme intern, and moved into the Policy and Public Affairs team in February 2023.
Before starting at techUK, Archie was a student at the University of Cambridge, completing an undergraduate degree in History and a master's degree in Modern British History.
In his spare time, he likes to read, discuss current affairs, and to try and persuade himself to cycle more.
Nimmi Patel is the Head of Skills, Talent and Diversity at techUK. She works on all things skills, education, and future of work policy, focusing on upskilling and retraining. Nimmi is also an Advisory Board member of Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (digit). The Centre research aims to increase understanding of how digital technologies are changing work and the implications for employers, workers, job seekers and governments.
Prior to joining the techUK team, she worked for the UK Labour Party and New Zealand Labour Party, and holds an MA in Strategic Communications at King’s College London and BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Manchester. She also took part in the 2024-25 University of Bath Institute for Policy Research Policy Fellowship Programme and is the Education and Skills Policy Co-lead for Labour in Communications.
