Are we about to see the end of the great remote working experiment?

Are we about to see the end of the great remote working experiment? With a tech and service-heavy economy, as a nation we took to it with gusto, but now enthusiasm for benefits such as increased productivity has turned to fears of weakened cybersecurity, worker isolation and decreased collaboration. Many of the world’s leading employers have already either directly mandated a return to the office or put in place new conditions that make the office the more attractive working location.

Chief executives of some of the world’s largest and best-known companies have berated remote working, accusing it of killing creativity and collaboration. John Donahue of Nike bemoaned that “it’s really hard to do bold, disruptive innovation” while Nicolas Hieronimus of L’Oréal claimed remote workers lacked passion and creativity.

Are we about to see the end of the great remote working experiment? The experts and the statistics are still on its side … for now.

Caroline Reidy, managing director of The HR Suite, sees the continued evolution of remote and hybrid teams as a new management challenge; more and more organisations are coming to her looking for training in how to manage remote teams.

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“People have really started to invest in upskilling and training their managers on how to manage in a hybrid world,” she says.

While some managers excelled at managing in the office and others aced it when everyone was at home, the hybrid world is presenting a new test of their skills.

“We’re training managers to help them give feedback, manage communication, engage their employees, cascade the culture ...”

Reidy doesn’t see remote and hybrid working coming off the table any time soon: “Organisations are still going to keep it on their strategic agenda and I do think it’s something that is here to stay in organisations that can facilitate it.”

When companies come to her to recruit staff, her advice is to offer remote and hybrid roles to entice the best talent. “Otherwise, you will lose your competitive advantage around attraction and retention,” she says.

According to Grow Remote, we’re currently seeing a boom in remote jobs, with the greatest number on offer since the height of the pandemic. Graham Harron, impact and data lead with Grow Remote, says the latest figures show 15 per cent of all jobs posted on LinkedIn are offering fully remote work.

“Through our work we’ve been keeping a regular and a keen eye on the absolute number of jobs and the percentage of those jobs that are fully remote and there’s been a very clear increase in Q2 versus Q1 and also versus last year,” says Harron.

Jorge Cabrita, a senior researcher with Eurofound, has also seen positive numbers around remote work continue since the pandemic. “According to the [EU] Labour Force Survey from Eurostat, Ireland was the country where remote work increased the most,” he says. Figures shot up from 15 per cent of employees doing remote work in 2019, to a high of 38 per cent which, in 2023, had only dropped to 33 per cent (taking into account both remote and hybrid workers).

A report published by Eurofound in April on The Future of Telework and Hybrid Work also highlights the importance of new management styles and training for line managers.

“What we see is that every single organisation which contains people with tele-workable jobs will have to revise their management practices,” says Cabrita.

Eurofound’s report concluded that it is also critical for social partners and policymakers to consider a range of issues when designing a positive future for telework and hybrid work. However, Cabrita notes that, particularly compared to some European neighbours, social dialogue and collective bargaining in the State are not as strong as they once were.

“At the moment, you have the codes of practice and what happens is it’s left to the employees and employers to agree between them how to implement this,” he explains. “The problem with the code of practice is it’s a recommendation; it’s not mandatory.”

While all workers will have the right to request remote working under new legislation, asking does not necessarily mean getting; employers will be able to turn down requests, giving reasons.

Although in recent years employees had the upper hand, as companies have been struggling to attract and retain talent, the fact that the State is technically in a recession could see the power balance begin to swing back towards employers. Yet as long as workers hold some power of choice they will be loath to let go of their valued flexible work arrangements.

Under the new provisions all employees will have a legal right to request remote working after six months’ continuous service; the request must be submitted at least eight weeks in advance of the date proposed to begin working remotely. Employers are obliged to respond within four weeks (which can be extended if they are struggling to decide whether or not the request is viable) and, if a request is refused, to give reasons. They also have the right to end the arrangement if it is having a substantially negative effect on the business.

Lorraine Parkes, senior employer relations executive with Ibec, says the business representative group and its members have welcomed the “long- awaited” Workplace Relations Commission Code of Practice, which was published in March.

“In a nutshell, it provides guidance for employees on how to substantiate requests for remote or flexible working and for employers in considering whether or not the requested arrangements will be suitable and feasible,” she adds.

Ibec’s research also chimes with the consensus that remote and hybrid working arrangements remain strategically important, and it has developed a toolkit to support employers, available on its website.

“More than two-thirds of respondents to a survey of senior HR leaders conducted by Ibec last year placed particular emphasis on offering hybrid and remote working, where feasible, as part of their talent attraction and retention strategies,” says Parkes.

For the moment, it looks like remote and hybrid work is here to stay, and organisations need to continue honing their policies and training around it.