Businesses wrong not to trust work-from-home staff: Report

Wednesday, 13 October 2021

Employers like Meadow Mushroom have been hosting on-site Covid-19 vaccination clinics, and example of how employer and employee wellbeing interests coincide.

Many employers now realise they were wrong not to trust their employees to work from home, a report into workplace wellbeing shows.

The Workplace Wellness Report 2021, published by Business NZ and Southern Cross Health Society, found 35 per cent of bosses had gone from being opposed to staff working from home to thinking it was a good thing.

But just under three-quarters of employers said some staff members felt isolated when they were working from home.

Trading through the Covid era had resulted in another attitude change among bosses, with most now sending a clearer message that workers should stay home when sick, and not feel under pressure to carry on working, said Southern Cross Health Society chief executive Nick Astwick.

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Astwick said the past 18 months had left many employers with no choice but to embrace “flexi-working”.

That had had a big impact on workers, who have had to cope through lockdowns by juggling work and looking after children unable to go to school.

The distinction between homes and workplaces has blurred thanks to the Covid pandemic, says Nick Astwick, chief executive of Southern Cross Healthcare Society.

“Never has your work life and your home life been so close,” said Astwick.

“It's a work-life smoothie, it’s so blended,” he said.

“The traditional single place of work no longer exists for many people, and businesses need to be aware of the impact this can have on employee health and wellbeing,” Astwick said.

The report is based on a survey of 116 large and small private and public sector businesses employing more than 95,000 employees.

Two-thirds of the businesses surveyed reported general stress levels of employees increased during 2020.

The top work-related stressors were increased workloads, long hours, changes to work, and fear of job loss.

Business New Zealand chief executive Kirk Hope says more employers are recognising the link between worker wellness and productivity.

The top non-work related stressors were relationship problems and money worries.

The majority of companies now had formal rules around working from home, the report said, and many workers were taking advantage of that, cutting their weekly commuting time and costs.

The most common number of days to work from home was one or two days per week, the report said, with only 27 of workers who had the chance to work from home never doing so.

Around a fifth of businesses surveyed said working from home had been “too successful”, and they were encouraging people to spend more time in the office.

The Workplace Wellness Report 2021 is the fifth edition of the research.

Kirk Hope, chief executive of Business NZ, said: “There was a positive shift in the number of businesses seeing a correlation between employee wellness and the productivity of their organisation.”

Angela Vale, chief executive of Footprint, says a financially-stressed employee is unlikely to perform well at work as their focus will be elsewhere.

“Half of organisations surveyed believe the role they play in employee health and wellbeing increased in 2020, and we saw businesses offering a variety of new workplace wellness initiatives,” Hope said.

“This year’s survey reveals a big increase in organisations with a culture of encouraging unwell employees to stay home.”

The number of organisations being clear on “if you’re sick, stay home” increased from 50 per cent in 2016 to 76 per cent in 2020.

Despite this, the amount of sick leave taken by workers dropped, coinciding with a drop in flu cases.

Lucas Finch, Xero’s global head of wellbeing, said there had been a blurring of work-life boundaries, and business leaders saw the importance of developing wellbeing cultures in order to attract and keep workers in a tight jobs market.

“Pre-Covid, wellbeing was seen as something about fruit bowls and yoga,” Lucas said.

But, he said: “It’s never been more clear that these work-related factors, if people lean into them, can make a huge difference of someone’s experience of work, and home.”

Angela Vale, chief executive of online financial training platform Footprint Connect, which businesses can use to help boost workers’ money skills, said employers should take note of the financial stressors identified in the report.

“Financial wellness should be a key pillar in all employer wellbeing programmes,” she said.