What will the post-pandemic workplace look like? Will we see a permanent shift towards homeworking or a return to more traditional working patterns? The answers to these questions matter for everyone, but they have special importance for young people.
It goes without saying that young people have the largest stake in the future of work. And as someone who would likely be classed as a young person, I am concerned about the impact of remote working on my cohort. The transition to homeworking has been hardest for younger workers: a Deloitte survey earlier this year revealed that 58 per cent of 16- to 34-year-olds find working from home challenging, compared to an average of 44 per cent for all homeworkers. I started my first full-time job during the pandemic and have found working from home difficult for various reasons, despite the considerable efforts my company has made to support staff.
As one example, picking up new skills has been much harder outside of an office environment. Conservative MPs David Johnston and Claire Coutinho highlighted this issue in a recent op-ed in City AM, arguing that young people are missing out on the “informal learning that comes from watching senior colleagues do their jobs.” It’s true that observation plays a fundamental role in skills development, from something as basic as learning the appropriate telephone manner to more complicated things like handling workplace conflict.
Asking the right questions is also crucial when getting to grips with a new role. As much as possible through the pandemic, my company has met in person as a full team once a week. This has been a valuable opportunity to ask the questions that feel too informal for email but are nonetheless important to the effective performance of my role. More workplaces should consider introducing such a system while homeworking remains their usual expectation.
This in-person time has also enabled me to build stronger relationships with the people I work with. As research from the Royal Society for Public Health shows, working from home has exacerbated feelings of isolation from colleagues. Undoubtedly, this will have most impacted those starting new jobs during the pandemic—many of whom will have been younger workers—as they will not have had existing networks to rely on. Chatting to friends about homeworking, this was a key theme that emerged: the importance of the office to forming not just working relationships, but lasting friendships.
A further area of concern is the impact of working from home on young people’s mental health. The RSPH’s research revealed that 18- to 34-year-olds were the only age group that felt working from home had been worse for their health and wellbeing than more traditional styles of working. Unsurprisingly, it found that people working from a bedroom or on a sofa were more likely to feel isolated than those working in a dedicated home office, another issue which will have disproportionately impacted younger workers.
Working in your bedroom has obvious drawbacks. I have personally found it much harder to switch off, as there is little to demarcate the end of the working day. Friends highlighted similar concerns about the loss of physical separation between home and work and the ease of overstretching yourself when you are effectively always on the job.
Evidence suggests this has been an issue for many homeworkers but especially for young people. The ADP Research Institute’s People at Work 2021 study found that the average amount of unpaid overtime completed by each UK worker increased to eight hours per week during the pandemic. For 18- to 24-years-olds, the average was 9.35 hours.
Learning from observation is key here too. Whether it’s taking coffee breaks during the day or logging off at an appropriate time, striking a healthy work-life balance is much easier when you are able to follow the example of someone more senior. A friend who also started a new job mid-pandemic highlighted their uncertainty about taking breaks and their fear of missing something important when away from their desk, something I have also experienced.
This is not a case against homeworking. A more flexible approach to the way we work has the potential to be a great leveller, particularly for working mothers and people with disabilities and long-term health conditions. There are also many benefits for younger people, from saving money on commuting to—in theory—extra time for sleep, exercise and socialising.
Instead, this is an argument in favour of a wide-ranging conversation on the future of work, in which the experiences of all groups, including the young, are given due consideration.
And this conversation needs to happen soon. With the vaccination rate creeping up—roughly 75 per cent of over-16s have now had two doses—the questions posed here are becoming rapidly less hypothetical.
When making decisions about future working patterns, employers must ensure that everyone within the workplace is consulted and that the pros and cons of each option are fully evaluated. Only then will it be possible to establish a sustainable post-pandemic working settlement.
