Summary

• In the first week of September 2020, Boris Johnson is likely to launch a public campaign to get the Britons to return to their workplaces.
• The campaign is a result of the fears raised by some ministers that working from home would make employees increasingly susceptible to being fired.
• Rishi Sunak has been concerned about more job losses in the country, besides the financial burden of operating near-empty public trains and buses.
• The decreased footfall in high street and city centres is a concern for small businesses that rely on the trades generated by the office goers.

The coronavirus pandemic is rapidly changing the way people and governments look at many things. In the ongoing fight against the pandemic, the larger focus of the government now rests at a greater balance between life and livelihoods. After months of easing the lockdown restriction, in the first week of September 2020, Boris Johnson, the UK’s Prime Minister (PM) would launch a public campaign to get the Britons to return to their workplaces. The planned movement is a result of the fear raised by some ministers that working from home would make employees increasingly susceptible to being fired.

The drive by the PM would praise the merits of returning to the office, besides offering the encouragement that British offices are safe during the coronavirus pandemic. Reportedly, the government sources have stated that the campaign would have three main messages. The PM’s campaign would show the Britishers that the workplace is a safe place to return to by stressing on the aspects of social benefits and emotional angle for returning to the office. In addition, the drive would motivate the Britons to plan how they could return to office by being confident about rejoining the workplace.

It is to be noted that Rishi Sunak, the UK’s Chancellor of Exchequer has been concerned about further job losses in the country, in addition to the financial burden of operating near-empty public transport, including trains and buses.

Lots of measures are being implemented to encourage the commuters, to help them follow social distancing norms, the national rail’s “Alert Me” app would provide up-to-the-minute information about which trains are busy. The train operators stated a couple of day’s back that they are increasing their services to normal levels with capacities to reach above 90 per cent in the second week of September 2020. The train operators would do this to accommodate the increase in the number of commuters because of schools reopening and parents rejoining offices.

According to one of the cabinet ministers, besides the economic factors, the government’s efforts are also driven by the mental health aspect of some workers. The shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic would have some cost attached to it. The companies would understand that some of their workforces was not as dedicated as they had thought, necessitating a review on productivity. After reopening of the schools, the government would now focus on getting people back to their workplaces, informed another minister.

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It is to be recalled that in July 2020, Johnson encouraged the Britishers working from home to rejoin their workplaces in order to help the UK economy recover from around 20 per cent contraction registered for April-June 2020 period. This decline was the largest among big developed economies of the world. In mid-August, the footfall in high streets, retail parks, and shopping centres was 70 per cent of the 2019 levels, according to a recent estimate by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). By early August 2020, only 17 per cent of the British workforce returned to their workplaces, as per the statistics from the Centre for Cities, an independent, non-partisan think tank involved in understanding and improving the economies of the UK's largest cities and towns. The data from the think tank based on mobile phone signals presented no rise in the footfall of workers travelling to city centres between late June 2020 and the week starting 3 August 2020.

These figures highlighted the importance of the challenge that the UK government is facing in addition to the desperation for getting the Britishers back to work, which is likely to increase the spending in towns and cities. Highlighting the costs of office closures, The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) stressed that the empty city centres during the pandemic have made the local businesses, jobs, and communities suffer.

What do the companies think about staff returning to the office?

Many companies are still giving priority to the health of their staff. WPP Plc (LON:WPP), multinational communications, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding company with headquarters in London, was expecting that the numbers of its staff members rejoining the office would rise as more offices are reopened. However, the media firm underlined the fact that health and safety remained the priority. WPP informed that only 3 per cent of their workforce in the UK regularly reported to the office after the lockdown restriction was lifted. The company that employs around 10,000 people in the UK has taken a guarded approach to health and safety while encouraging work from home system.

WPP stated that though it understands that many of the small businesses are dependent on office goers for their trading prospects, it is important to provide the necessary confidence to the workers on safety front so that more people rejoin offices. Stressing that it would be more flexible in its approach, it did not believe that it would be sustainable in the long-term to see 99 per cent of the people working from home. However, the media company also felt that it does not consider the same number of workforce rejoining office.

Also read: Work from Home and Changing dynamics of the Banking landscape

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Also read: Companies Spend Millions Of PoundsTo Make Offices Safe For Employees

On the other hand, in Germany, WPP has witnessed around 17 per cent of staff returning to the office. In its other locations like the United States (US) where the headcount is around 19,000, people working from office remained at one per cent. All of the 8,000 staff at WPP’s India office are still working remotely. The guidelines at WPP have limited office capacities at 20 per cent. With the improvement in health and safety measures, the capacity could be raised to 30 per cent in coming times. The company has made it voluntary for employees to rejoin office. Most of the staff who is working from office are generally the younger team members with difficulties in remote working mainly due to lack of space at their homes. Many other companies have kept it voluntary for the staff to rejoin office.

Conclusion

Amid the government’s various efforts to revive the economy, the persistent fear of contagion is restricting people to come out of their homes and meaningfully engage in economic activities, including returning to the workplace. The decreased footfall in high street and city centres is a big concern for small businesses that rely on the trades generated by the office goers. While the spending by office goers helping the small businesses to an extent cannot be denied completely, it is unlikely that their survival and profit would depend only on the trade generated by this crowd during the pandemic. It is important to bring in more support measures and other schemes to increase customer demand. The technological intervention by the rail network on social distancing seems to be an effort in the right direction; it cannot be a safeguard from the coronavirus infection. Given the health advisory on social distancing from the health experts, many companies have made it voluntary for the employees to start working from the office and are planning to slowly increase their office capacities. It remains to be seen how the PM’s campaign to bring back the Britons to their workplace would unfold and the outcome that it would generate.