Remote working: an opportunity for diverse talent.

As a female, neurodivergent, software engineer I have been working either fully or partially remote for more than ten years. Earlier in my career I was one of the lucky 5% that were able to work from home a couple of days a week, but later I signed up for a fully remote role where visits to the office were few and far between. My current role at Kingfisher is not quite so flexible, but it is still my choice as to how often I work from the office, even though the closest one is less than 15mins drive from home.

Many people would say I was lucky, but for me the ability to choose my working environment is vitally important and as such, it is a deal breaker when I am looking for new opportunities. For many years I was full time office based, as in the days of dial up it was the only option. Yes, outwardly I functioned in that environment but my ability to be productive, and to handle the stress of the role, suffered in ways that I did not fully recognise until that environment changed.

Every day there seems to be a new headline about another blue-chip company or government department requiring all employees to ‘return’ to the office. Twitter, Zoom and Meta have been the big headline grabbers in recent months, and peers who work at smaller companies have found many of them are following suit. Three years on from the pandemic, 82% of technology roles are now advertised as ‘hybrid’ rather than remote, with 32.62% of those mandating employees to be in the office four days per week. This is not the definition of hybrid or flexible that most would expect, and fills myself, and many of my colleagues, with horror and a degree of fear.

I hear tales of working from home being unfair to those in practical or customer facing roles. While it is true that you cannot operate a supermarket checkout or put out a fire remotely, this is not a valid argument for a carte blanche ban on working from home for all roles. I would love to work sitting in a stable with my horse as my vet does when she is onsite, but this would be as impractical for me as working from home would be for her. Not to mention the fact that the horse would slobber on my keyboard and photobomb meetings!

Working from the stables is not an option!

The ability to work remotely, when the role is appropriate to do so, should be seen as something to celebrate. Companies that offer the option of remote working show trust in their employees and are likely to find themselves with a more diverse workforce, something that I know many organisations strive for. The flexibility of being able to work from home is desired by 85% of employees and is a leveller. It advertises that the company is going to treat their workforce as adults who can manage their own time. Working where and when they find they are most productive. A reputation for this kind of flexibility tells the neurodiverse and those with physical disabilities that this employer plays more than lip service to their inclusive policies.

There are other advantages to increasing the home-based workforce, for example:

• Pollution, traffic congestion and the overcrowding of public transport are reduced.
• Home working decreases company overheads as it reduces the need for large office spaces and all the associated costs that go with such buildings.
• 51% of Employees feel more productive working from home.
• If the working day of employees is naturally spread across 15–20 hours rather than the 8-hour working day typically imposed by office working, there is nearly always going to be someone available to look at that support call, without the need to pay overtime or get someone out of bed, the cinema, a restaurant etc.

As a woman, society still expects me to bear much of the burden of domestic chores, childcare and general project management of the household. Being able to adjust my working hours and fit some of those tasks into my lunchbreak, or during the period when I would otherwise be commuting, allows me to excel at both these jobs. When I worked full time in an office, one role would often suffer as the result of an emergency or high priority call associated with the other. The guilt and stress levels each time that happened were huge, and at one point led me to consider giving up work entirely. Today I can be flexible with my working hours if I have a school run, or if I need to put the washing out in my lunchbreak to accommodate a late meeting. My husband, new at remote work since the pandemic, has found similar advantages, if not in the extra household chores that he now ‘has time’ to do.

As a neurodivergent adult, working from home allows me to choose my distraction levels. During long meetings I can fidget with my fingers, click my pen obsessively, mutter and hum (on mute) without disturbing or triggering others. I can choose the level of background noise based on what I am doing. If my brain is threatening to switch off during a long presentation, I can stand up and walk around. When I code, I tend to expand the picture of the whole system I am working on in my head so I can walk up and down the design, and solve the issues before writing up the solution, or coding the bug. This normally involves talking to myself like a mad woman and is much more difficult if I am surrounded by people working, chatting or on calls.

This desire to have the flexibility to work from home therefore seems to be in direct conflict with employers, where 75% were expecting their workforce to have returned to the office full time in 5 years. Indeed, from a peak of 45% during the pandemic only 18% of UK workers are now fully remote, and that number is dropping rapidly as more and more are forcibly recalled. This is starting to cause issues for recruiters, particularly in technology roles where 40% of those seeking work will only consider remote roles. Additionally, 70% of those currently working remotely in the same sector would either quit immediately or start seeking a new remote role if their current employer mandated a return to office-based work. This conflict has already made headline news, and as the cost-of-living increases and the job market slows it will be interesting to see which side compromises first.

I do understand that if business leaders have invested in large, expensive office buildings, they want them used and there are advantages to being co-located:

• In person meetings can be more direct and collaborative.
• It is easier to train new and inexperienced staff face to face.
• It is easier to build relationships with colleagues, bounce ideas of them and ask questions.
• 13% of Employees feel more productive working in the office.
• 96% of executives value office-based workers more than their remote colleagues (making them more likely to be promoted).
• Small businesses reliant on office-based personnel (such as sandwich and coffeeshops) can thrive.

However, it should not be assumed that because people are not sitting where they can be seen, that they are not working or collaborating. If individuals do not attend stand-ups in person, and the noise of clicking keyboards can’t be heard throughout the office, it doesn’t mean that the work is not getting done. Social activities and team bonding can still be organised or done online; it just takes a little more effort. Many of the advantages desired above can also be gained through compromise and flexibility. Let each individual team decide, when and how often they wish to co-locate to plan, collaborate or socialise rather than an Orwellian mandate to have bums on seats a set number of working days.

Employers can take steps to encourage people to want to work in the office. A former workplace of mine offered free takeaway lunch on Fridays to those prepared to spend an hour networking in a conference room. Needless to say, the percentage of those working from home on that day dropped significantly, and much of the team are still trying to lose those extra pounds many years later!

In the future I would love to see a remote first workforce. Let’s aim to see less offices and rows of desks, and more shared collaboration spaces where teams can choose to come together to work on problems or large projects. Let’s see more truly global teams where remote based jobs are open to the best person regardless of their location, disability, or other responsibilities, where the work is done at any point 24/7 and people flex their days, guilt free, to collaborate with their team and meet their other responsibilities. Those diversity targets would come much easier, and maybe those big shiny offices and traditional trappings of power wouldn’t be needed anymore?