More than a third of employers in the UK have seen an increase in staff working from home compared with 2022, as the cost of living increases, according to a survey from the conciliation service Acas.
Working from home was a necessity during the pandemic lockdowns, but it is increasingly seen as a way to save money, as transport and food costs rise. Many people also took the opportunity to move further out of cities such as London for cheaper properties and now face a more expensive commute as employers ask them to return to the office.
In the Acas survey of more than 1,000 employers, more than one in seven said there had been a significant increase in their staff working from home.
"The cost-of-living pressures are impacting many people and it is unsurprising that over a third of employers have seen an increase in staff working from home," Acas chief executive Susan Clews said.
"For some workers the cost of commuting is eating into their budgets, while for others going to their workplaces saves on home energy costs.
"It's important for businesses to work with staff to agree suitable ways of working for specific roles, taking account of individual circumstances and regularly reviewing arrangements."
Acas said that home or hybrid working can help companies attract and retain staff who value the flexibility of having a choice whether to work from home or go into an office.
"Our new draft code encourages employers to take a positive approach to flexible working," Ms Clews added.
Procrastination yet productivity
A recent study by the printing company TonerGiant found that almost 20 per cent of homeworkers admitted to taking a short nap during working hours and a quarter indulge in some DIY or gardening.
But Stuart Deavall from TonerGiant said productivity tended not to be affected and that a balance of homeworking and going in to an office was desirable.
“Despite naturally having different behaviours when working from home instead of in the office, studies suggest that performance is not impacted," he said.
"There are many clear benefits of the hybrid model for staff too, with other reports indicating that workers adhering to this model are happier employees.”
This week, one of the symbols of homeworking during the pandemic years, the video-conferencing company Zoom, said it would be adopting "a structured hybrid approach".
Zoom has asked its employees who live within an 80km radius of its offices to work on site two days a week.
Home and hybrid working now seem entrenched in the post-pandemic world. Since January, the average weekly office occupancy rate in 10 major cities in the United States has hovered around 50 per cent, according to Kastle Systems, which uses entry-card swipes to calculate the number of staff in offices.
The view from The National
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
What are NFTs?
Are non-fungible tokens a currency, asset, or a licensing instrument? Arnab Das, global market strategist EMEA at Invesco, says they are mix of all of three.
You can buy, hold and use NFTs just like US dollars and Bitcoins. “They can appreciate in value and even produce cash flows.”
However, while money is fungible, NFTs are not. “One Bitcoin, dollar, euro or dirham is largely indistinguishable from the next. Nothing ties a dollar bill to a particular owner, for example. Nor does it tie you to to any goods, services or assets you bought with that currency. In contrast, NFTs confer specific ownership,” Mr Das says.
This makes NFTs closer to a piece of intellectual property such as a work of art or licence, as you can claim royalties or profit by exchanging it at a higher value later, Mr Das says. “They could provide a sustainable income stream.”
This income will depend on future demand and use, which makes NFTs difficult to value. “However, there is a credible use case for many forms of intellectual property, notably art, songs, videos,” Mr Das says.
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England Test squad
Joe Root (captain), Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow (wicketkeeper), Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler, Alastair Cook, Sam Curran, Keaton Jennings, Dawid Malan, Jamie Porter, Adil Rashid, Ben Stokes.
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Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, second leg
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Liverpool 2
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Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
