A UK company says it is good if its employees want to work exclusively from home … as long as they are willing to accept a 20% pay cut.
Some employees at Stephenson Harwood LLP, a London-based law firm, have been told that applications for work from home after a pandemic will come with significant pay cuts, according to The Guardian.
According to the newspaper, the new salary rules come for existing employees who want a remote full-time position. Staff now have the opportunity to work from home two days a week as part of the company’s hybrid work policy.
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An employee of the firm told Law.com that during the pandemic, Stevenson Harwood hired lawyers who were based elsewhere in the UK for resource reasons. These people, according to the source, were hired at a lower salary than employees in London, as they did not have to struggle with the cost of travel to London.
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“Like so many companies, we see value in being together regularly in the office, while being able to offer our employees flexibility,” a company spokesman told the legal website Legalcheek.com. “For most of our people – and the candidates we talk to – our hybrid work policy works well.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been much debate about the pros and cons of working from home.
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Some say they are more productive at home and like the lack of commuting, which allows them to start earlier and stay later.
Others struggle to stay focused in the home office and miss personal interactions with colleagues.
Stevenson Harwood told BBC News that in the future they will continue to offer the option of working from home to new employees, but those who accept it will be offered less pay.
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The company told the BBC that it did not expect many people to choose full-time telecommuting.
Read more: Traditional jobs move to modified arrangements after COVID-19 pandemic
Global News spoke with a number of employment professionals earlier this year, who said many employees were looking for more flexible working conditions since the COVID-19 pandemic forced employees to stay home.
Jim Stanford, an economist and director of the Center for Future Work, told Global News that a third of Canadians who were forced into a home office when the pandemic struck accepted the change.
“It was great for them,” Stanford said.
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“They could keep their jobs, they could keep their income, they didn’t have to go out and bravely get COVID at work or on the work bus or whatever.”
Dean Jesuvant, vice president of Hays Specialist Recruitment, told Global News that there is a general perception of the hybrid model’s work style, with most companies finding a slight decline in productivity and in some cases a more productive work environment.
However, the hybrid model is not without challenges.
Read more: Workplace culture needs to adapt when employees return to the office
“I think one thing to note, but factors like culture and cooperation, 60 percent of Canadian employees across the board say morale and corporate culture are a huge challenge in a remote environment,” Jesuvant said.
An Amazon business survey for 2021-22, published earlier this year, found that 43% of workers would look for a new job if they were authorized to work full-time from the office.
Of the 1,600 respondents, 55% said they were less likely to accept a new job if they were required to work full-time from the office.
Only 12% are for full-time physical work on site.
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– with files from Don Mitchell from Global News
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