The lockdown restrictions are finally being lifted to the point where a sense of normalcy is returning. The impact of COVID-19 might finally be ending where people can go back to the lives they were leading before 2020. Offices are becoming fully functional and people are being asked to return to work all around the UK.
While some organisations have adopted a more flexible working situation where their employees can work remotely, some industries are moving back to full-time work from an office environment. The first of these industries to go back to normal pre-pandemic work structures is the UK government itself. Government offices are now going to be operating at full capacity now that all the lockdown restrictions have been lifted in the country.
Nearly 72% (Our World In Data) of the entire population of the UK has been fully vaccinated, making it safe for people to return to work. Why is the UK government so keen on resuming a normal work environment for their citizens?
Reasons Why the UK Government is Pushing a Normal Work Structure
Employment in the UK is finally recovering as more industries open up after the lifting of the restrictions. The government wants to help small business enterprises build and grow so that the economy can fully recover from the backlash of the pandemic, and things can go back to a pre-pandemic level of normalcy.
The main idea behind why the UK government wants offices to start resuming a complete work-from-office shift is because the pandemic is something that people are just going to have to live with. All the necessary measures have been taken and the best thing possible for all individuals in terms of protection against COVID-19 and its variants is the vaccine. Since nearly three quarters of the entire country’s population is fully vaccinated already, there is nothing more that can be done and all we have to do is learn to live in a post-pandemic world.
The new variants of the Coronavirus may be a lot more transmissible in terms of rate of infection, but they lack the severity of impact.The strains are getting weaker which means that the people who do catch the virus feel less sick and have a much quicker recovery rate. So now the mindset towards this virus has changed. Slowly, COVID-19 is going to be nothing more than a simple viral or an infection like the common cold or the flu.
Read more: The US Unemployment Rate Falls to 11.1 in June Recruiting in a Virtual World
Adapting to a normal lifestyle after two years is something that can help multiple industries grow as well. When companies start working from an office space, they affect a lot of other markets around them. The real estate market will have a positive impact, as businesses will rent out and buy their office spaces, so that industry will recover as well. Small business enterprises in the surrounding areas of the cities’ office regions will gain more traction as the foot traffic and general population increases in the localities. The employment in the UK will also increase as the workload increases once people go back to working normally.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Steve Barclay, firmly believes that an in-person working environment is key to improving collaboration. Face to face interactions are important at building lasting work relationships, and effective collaboration and communication is crucial for achieving organisational success. Data analytics services have estimated that the occupancy levels of office spaces around the UK are still quite low, averaging under 25% (Financial World) around the country. This is why the UK government is getting personally involved and urging corporations to resume a full-time work environment at their offices.
What are the local citizens saying about this shift back to normalcy?
How a Work-from-Office Environment Can Benefit You
We have all gotten used to the Zoom life, where we can wake up ten minutes before our morning meeting, put on a fresh shirt and fix our hair, and then join the call. It has become comfortable to the point where we do not even make the effort to get ready for a working day.
The work-life balance and dynamic has been completely disrupted over the last couple of years as your bedroom became your office, dining room, and more. It has been comforting and a lot easier, but let’s face it. There are days where you don’t know when your work day starts or when it ends because it all kind of just blends together. There is no differentiating between a work environment and a home environment because they are both in the same location.
While some people separated the two and created a home office, not everyone was able to do that. Or even if they did initially, it doesn’t mean that they stuck with it for very long. The clear differentiation between a workspace and home area is a welcome change that people are ready to experience again. It would be great to leave work at work and then have a separate life outside of it. The sense of work-life balance, along with a clear schedule builds a routine and structure that was lacking in the last two years.
Interpersonal relationships are also key to improving the overall mental health of the country’s people. The number of people who felt capable enough of coping with the pandemic has slowly dropped as the country was washed away with wave after wave of the pandemic. Towards the end of the third quarter of 2021, only 60% (Mental Health) of the general population felt like they were coping well with the pandemic and the restrictions that came with it, as compared to the 73% recorded in April 2020 (which was right towards the beginning of the pandemic).
This was a clear indicator that the work-from-home, live-from-home, do-everything-from-home lifestyle was not working in the country’s favour. Recreating a sense of normalcy by having regular work hours at the office space can help people feel better about the pandemic. It will seem like the pandemic has finally passed and a sense of normalcy that people were missing out on for so long can finally return.
There has also been a big shift in how companies have operated in the last two years. There have been new employees who have joined organisations and still haven’t met their team members in person. Some meetings do not even require the video to be on while the call is taking place, which means some people might not even know what their team members look like. Imagine working with someone for over a year and never having known what they look like. It creates a sense of alienation that people experience and it impacts the collaboration that happens in the office. Face-to-face interaction with your fellow team members can create a better working relationship between the team members, which can result in a higher rate of productivity as well. Once you know who you work with you develop a healthy relationship with them, and it reflects in the projects you complete as well.
Read also: What Does Omicron Mean for the UK in 2022?
What about Flexible Working?
Workplace timings and days you have to go into work can still remain flexible, depending on the size of the organisation and the industry it is in. A flexible work environment is something that works best for individuals because they can choose the working environment they are most comfortable with. Allowing employees the choice to choose how they work and where they work out of in terms of an office space empowers them at the workplace, and can lead to improved performance as well. Data analytics services and research shows that individuals want to feel valued and respected at the workplace and not like a cog in a machine. Respecting their choice of working environment can help create this sense of comfort at the workplace as well as a sense of freedom.
Small business enterprises have seen an incredible growth in terms of numbers, and entrepreneurs cannot always afford to have an office space for their employees. For them, co-working spaces or remote working options might work best because they do not have to invest in building and maintaining an infrastructure during the company’s infant stages. They can instead focus on optimising their resources and reinvesting them in building a better team, using better software, and more.
Read more: Green Trade Presents Major Opportunities for the UK Economy in 2022
Final Thoughts
Going back to work in an office is something that we all have to relearn, and the UK government’s decision to empower businesses to resume a normal working day is something that a lot of us have missed out on. A sense of normalcy will finally return in the country as people go back to leading their lives the way they did before the pandemic hit.
