Employers ‘failing to promote benefits of office working’ – Image from Celia Ong-Shutterstock
Workplace and facilities management thought leaders have warned that employers aren’t doing enough to attract their people back to the office in research released last week by IWFM in partnership with Ricoh.
In a series of interviews discussing the future of work in a hybrid landscape, figures in the sector say that hybrid working is here to stay, but challenges remain in encouraging people back to offices.
The interviews were supported by polls on the three topics under discussion – hybrid working arrangements, digitalisation, and cybersecurity – for an understanding of the wider profession’s attitudes and experiences.
Elsewhere in the report, one interviewee warned that many companies are “very vulnerable” to cyberattacks as polling showed that almost half (49%) of respondents’ organisations don’t consider cybersecurity a top priority. ‘It’s a big, big issue and I don’t think most organisations realise that.”
Meanwhile, despite digitalisation playing an increasingly key role in FM, another poll indicated that just one in six organisations is working comfortably with digital technology. As one interviewee highlighted “there is a generation which is being left behind by digitisation” – namely, older workers.
The report concludes that "it will take time for individual firms to decide how best to accommodate staff wishes while still aligning them with the needs and ethos of the organisation – and avoid the emergence of a two-tier culture".
Separately, other recent reports on hybrid working mirror some of these findings including one that suggests communication was key to making hybrid working arrangements work. Others concluded that hybrid working was akin to “change management”. Two other research reports suggested it was too soon to conclude what the future of work would look like exactly although the other said hybrid and flexible work approaches would inevitably grow.
