Working from Home under
COVID-19 lockdown:
Transitions and Tensions
January 2021

3

About Work After Lockdown

6

Lessons from Lockdown One

8

Working from Home under lockdown

10

Transitioning to Working from Home

15

Health and well-being under lockdown

20

Future preferences for work after lockdown

22

Conclusions

23

AppendicesWorking from Home under COVID-19 lockdown:
Transitions and Tensions – January 2021
Please cite as: Parry, J., Young, Z., Bevan, S., Veliziotis, M., Baruch, Y., Beigi, M., Bajorek, Z., Salter, E. and Tochia,
C. (2021) Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and tensions, Work after Lockdown.
Authors:
Dr Zofia Bajorek,
Research Fellow, Institutefor Employment Studies

Prof. Stephen Bevan,
Director of HRM Research,Institute for Employment Studies

Prof. Yehuda Baruch,
Professor of Management,
University of Southampton

Dr Jane Parry,
Lecturer and Director of
Research for HRM andOrganisational Behaviour,
University of Southampton

Dr. Mina Beigi,
Associate Professor of
Organisational Behaviour,
University of Southampton

Dr Emma Salter,
Researcher, Half the Sky

For more information on this report contact:
Jane Parry,
Work After Lockdown Principal Investigator,
University of Southampton
j.parry@soton.ac.uk

Chira Tochia,
Researcher at Centre for Researchon Work and Organisations,
University of Southampton
Dr Michail Veliziotis,
Associate Professor of HRM,
University of Southampton
Dr Zoe Young,
Consulting Sociologist andDirector, Half the Sky

About Work After Lockdown

About Work
After Lockdown
Work After Lockdown is a major research project funded by
the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), as part of
UK Research & Innovation’s rapid response to Covid-19. Our
research examines how enforced working from home in the
UK is changing how people want to work in the future andhow organisations respond.
An innovative research partnershipWork After Lockdown is an innovative research
partnership of academic and applied researchers
from the university, commercial, and social sectors
specialising in human resource management, andorganisational behaviour. The project is led by
the Department of Organisational Behaviour andHuman Resource Management at Southampton
Business School (University of Southampton), in
collaboration with the Institute for Employment
Studies and work design specialists, Half the Sky.

Work After Lockdown is a major research
project funded by the Economic & Social
Research Council investigating how working
from home under Covid-19 lockdown will
impact how the UK will work in the future

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

3

About Work After Lockdown

About this report

Focus sectors

The project has completed the first wave of its
research, relating to the period of rapid change
during the lockdown of March-July 2020. This
report presents insights from this first wave ofdata collection and summarises the learnings andimplications for employers and policy-makers.

Our focus is on the working from home transition,
experience, and outcomes in two industry sectors:
Professional, Scientific & Technical (PST) andPublic Administration & Defence (PAD), together
representing 1 in 7 of all UK jobs, which we
examine at individual and organisational levels.

The themes explored in the report relate to
managing change; employee health, well-being,
performance and productivity; working effectively
from home; learning and development; and future
demand for hybrid and flexible working.

These sectors are interesting because PST has
a much higher percentage of white-collar, deskbased occupations relative to the rest of the UK
economy, and PAD has a high proportion of key
worker roles in the workforce for whom exclusive
working-from-home is not an option.

The analysis draws upon three sources of datacollected between July and December 2020:
analysis of the national dataset Understanding
Society COVID-19 Survey;
1,035 survey responses to our online worker
well-being survey among employees working
from home in jobs that were more office-basedprior to the pandemic;
38 in-depth interviews with leaders,managers, and colleagues without
management responsibilities in four case study
organisations, selected to cover a range of
geographical working experiences across theUK, as well as different organisational forms.
Verbatim quotes from interviews are usedthroughout the report.

The Work After Lockdown
research continues
throughout 2021. Future
insight reports and webinars
will report on the national
worker well-being survey
and case study interviews in
July and December 2021
4

Our case study organisations are two local
authorities operating in England and Wales,
and two large law firms with offices across the
UK. In focusing on these sectors and types oforganisation our findings have wider application
to all jobs that were formerly office-based, and toorganisations managing both mono and hybrid
working patterns across a workforce.

A longitudinal approach
Work After Lockdown explores the experience,
impact and outcomes of pandemic-driven working
from home at both individual and organisational
levels. The project employs survey and interview
methods along with analysis of national datasets
over an 18-month period (July 2020 – December2021). See Appendix A for methodology.
The lasting impacts of pandemic-driven working
from home can only be discovered with time.
The Work After Lockdown project will repeat theworker well-being online survey of employees in
our two focus sectors, and will continue to follow
the experiences and adaptations of four case study
organisations throughout 2021.
Future insight reports and webinars on second andfinal waves of data collection are scheduled for July
2021 and December 2021.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

About Work After Lockdown

Two local authorities inEngland and Wales, andtwo large professional
services firms in thelegal sector with offices
across the UK are
participating in Work
After Lockdown as casestudy organisations.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

5

Lessons from Lockdown One

Lessons fromLockdown One
As people and organisations across the UK navigate a third
period of national lockdown in January 2021, our researchoffers three main learnings from the first, with an intention to steer
employers towards priority actions that will support employees
and enhance performance.

Well-being matters

Social deficit and hybrid working

Productivity under lockdown is good. Nine in ten(88.4%) employees feeling they had got at least
as much, if not more, work done at home as in
the office. Maintaining this during the pandemic
takes its toll, with employees’ responses onmental health and well-being ranking low – at
47 out of 100 - measured against the World
Health Organisation WHO-5 global standard.

Many people expressed a strong need forconnection and social support. Few missthe regular travel to work. Many miss theworkplace as a source of social interaction –those opportunities to contribute new ideas,learn from others and feel connected to theorganisation. Digital communication has not beenan adequate substitute for these interactions
that enrich working life. No organisational
effort to help employees compensate forthis social deficit is likely to be wasted.

Key determinants of better mental health are
working to contracted hours, satisfaction withwork/life balance and frequent contact with line
manager. These were not universally achieved.
Parents, carers and managers put in more hours,
struggled with collapsed home/work boundaries,
and felt under pressure. Poor workforce health andwell-being threatens business continuity. Relianceon individuals ‘coping’ is not a sustainable strategy
to maintain productivity. Well-being - physical,
mental and emotional health - should be prioritisedfor organisational stability and performance.
Workers have proved they are highly adaptablein these unusual times. Employer focus is now
needed on well-being to support people andsustain performance.

6

Missed social contact could partly lie behind theclear preference expressed by the majority to
combine office with working from home in the
future. Seven in ten (73%) employees wishedto adopt a hybrid work arrangement - blending
working from home with the communalityof the office - and to retain the flexibility andcontrol over their working pattern from which
they have benefited under lockdown.
Strong workforce demand for hybrid working
requires employers to re-engage with flexible
working and consider how to design jobs andworkspaces for the future.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

Lessons from Lockdown One

Pivotal role of the line manager
There is a key role to be played by line managers
in not just sustaining employees during lockdown
but also helping them flourish. Only a minority ofline managers have received any guidance on
how to co-ordinate the different working patterns
necessitated by lockdown or how to manage
geographically-dispersed teams.
Many embraced the challenges of the rapid
move into the first lockdown. They madeimmense efforts supporting their colleagues
practically and emotionally. This was often
invisible, yet time-consuming, work and no
adjustments were made to their workload.
On the downside, working from home has
exposed managers who lack empathy, have limited
interpersonal skills, or are not suited to the complex
demands of people management. Organisational
stability and future growth will be assisted byreviewing managers’ suitability for the task, and by
developing training curricula that strengthen the
new people management competencies the future
shape of work demands.
Employers must look after their line
managers. Developing training thatstrengthens the new people management
skills this shape of work demands is vitalfor resilience, continuity and growth.

Recommendations for employers
on well-being interventions
1 Focusand practical adjustments toworkloads and working practices
that remove burdens, ease intensity,and promote work-life balancewith flexible working
2 Re-engage
for the existing workforce, andreview the implications forrecruitment policy and practicewhat a hybrid working pattern
3 Define
looks like in every job role anddevelop approaches to managing
hybrid working in practicestandards for good line
4 Develop
management. Emphasise the social
and interpersonal skills needed tosupport, motivate and engage people
through changing circumstances
training that strengthens
5 Providethe management skills andcapabilities that a future of hybrid
and flexible working demands

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

7

Working from Home under lockdown

Working from Home
under lockdown
Our analysis of national survey data sourced from theUnderstanding Society Covid-19 Study1 presents the overall
working from home picture before and during the early monthsof the Covid-19 pandemic.

Using the latest available data spanning April
to September 2020 we show that exclusive
working from home was relatively rare among
employees prior to the pandemic, with 2.7% of
employees always working from home inJanuary/February 2020.
The picture changed dramatically after the
March lockdown.

The proportion of employees that always worked
from home reached levels of around 30% during
April-June 2020, gradually declining to 21% in
September 2020.
Working from home increased significantly in thetwo industries of interest, reaching levels of 58%
and 55% in Professional, Scientific & Technical(PST) and Public Administration & Defence (PAD),
respectively, in June 2020, proportions that arealmost double those observed across the labour
market during the same month (29%).

Less than 3% of UK employees
worked exclusively from homeprior to the pandemic, rising toover 30% in March and April 2020

1

8

University of Essex, Institute for Social and Economic Research. (2020). Understanding Society: COVID-19
Study, 2020. [data collection]. 6th Edition. UK Data Service. SN: 8644, http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-8644-6

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

Working from Home under lockdown

Figure 1 – Proportions of employees that always work from home by sector
All industries

Professional, Scientific andTechnical Activities (PST)

Public Administration
and Defence (PAD)

Before lockdown*

2.7%

3.9%

1.4%

April 2020

31.5%

—

—

May 2020

31.5%

—

—

June 2020

28.9%

57.7%

54.8%

July 2020

26%

47.9%

50.2%

September 2020

21%

—

—

*January / February 2020. Source: Understanding Society Covid-19 Study, waves 1-5, and authors’ calculations.
Sample sizes are: for Jan/Feb 2020, 5,193, 312, and 254 for all industries, PST, and PAD, respectively; for April
2020, 6,630; for May 2020, 5,754; for June 2020, 5,369, 389, and 264; for July 2020, 5,196, 378, and 301; andfor September 2020, 4,809. Notes: — data not available. A full demographic profile of the working from home
population is included in Appendix B.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

9

Transitioning to Working from Home

Transitioning toWorking from Home
Here we explore the experience and practicalities of transitioning
from office to home as the exclusive place of work under
unprecedented and imposed circumstances. We use extracts from
our interviews with leaders, managers, and employees, and ourwell-being survey data to illustrate our analysis.

Places, spaces and technology
Organisations were at different stages oftechnological readiness when they were forced
into mass working from home. Those who had
invested in laptops and virtual collaboration tools
experienced fewer immediate practical obstacles
to productivity.
Others had to accelerate the distribution of
hardware and the rollout of operating systems
and security updates to ensure that people wereable to do their jobs easily.
The unusual circumstances of lockdown meant
people were often working at home for the firsttime, and adapting without warning. They might besharing their home-based workspace with others,
and so had little privacy, or had to be peripatetic,
negotiating their use of space around household
members’ relative need for quiet.
Workspace could be more of an issue for young
people living in shared accommodation andbedsits, often working in their bedrooms or incommunal rooms. Managers observed that this
could then link to deteriorations in well-being:“just looking, in a little studio, at thesame four walls every day for several
months, I think that did take a toll.”

10Complaints that Wi-Fi capacity was unreliable
peaked among parents now coping with thedemands of two generations using it for work andonline learning. At the same time, it was noted thatpeople losing their connection during meetings
had become a normal part of one’s working day,“everybody does accept that.”
There was variability too around how wellorganisations could support people in creatinga productive workspace. If employers offeredbudgets to purchase office chairs or madearrangements for staff to take home equipment,
it was appreciated.
Lockdown forced employees to adapt their daily
working practices. For example, they were unable
to print out documents, had to adapt to using single
screens, and had more limited IT support.
For a local authority, the environmental implicationsof restricted printing resources were significant:“we’ve been forced into a paperlesssystem which we’ve been trying to getfor years and years and years.”
By contrast, another interviewee reflected thatlawyers found reviewing hard copy documents
was more effective in picking up errors.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

Transitioning to Working from Home

Almost one quarter of
employees are having
challenges with internet
connections and Wi-Fi
capacity at home.

A leader explained that home workspaces
now needed to be adequate to support all jobs
in their entirety, rather than just occasional
working from home:

While virtual meetings were invaluable in adapting tofull-time working from home, they quickly became
overused by organisations, a phenomenon that forsome disrupted effective working:“there’s very much a difference from working
from home versus homeworking. And I know it’ssemantics, but … that was the transition part.”“everyone has talked about Zoom fatigue …
being on video all the time is more intense.”
This commonly-shared reaction to being
endlessly on camera after the initial novelty should
encourage organisations to consider using virtual
communications more strategically in the future.

Workspace could be
more of an issue for young
people living in sharedaccommodation andbedsits, often working
in their bedrooms or incommunal rooms
Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

11

Transitioning to Working from Home

Communication and team cohesion
Communication was an issue, especially early on
when people were adjusting to a new working
environment and learning new tools for virtual
collaboration such as Teams and Zoom.
But this was less about manager-employee
communication, and more about teamrelationships; as people were “missing thewater cooler moments and the various
unplanned interactions.”
Informal interactions were hard to replicate using
digital tools but some organisations facilitatedvirtual socials as a nod to the importance of staff
remaining connected outside of job roles.
One leader in a law firm reflected that much oforganisational information-gathering was based
upon proximity:“If I am trying to do something and I think, ‘Oh
God, I must ask X,’ I must just pop into theiroffice … I would pop in and I would ask thema question and it takes about two minutes.
Well, if I was working at home and I thought,‘Oh, I have to call them,’ I have to try and track
them down, I have to have a long conversation
about how their day is going, and then get tothe point! … it all just takes much longer.”
Also important were the support networks that
staff forged to maintain morale and motivation
in a high-stress environment, such as social
services staff who worked with clients in traumatic
circumstances, and who developed an informal
debriefing process to cope with some aspectsof the role.

2

12

On the other hand there was a new sense of“working together” under lockdown, wheremanagers were more in tune with staff’s needs, inpart because of their shared investment in getting
through a time of crisis. There was a real sense of“everybody taking care of one another,” andthat extraordinary times necessitated a different
way of working.
New methods of communication also offeredcolleagues a glimpse into others’ lives notpreviously visible. This was felt to have had an
empathetic and humanising effect:“it’s strange actually, in some ways I
feel as if I have a deeper connection
with some of my colleagues now.”
Staff reported how teams had become moretolerant and more flexible around each others’
challenges,“if you were somebody who was locked
down with young kids and you couldn’t
make a call, you couldn’t make a call! …
or kids came in during calls, or you wereinterrupted … it humanised everybody.”
Experiencing lockdown working became a learning
opportunity for organisations to consider morecommunication options than before:“that kind of willingness to take risks, tounderstand that we can work effectively when
we are not in the same room. And to reallybe more thoughtful about the way that wework and how we interact with each other.”

Aldridge F, Jones E and Southgate D (2020) Learning through Lockdown: Findings from the 2020 Adult
Participation in Learning Survey, London: Learning and Work InstituteWorking from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

Transitioning to Working from Home

Learning under lockdown
New ways had to be developed to replicate the‘on the job’ learning that had previously happened
by observing problem-solving, negotiations anddecision-making. This was particularly importantfor new joiners or trainees.
Prior to lockdown, part of a trainee lawyer’s
learning experience was the daily ad hoc, as well
as more structured conversation with their peers
and mentors, which is vital to develop
professional knowledge:“We have recognised that and now say tothe client that [trainee] is going to be listening
in on this call, for their development, and thenafter it I will spend a few minutes with the traineereflecting on what happened and why.”Those who started jobs during the lockdown,
were in the unenviable position of having tobuild team and line management relationships
entirely remotely. They missed out on an in-personorganisational induction. It is difficult to quantify
what they have missed out on through not being
in the workplace or the complications of having todecode workplace culture remotely.

Our survey revealed that self-investment in training,learning and skill development was low. 33% of
employees said they had engaged in extra trainingor learning during lockdown to enhance their skills.
This compares to a national figure of 43% who hadtaken part in some form of lockdown learning, rising
to 54% of those full-time workers not furloughed2.
Employers are going to need their workforce tobe agile and ready to learn new skills as working
practices change and restrictions are eased.
This is an area that employers may want tofocus on and increase their investment in content
and innovative modes of delivery to suit newwork patterns.

Almost 9 in 10 people
report getting at least
as much, if not morework done, at home

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

13

Transitioning to Working from Home

Being productive from home
There are less data available on the effectworking from home during lockdown has on
labour productivity. It should also be noted that
there is no objective measure of productivity
for use in surveys, and most UK employers do
not routinely collect data on output per hour
worked. So, for our survey, we asked workers
to tell us whether or not they felt their own
productivity had changed since before lockdown,
measured by work done per hour worked.
By this self-reported measure of productivity wefound that almost nine in ten workers (88.4%) said
that they had got more done or as much done asin the office pre-lockdown, and just over one in ten
felt they were doing less.

Figure 2 – Self-reported productivity
Working from Home
40%
30%

Re-order the tasks in their jobs
Concentrate on one activity for a long time ifneededControl their thoughts from distracting from thetask at hand
Return to focus on a task after interruption
As extraordinary as the circumstances of lockdown
were, and despite the stresses of coping with theeffects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was clear
there were personal gains through working fromhome.
Interviewees commonly spoke of their relief at notcommuting, and of the financial savings achieved.
However, the time gained was of more value.
“I previously lost three hours to my commute,and so I feel, being completely honest withyou… I am dreading going back into the officefor that… it puts a huge strain on you as a family.”
Employees were liberated from dashing between
commitments in different locations. They had
more autonomy over their time to craft their own
jobs and to spend more quality time with families.
Organisations too benefited, as more employee
time was invested in jobs, even if this was on a more
flexible schedule. These gains translate across tothe productivity scores reported.

20%
10%

I get much less done

I get a little less done

I get about the same done

I get a little more done

I get much more done

014

We found that four factors aid productive working
from home. People with the highest self-reported
productivity, were also working from home underconditions that enabled them to:

Despite the time benefits and productivity gains
experienced by most people, sustaining exclusive
working from home for weeks and months under
lockdown had its challenges. Worker well-being
emerged as a significant issue in our survey and anarea where employers need to act.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

Health and well-being under lockdown

Health and well-being
under lockdown
Amongst the employers we spoke to there was a strong
awareness of the need to connect with and monitor workforce
well-being issues at the organisational level. Pulse surveys
were used frequently during the first lockdown. These enabled
employers to identify where more support was needed.

3

4

40%
30%
20%
10%

higher levelsof eye strain0
poor sleep

Using the World Health Organisation – Five WellBeing Index (WHO-5) to measure well-being, on
average, respondents scored 47 out of 100 whichis, in comparison to previous UK and Europe-wide
surveys, relatively low. For example, a previous IES
survey of UK workers under lockdown registereda score of 51.6 on this measure3. A survey of over
20,000 EU workers by the European Foundation in
Dublin found that the WHO-5 measure in April 2020
was 49 and by July it had risen to 534.

50%

high levels of fatigue

Only 40% of respondents said that theiremployer had conducted a health and safetyassessment while they had been working
from home.

Figure 3 – Employee healthsymptoms in lockdown

higher intensity
musculoskeletal pain

Many respondents reported experiencing worse
symptoms of musculoskeletal pain, higher levels of
fatigue, poor sleep, and higher levels of eye strain in
the two weeks prior to our survey than previously.

Bajorek Z, Mason B and Bevan S (2020), Wellbeing under lockdown: Results of a survey of British
homeworkers, Occupational Health at Work, 17(2):29–34.
Eurofound (2020), Living, working and COVID-19, COVID-19 series, Publications Office of the European Union,
Luxembourg.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

15

Health and well-being under lockdown

Mental and emotional health
Focusing on mental health, it was clear there weredifferences between people and circumstancesthat contributed to experiencing better or worse
mental health while working from home.
Key determinants of better mental healthusing the WHO-5 measure are:fewer physical health symptoms
working to contracted hours
more frequent contact with their manager
higher levels of satisfaction with work-lifebalancethose self-identifying as extroverts
Finding that extrovert personality types had coped
better than introverts seems counter-intuitive, butecho the results of other comparable international
studies5. The lower mental well-being scores for
introverts may be because of the demands uponthem to communicate frequently and ‘perform’
intensively via video while working from home
under the first lockdown.
Working from home offered positives in termsof enabling some people with long-term healthconditions to remain in work which would havebeen impossible in an office (an example wasgiven of a recent amputee). Concerns were raisedby managers that employees with mental healthconditions were vulnerable under lockdown
and required sympathetic management andsignposting towards resources. This could be
more problematic on a virtual basis, and managers
were concerned that such difficulties may not be
disclosed nor be obvious.

Managers learnt to watch for flags that someone
might not be coping, such as always having theircamera switched off on video calls, or not engaging
in meetings, and made efforts to make contact withthem beyond team meetings.
Well-being concerns intersected with personal
circumstances, such as isolation, or the struggles
of looking after young children during working
hours, with line managers playing a role in bothunderstanding individuals’ challenges and reachingout to staff.

Isolation and social deficit
There is a strong need expressed by our
respondents for connection and social support.
Although most people are happy not to haveto commute so regularly, feelings of isolation
or disconnection from what is going on in theworkplace, missing opportunities to be creative,
to contribute new ideas, and lack of informalinteractions with colleagues were widely cited.
Nor was a sense of isolation confined to those living
alone. Younger people living in flatshares in areas
where they had few personal connections, foundworking from home was a very different experience
compared to when they had been regularly going
into a workplace:“it makes you even more aware of
how lonely you are in a big city.”
Managers also felt that those staff who were moreisolated were keener to be more office-based once
it was safe to return.

“it’s the people who aren’t making a lotof noise who are struggling the most.”

5

16

Wijngaards I, Sisouw de Zilwa SCM and Burger MJ (2020) Extraversion Moderates the Relationship Between
the Stringency of COVID-19 Protective Measures and Depressive Symptoms. Frontiers in Psychology.
11:568907.doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.568907

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

Health and well-being under lockdown

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

17

Health and well-being under lockdown

Balancing working fromhome with domestic
responsibilities has been
the greatest challengeof lockdown

18

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

Health and well-being under lockdown

Parents and carers under pressure
Balancing working from home with domestic
responsibilities has been the greatest challenge oflockdown, as many employees have lost their usual
support structures.
Those with very young children, those with special
needs, or who were caring for shielding family
members, were faced with the twin challenges of
performing their job while supervising children or
relatives who needed high levels of input.
Those with older children had to provide support
with online learning, as well as supporting theemotional needs that inevitably arose in suchtesting times. Parents sometimes spoke of theiranxiety and guilt in managing these competingpressures.
Parents more than any other group, talked about
needing to work in the evenings and at weekends
to stay on top of their workloads. The ‘role conflict’that many experience as a result of the tension
between their roles as carers and workers echoes
one of the main drivers of stress in the Health& Safety Executive (HSE) stress management
standards. This is difficult and potentially harmful tosustain, and with clear well-being implications6.
There was some recognition among managers thatfemale employees were significantly affected bytheir caring responsibilities and it was understoodthat the situation was even more challenging forlone parents, “for sure, there were people whojust found it impossible.”

Conversely, there was evidence that a smaller
proportion of managers were less sympathetic
to diverse needs, invoking workforce ‘fairness’in justification. These managers hinted thatcomplicated working patterns were notsustainable in organisations. Correspondingly,
a small proportion of employees complainedthat little accommodation was made forthe difficulties they faced in reconcilingcompeting demands on their time.
One manager raised these issues with senior
management and emphasised the importanceof organisational responses being developedin addition to line managers’ support. Without
such advocacy, individual coping would become
entrenched and normalised, and workforce
well-being compromised:“A lot of them are very much kind of, ‘Well
if no one tells me there’s a problem, thenit’s all fine.’ And I genuinely don’t think theymean to bury their heads in the sand, butthey genuinely don’t think about it because
they assume that people are like them, andtherefore they would shout if there is an issue.”Leading by example was felt to be important, as
was messaging that organisations appreciatedtheir staff’s extraordinary efforts, allied withencouraging good practice, such as taking
breaks and annual leave.

Most managers and colleagues understood theimpossibility of maintaining standardised working
hours in these circumstances. They talked about
the importance of being alert to staff becoming
exhausted, and maintaining open dialogue aroundworkload and working patterns.

6

Bevan S (2020), Work without boundaries: Wellbeing in Covid-19 lockdown, The Work-Life Balance Bulletin,
British Psychological Society, 4 (1) Summer 2020, pp5-9.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

19

Future preferences for Work After Lockdown

Future preferences forwork after lockdown
We asked employees about how they would like to work after
lockdown. Overall, employees seek greater flexibility and discretion
to choose where and when they work, within the needs of theorganisations’ goals. A clear majority seek to work from home all orsome of the time in the future.

Figure 4 – Preference for working from home after lockdown
I would prefer to work at I would prefer to work at home some of the time,home all of the timeor to perform specific work tasks at home
Strongly agree

19.1%

23.7%

Agree

16.7%

49.6%

Neither agree nor
disagree

20.1%

14%

Disagree

26.8%

7.9%

Strongly disagree

17.2%

4.8%

Our survey findings mirror national data fromthe Understanding Society COVID-19 Study,
where 75% of employees across a broad range ofindustries want some working from home once
things return to normal; 13% would prefer working
from home all the time, and 12% do not want towork from home at all.

20

The strong support expressed at this point intime for hybrid working (which we define aschoosing to work in different spaces in a typicalweek), and for discretion and flexibility to adjust
the place and timing of work, suggests an appetite
among employees for innovation in job andworkspace design.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

Future preferences for Work After Lockdown

Jobs, once considered as office-only are
now successfully performed at home andfew employers foresee a return to entirely
office-based working.
“I don’t ever envisage a time where I’ve got
a team of office workers five days a week ormyself sat in an office five days a week, I think
it will be a bit of a hybrid model … there will betimes when you will need to go into the office.”
We intend to run our survey again in mid 2021 andask the same people the same questions about
their preferences for working from home in the
future. This will measure the persistence of thispreference for hybrid and flexible working, which
may adjust through time and successive cycles oflockdown restrictions.

73% of employees
would prefer to workfrom home some of
the time, or to perform
specific work tasks

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

21

Conclusions

Conclusions
Working from home under lockdown has disrupted
norms and thinking around the need for office presence.
People have adapted quickly and worked wellfrom home. Productivity is good. At the sametime there have been challenges, and parents/
carers and those with people management
responsibilities are feeling the pressure.
Employees miss the sociability andbenefits of collaboration offered byworking in shared workspaces. This
could drive a surge back to the officewhen lockdown restrictions ease andconfidence returns, particularly amongst
younger people.

Employees feel they have benefited fromflexibility to organise their tasks, and discretion
to make decisions about when they do theirwork from home.

722

Latent demand for permanent flexible
working pattern changes has been
unlocked. Employers must be ready tomeet that demand with well-defined
positions on hybrid and flexible working
for every job role for the existing
workforce and new recruits.

Training gaps remain around the newpeople management skills needed tosupport employee well-being, and to sustain
performance and productivity among teams
working remotely. This is a skills deficit thatneeds urgent attention.
Flexibility and discretion coupled witha new relationship of trust between
employer and home-working employee,
are the foundation components of goodwork7 that should shape new models ofwork after lockdown.

Taylor, M.,Marsh, G., Nicol, D., and Broadbent, P. (2017) Good Work: The Taylor Review of Modern Working
Practices. London: Great Britain, Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

Appendices

Appendices
A: Methodology
Online survey
The questionnaire was devised based on an
earlier IES study to examine the well-being ofworkers who were working from home since thestart of lockdown in March 2020. Supplementary
scales and items were added to reflect different
dimensions of working from home including: theWHO-5 mental health Index, a measure of selfreported productivity, a self-regulation scale andquestions exploring work aspirations and intentions
after lockdown ends.
The survey was publicised to employees in local
authorities across the UK. We had collaborationfrom the Local Government Association (LGA) in
helping us to develop occupational classifications
and from the Local Government Associationin Wales to disseminate the online survey link.
We had support from the Public sector People
Management Association (PPMA) who emailed thelink to all their members, which we supplemented
with targeted social media posts.
A total of 1035 usable responses were received.
Respondents to the online survey werepredominantly older, white collar and female inprofessional roles. Over one third had dependent
children and 30% had caring responsibilities for
elderly relatives. Three quarters of respondents
were married or cohabiting while 17% were single orliving alone. Most had long service, with one quarter
having worked for their employer for more than 20
years. Almost two thirds of respondents were tradeunion members. Over 50% of respondents reported
working regularly beyond their contracted hours
and only 36% had worked for any time in their formal
workplace since lockdown began. Thirty percent
of respondents reported that they managed otherpeople. We also asked questions about self-reported
personality as several other previous studies had
identified differences between introverts andextroverts in their responses to working from home.

In this population 54% self-identified as introvert and
46% as extrovert.
The survey will be publicised to workers in the
UK legal sector in December 2020 and January
2021, with the co-operation of the Law Society ofEngland and Wales, the Law Society of Scotland,
and the support of People in Law. Private sector law
firms have been invited to share the survey link with
their staff.

Case study organisations andinterview programme
Four organisations are participating asanonymous case studies: two local authorities
and two law firms. Each organisation provides
human resources data and policies, and convenes
up to ten one-to-one interviews between theWork After Lockdown researchers and leaders,line managers and staff without management
responsibility in a range of front-line, professional/
technical, and business support roles.
Thirty eight interviews were conducted using
video technology. Leader interviews with theChief Executives and directors with responsibility
for people strategy, policy and programmes;
technology and digital security; and estates andbusiness continuity, focused on organisational
responses and changes. Interviews with staff, withmanagement responsibilities and those without,concentrated on personal experiences of transition
into the first lockdown.
Every interviewee will be invited to participate in asecond and, for a subgroup, third interview with theresearch team, which will revisit the themes of thefirst and address change and continuity throughand after lockdown.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

23

Appendices

B: Demographic profile of Working from Home population
Figure 5, on the next page, presents thedemographic profile of the working from home
population for the period of June/July 2020
using Understanding Society COVID-19 Study
data. Across the whole economy, little difference
can be observed in the incidence of exclusive
Working from home among different demographic
groups, for example 27% of all employed females
were working from home, and 28% of males. The
clearest differences are observed for people livingwith a partner who are more likely to always workfrom home than people who do not live with apartner, as well as for white British who are slightly
less likely to always work from home than people
belonging to different ethnic groups.

24

Starker differences among the different
demographic groups can be observed when we
study the two industries of interest in this research.
Women are more likely than men to be always
working from home in both industries, while thesame is the case for white British, relative to otherethnicities, non-immigrants relative to immigrants(though the relevant gap is very small in PAD), andpeople with a long-term health condition relative
to ones with no such condition. The ‘shielding’of people with health conditions seems to be
more substantial in PAD, while the same is thecase for older people (55+) in the same industry.
People with children seem to be more likely to
be exclusively Working from home in PST than in
PAD. This probably has to do with the fact that thepercentage of key workers is much higher in PAD,
enabling these parents to have access to onsite
schooling for their children.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

AppendicesFigure 5 – Proportions of employees that always work from home by sector
and various characteristics (June/July 2020)
All industries

Professional,
Scientific and Technical
Activities (PST)

PublicAdministration
and Defence (PAD)

Male

27.8%

49.4%

51.2%

Female

27.1%

57.4%

53.3%

16-34

27.0%

46.6%

60.7%

35-54

28.7%

59.3%

46.0%

55+

25.7%

42.7%

55.7%

No partner, no children

23.8%

45.7%

57.5%

No partner, with children

16.9%

—

—

With partner, no children

29.7%

50.3%

57.7%

With partner, with children

30.6%

60.1%

45.6%

White British

27.1%

53.7%

53.8%

Other

31.9%

45.2%

37.0%

UK-born

27.7%

53.8%

52.3%

Non UK-born

27.5%

41.1%

51.8%

Health condition

28.2%

56.8%

60.0%

No health condition

27.0%

50.3%

46.5%

GenderAgeHousehold composition

Ethnicity

Immigration status

HealthSource: Understanding Society Covid-19 Study, waves 3 & 4, and authors’ calculations.
Notes: — too few observations.

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and Tensions – January 2021

25

Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown:
Transitions and Tensions – January 2021
For more information on this report contact:
Jane Parry,
Work After Lockdown Principal Investigator,
University of Southampton
j.parry@soton.ac.uk