In an open letter to Matt Garman, chief executive of Amazon Web Services (AWS) division, 500 Amazon staff described the organisation’s return-to-the-office mandate as “non-data-driven”, the Telegraph reported on 31 October.
Employees referred to the move as “dismissing their humanity” and claimed that the company's decision was "silencing critical perspectives and damaging our culture and our future”.
To avoid employee blowback when introducing a return-to-the-office policy, HR should consult employee data beforehand, to understand why staff might want the option to work from home, according to Molly Johnson-Jones, CEO and co-founder of flexible working platform Flexa.
Speaking to HR magazine, she said: “Employers who are considering changing their flexible working policies should survey staff on their preferences around working set-ups. They should try to understand why employees want certain ways of working, not just what they want.
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“Using this information, employers can understand the true impact that returning to the office will have on staff. This enables informed decisions about what set up is truly best for team wellbeing, productivity and retention.
“If employers ultimately decide that returning to office-based work is the best option, they can help staff with the transition. For example, offer subsidised travel and childcare, or implement flexible hours so that parents can fit work around the school run.”
AWS staff claimed in the letter that groups such as older workers, working parents, carers and those who are neurodiverse would be "disproportionately impacted" by the return to office move.
In April, the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act granted UK employees the right to request flexible working from day one of employment.
Employers should trust employees to know what working arrangements best suit them, stated Becky Wallace, head of people at learning management technology company LearnUpon.
Wallace told HR magazine: “In conversations around return-to-the-office mandates, it comes down to trust in your staff. At the end of the day, employees know what works best for them and they’re not going to respond well to blanket mandates with no consultation,” she said.
“If organisations trust their staff and communicate clearly, it’s possible to have mature conversations around any concerns the business may have.”
She explained that creating more flexible working options has enabled collaboration at LearnUpon while also allowing employees to have flexibility.
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“At LearnUpon we have a flexible policy based around individual teams’ needs. Like most businesses post-Covid-19, we wanted to make sure that whatever decision we made around remote working did not impact collaboration. We worked together to find solutions to this challenge.
“We’ve introduced more opportunities to get together both in-person and virtually, to cater for everyone. The combination has been really effective at boosting employee engagement, as well as fostering relationships and creating a stronger sense of belonging across the company. This has been successful because we’ve taken feedback from the teams along the way.”
Regularly reviewing data around flexible working options can also help HR with recruitment, Johnson-Jones said.
She continued: “Examining wider data around what workers want from work can also be hugely helpful for recruitment. Employers can leverage this information to create working environments and cultures that match the preferences of the talent they wish to attract.
“For instance, our data at Flexa shows that over 60% of women in mid to senior positions want roles with regular office attendance, highlighting the value of offering hybrid working environments to attract hard to win talent.”
