It shouldn’t take coronavirus for big companies to encourage remote working

Shortly after waking up this morning, I ran through my usual morning routine. Bleary-eyed, I stumbled downstairs and tumbled to the kitchen. Falling short of pouring myself a cup of ambition, I opted instead for PG Tips. Like any other day, I scrolled through the headlines before hopping in the shower, getting dressed and heading off to work.

However, unlike any other day, my commute this morning didn’t include squeezing myself onto an overstuffed Southern Rail train for 20 minutes, followed by trying to be as small as possible on a delayed London Underground service. Instead, I walked across the hall to my study and started work a full hour earlier than usual.

As many people across the country are doing, my colleagues and I are trialling remote working in the event that our office needs to self-isolate during the coronavirus outbreak. We are well set up for the eventuality: as journalists, we often work remotely during holidays and check in during breaking news events. But beyond the media, many companies are quickly realising they already have the infrastructure in place required to make remote working work.

Thanks to coronavirus our working culture has moved into sharp focus. The latest outbreak has highlighted the precariousness of the gig economy (which now accounts for 4.7 million workers) and the uncertainty of zero-hour contracts. It has also exposed the inequality of how people working on the lowest salaries must choose between paying their rent or risking the health of those around them because they aren’t entitled to sick pay.

When it comes to industries where remote working is not only manageable but entirely feasible, new trials of remote working in the event of self-isolation have caused many to question: what’s taken so long? Why did we have to wait until a deadly virus outbreak to let employees work remotely?

Last year’s wellbeing at work survey conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that presenteeism – working longer hours than necessary or coming into work when you aren’t well – has more than tripled since 2010. So, is it any wonder that so many people are suffering from burnout?

This year, the World Health Organisation listed burnout as an official condition. The organisation defined it as “a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”.

But we know that for many people working office jobs, this sort of boom and bust working mentality is entirely unnecessary. Not only is it unproductive to drag yourself into work when you’re unwell, but now we’ve seen just how easily viruses can spread when you’re sitting cheek by jowl with colleagues in open-plan workspaces.

Aside from sickness, working from home is vital for many parents who are trying to juggle school pick up times or school holidays with their day jobs. With childcare unaffordable for many, women are the ones who end up reducing their working hours or are forced to quit their jobs to accommodate their family life. Mothers working part-time or at reduced hours is a direct cause of the gender pay gap. If flexible or remote working was the norm, the pay gap could narrow significantly.

Even the seemingly small but niggling bits of life admin are made easier if people can work remotely: waiting in for a parcel, dealing with broken boilers, doing that extra load of washing in your lunchbreak. It brings us closer to that ever-elusive work/life balance. The average commute in the UK is 59 minutes, imagine what people could do with that time instead? A recent survey conducted by the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed revealed that half of freelancers cited increased flexibility as the primary advantage to their roles.

It’s also good business sense to encourage remote working for employees a few times a week: overheads are reduced, less energy is expended, and employee wellbeing would improve.

During the coronavirus outbreak, the hashtag #remoteworking has been trending on Twitter, with many people extolling the virtues of not having to battle hideous commutes, of being able to gain extra time at the end of their day, of feeling more productive. Dr Tim Gregory from Bristol University tweeted that “When Cambridge University temporarily shut down in 1665 because of the bubonic plague, Isaac Newton invented calculus and devised his law of gravitation while working from home”. Those who aren’t world-class physicists and astronomers can be inspired by Professor Robert Kelly, who displayed his remote working resilience in his now infamous Skype conversation with BBC News, which went viral when his children interrupted him.

There are obvious nationwide advantages to offices operating remote working days, too. It would certainly reduce the strain on the UK’s already bursting-at-the-seams infrastructure. While the government scratches its head about the Northern Powerhouse and creating a less London-centric society by throwing more and more money at flailing high speed rail schemes, instead they should be incentivising companies to employ people who don’t live near the office for roles that don’t require being physically present every day.

It’s absurd that people are geographically cut out of many sectors because they can’t afford the eye-watering London rents or overpriced and unreliable trains, that disabled workers can’t get into offices and that people with mental health concerns or chronic illness or who are carers have to be held back in their careers when as a society we’re more connected than ever. We are able to conduct a conference over Skype, an interview over Face Time, edit documents over Google Docs, be in constant contact via instant messenger services like Slack and Google Hangouts, so why are we only using these systems to speak to our colleagues sitting next to us?

The lack of remote working opportunities in most roles is reflective of a general distrust among employers. Studies have shown that people who work remotely are passed up for promotions, despite actually working longer hours and being more productive than those in the office. Do we really want to continue peddling this miserably Orwellian mindset?

Remote working isn’t possible in all sectors – and mental and physical health issues such as loneliness and lack of movement should be considered: we don’t want to self-isolate forever. But one of the lessons that we should learn from the coronavirus outbreak is that adaptation is key. Flexibility is an asset that we shouldn’t waste, for the health and wellbeing of both individuals and the nation.