Legislation for remote working could be made mandatory

Health Secretary Matt Hancock will consider legislation for employers to provide the option of making remote working mandatory.

Hancock said that the coronavirus pandemic has made flexible working the “new norm” and all “good employers” should allow their staff to do so moving forward.

Speaking during a webchat with members of women’s club AllBright, he was asked if he will consider making this legislation.

Hancock said “yes,” and added “the way you could look at it is there’s a right to request flexible working.

“I definitely think it should be the norm where possible.

“We need to persuade people that allowing flexible working should continue. This is a change that is never going to go away.”

He added, “There’s a debate as to whether people work better when they’re working from home and it’s really difficult to know whether productivity goes up or down, but we’ve just had a massive experiment in that and we need to understand the answer to that.

“There’s a big argument that productivity has gone up during this when people are working from home, certainly in terms of wellbeing.”