Work from home battle raging again but it’s employees who are left torn and confused

As the government rails against presenteeism, Amazon is ordering people back into the office. With the ideological battle fiercer than ever, who will emerge victorious, asks Helen Coffey

Labour is promising employees the right to flexible working (Getty Images)

Nearly five years on from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are still, somehow, having the same tired yet vehement debate about working from home – albeit with the arguments coming from unexpected camps.

This week, it’s the government vs big business in the WFH showdown. In the red corner, Amazon: the corporate behemoth announced that workers must return to the office full-time, five days a week. In the blue corner, the Labour Party: Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, has vowed to end the “culture of presenteeism”, arguing that a default right to flexible working makes employees more loyal, plus “motivated and resilient”.

“It does contribute to productivity, it does contribute to [staff] resilience, their ability to stay working for an employer,” Reynolds told The Times. “Good employers understand that their workforce, to keep them motivated and resilient, they do need to judge people on outcomes and not a culture of presenteeism.”

It’s part of a new package of measures and legislation currently being drawn up, described by prime minister Keir Starmer as the biggest overhaul of workers’ rights in a generation. Committed to hitting a deadline of introducing these within 100 days of Labour getting into power, Reynolds nevertheless said implementation may take slightly more time to “get the detail right”.

“Flexible working” in this context doesn’t just mean working from home, either; it could mean allowing people to do compressed hours or school-term-only shifts to better suit their extracurricular commitments or caring responsibilities. It comes alongside the much-talked-of legislation that would give workers the right to “switch off” and not be contacted by their employer outside of office hours.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s revised stance comes into force in the new year, with management acknowledging that many employees will have “set up their personal lives in such a way that returning to the office consistently five days per week will require some adjustments” (No s***!). Hot desking is being abolished; workers will go from having to come in a minimum of three days a week to five, barring a very specific set of circumstances (sickness, a house emergency, business travel, coding that needs total focus to complete…). Amazon’s argument is that teams being in the same building is better for collaboration, learning and “company culture”.

It is a strange turning of the tables. There was a time when start-ups and tech companies were the forward-thinkers pushing for greater flexibility, trailblazers for a different kind of business model whereby success was measured by output and outcomes, not how many hours you spent chained to a desk. The same gang that became renowned for their “we’re so fun and off-the-wall” approach – with their in-office ball pits and games rooms and free smoothies – have oddly morphed into the hard-liners when it comes to working from home.

Amazon is mandating that all workers return to the office full time (Getty Images)

In addition to Amazon, Facebook and Instagram-owning Meta stopped offering remote working in its job adverts in 2023, as well as introducing an “in-person time policy” stipulating that all employees were mandated to be back in the office at least three days a week to crack down on home-working. Ever the early adopter, Elon Musk effectively ended home working at X, formerly Twitter, in 2022 by demanding workers be in the office for at least 40 hours a week (he later had to relax the policy following “hardcore backlash”). Though more generous on flexibility, Zoom is the funniest example. The video conferencing tool pivotal in enabling many companies to adopt remote working during the pandemic mandated last year that all employees must work “in person” a minimum of two days a week.

Other companies in the UK that have been rolling back WFH in favour of RTO (return to office) in the last couple of years include Boots, Manchester United and Dell, all of whom now require admin staff to be in the office full-time. Dell even warned staff that they could miss out on promotions or pay rises unless they comply.

The new Labour policies currently being shaped are not only at odds with these business practices but with the previous government’s consistently negative line on home working. Reynolds called former Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg’s “war” on people working from home “bizarre”, as he championed instead the “real economic benefits” of flexible working.

Stuck in between these two radically different approaches is the confused employee

Of course, stuck in between these two radically different approaches is the confused employee. On the one hand, they are being told by the people who pay them that they must rearrange their entire lives – lives that have, in many cases, been delicately honed over the past four years to offer a far better work-life balance, whether it means easier school runs, more time for hobbies or simply being able to fit in another mid-week load of laundry – and get back to the office or else. On the other, those leading the country are forging ahead and proposing something far more revolutionary and, in many quarters, welcome. But will Labour be able to implement this in workplaces where management is still hell-bent on presenteeism? Who will win in the battle between flexibility and rigidity?

As someone who used the opportunities afforded by remote working to finally realise a lifelong dream of moving from the city to the seaside, I know that anything that protects my right to only be physically in the office a couple of days a week is not only good but essential. Being forced to suddenly return to a full-time office-based role would completely change my life for the worse, not only adding a nearly four-hour round-trip commute to my day but bankrupting me in the process thanks to extortionately priced peak train fares.

The new Employment Rights Bill will include flexible working as a default right, but surely exercising this right in an environment where it’s not respected (I’m looking at you, Bezos) will be incredibly challenging for workers. It could even – quietly, insidiously, behind the scenes – damage their prospects and hinder their chances of career progression.

Even Zoom has tightened up its working from home policy (Getty Images)

Reynolds has already alluded to the fact that businesses won’t be forced to offer remote working opportunities. “There are times when it is absolutely necessary, it’s legitimate to need the workforce in the office,” he said. “We want the default to be that people have access to flexible working, but that doesn’t mean that everyone will just work from home.” He added, tellingly, that Labour would not “compel every workforce” to allow working from home: “There is genuinely nothing to worry about for any business in this area.”

My dearest hope would be that the government emerges victorious in the fight to secure greater flexibility for employees. But until the gloves come off, I fear the rest of us may just have to roll with the punches for a longer while yet.