A new survey has suggested that many employers have been shown that employees can be trusted to work from home without micro-management.
Chris O'Reilly of Ask Your Team this morning told Breakfast that his organisation had undertaken a survey of more than 26,000 respondents from just under 100 companies on the topic of working from home during the Covid-19 lockdown period.
Among the key findings, he said, was that many employers had discovered that they don't need to micro-manage every aspect of their employees' work days to achieve productivity.
"We've been trusted through Level 4, we've been trusted to follow those lockdown rules, and what we've seen form this is that we can be trusted to work from home and we can be trusted without having to be micro-managed," Mr O'Reilly said.
Another positive to come out of more widespread working from home was a realisation of just how important communication can be to a successful operation.
"I think that this crisis has actually a silver ling - it's reminded bosses, reminded leaders just how important communication is - we're not assuming as leaders that we've got all the answers," Mr O'Reilly said.
Workers at home were also getting more time to spend with their families, he said, and overall, the widespread adopting of working from home "is going to change the way that we work."
"A lot of people are going to consider working at home, if not permanently, more often," he said.
"A lot more clarity is coming from our leaders and that's allowing us to be more productive.
"Productivity and performance in the workplace is just about giving clear directions for people and then supporting them."
Flexibility was also highlighted, Mr O'Reilly said, with a "one size fits all" approach no longer being seen as the default approach.
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