Return to work

by | Feb 1, 2022 | Staff News

  • When we go back it will be 50% of your time office-based and 50% of your time home working. This may be on generally fixed or flexible days according to your agreement with your manager, but the half day will be totally flexible and your manager will say week on week when they want you in. In essence this means that if you only work for two days per week, one would be in the office, and one from home. If you are full time, you will be in the office 2 full days and then have a half day which should be used for meetings – this is to avoid (as much as possible) some people being on Teams and others in the office, which we now know can be quite difficult and take up valuable time.
  • Of course, if you want to come in full time you will be very welcome to do this, the 50/50 arrangement is a minimum.
  • Clearly (as in our original ways of working document) if your job needs you to be in the office (e.g. reception or training) then you will still be expected to be in on all the days your job requires. This will apply to all staff and will allow us to, once again, start to collaborate more.
  • What we know from the research is that it is nice to have a bit of a balance and still keep any work which needs ‘proper quiet time’ to the days we are working from home but we also know that people become disconnected if they are away from their team (and the wider team) for too long, people new to the job will also gain from being in an office and listening to what is going on around them, finding out about providers and seeing the links between projects. It will still be down to you and your manager to work out when you are in the office and you may be required to come in more than the min 2.5 days to ensure you are in face to face meetings or as your project requires. So, please do not be ‘fixed’ in your thinking, at the end of the day, your contract still stands and the ‘working from home’ is an additional flexibility which should be used when it is useful for the business in the main but also when it is useful for you if you have something urgent you need to be at home for and can still work.
  • Managers will manage the working arrangements but please remember we want to be fair and so you should not expect any ‘special arrangements’ to be just for you. The deal is 50/50 which we think is very fair.
  • This arrangement will be reviewed again in the next few months and we will see if it is working. Please therefore remember there is always the possibility we may return to 100% office time or another trial.