Irish Examiner view: Will there be any 'back to normal' in the workplace?

As Covid-19 is put back into its box, or so we hope, and demand increases to get society going again, it is inevitable that a primary focus will fall upon the workplace. That is, after all, where an overwhelming majority of people earned their money during the “old normal”.

What has become increasingly apparent during the Pandemic Years is that there is not universal affection for the daily rites of going into the office, nor unconfined joy at the prospect of returning now.

There may be countless reasons for this. Sacrificing 10-12 hours per day (once travel time is included) is a heavy burden on personal and family life. Commuting can also be an unsatisfactory contribution to making us a more environmentally aware society. Companies are frequently hierarchical and poor at maximising individual responsibility and discretion over use of time. Working with colleagues is not always an entirely unalloyed pleasure.

Yet people should think hard about the fusion of home and office, not least because, despite the assertion from Tánaiste Leo Varadkar that his new bill will give clarity to workers, it actually does no such thing.

While the proposed legislation offers individuals “the right” to ask for flexible or home-working, there is a significant, and untested, tranche of reasons, 13 in all, why this can be refused. Some have those deliciously vague definitions beloved of people working in employee and industrial relations.

Structural changes

You can be rejected if there is a “potential negative impact” on “quality of work”, or a “potential negative impact” on “performance”; or because of “planned structural changes” (is there likely to be any company emerging from two years of lockdown not contemplating “structural changes”).

There are further caveats relating to additional cost; business confidentiality; data protection; health and safety; intellectual property. And, of course, the robustness of your internet connection and virus protection.

All the requirements are there to turn the dining room tables in the homes of ordinary citizens into a district office of corporate PLC, with all the scrutiny, responsibilities, and requirements which attend upon that.

While working from home has been a great novelty during the “we are all in it together” experience, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that political and management enthusiasm for hard-wiring it into mainstream business practice has at least as much to do with city-centre congestion, soaring rental costs, and cramped offices as it does with liberating the worker.

People will have reached their own conclusions about the effectiveness of working across digital collaborative platforms such as Zoom and Teams and whether this has increased levels of engagement and efficiency. 

It used to be said that up to 95% of communication was non-verbal, but one of the great multi-screen attributes since 2020 has been the ability to display a poker face.

Before corporations, and individuals make lasting decisions about future forms of working, they need to rejoin the collective enterprise, and not in a virtual way. The root of the word ‘company’ is Latin, ‘cum panis’, or breaking bread together. In displaying synergy and co-operation, individuals are able to share mutual rewards. Meeting regularly, or even daily, should not be lightly discarded just because it appears to be more convenient and politically attractive.