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We cannot afford to overlook the challenges of working from home on the low-paid
A new report commissioned by Stonewater has exposed the costs of working from home for low-paid workers. Dave Lockerman considers what the lessons are for social landlords
Just a couple of hours before the announcement that we were moving to ‘Plan B’, I was speaking about the experiences of low-paid home workers at the launch of research that Stonewater commissioned from leading thinktank Demos, looking at how we can ensure that everyone has access to the benefits that come from homeworking. With more people told to work from home over winter, our report couldn’t be timelier.
Stonewater commissioned this research because we saw that we’re probably never going to go back to the way we worked before the pandemic. But the national conversation about the future of work has been focused on town centres and keeping sandwich shops going, or telling people to “get off their exercise bikes and head back to the office”.
“37% of lower earners are already working from home in some form”
In all the noise, we haven’t actually heard much about the experience of individuals. And even when we have, the focus has been on the benefits seen by higher earners than the true experience of low-paid workers. Because a large proportion of our customers are likely to fall into this latter group, we wanted to capture and understand their voices, and avoid creating a two-tier workforce that leaves them behind. It was great to include the voices of so many of our customers in the report.
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The report found that 37% of lower earners are already working from home in some form. We heard about the many positives of working from home: better work/life balance, increased productivity, and improved health and well-being. But there are clearly risks and challenges that, if left unchecked, could mean a worse experience if you’re low paid. Increased household costs, lack of space and connectivity, or just not being able to work from home at all were clear concerns. That 87% of those not working from home said it would be impossible to speaks to these challenges but also sectoral issues, the inflexibility of employers and a possible skills gap.
“60% of all homeworkers said their energy bills had gone up as a result of working from home. With winter coming, and a sharp rise in energy bills predicted, this will only get worse”
The impact on finances is particularly worrying. The report finds that low-paid workers see their costs increasing by £10 per month due to homeworking, while high-paid workers save £63 per month. And for those who rigidly have to work from home some of the time and in an office the rest, they’re spending as much as £39 more every month.
“We are already including working space in the design of our new homes – in a way that doesn’t leave them in danger of being caught by the spare room subsidy”
Worryingly, 60% of all homeworkers said their energy bills had gone up as a result of working from home. With winter coming, and a sharp rise in energy bills predicted, this will only get worse. It’s incumbent on us as landlords and employers to find ways to overcome this inequality.
For housing providers, there are some key recommendations, including reviewing tenancy agreements to make sure we don’t score an own goal by unnecessarily preventing customers from working from home. We should also explore how we can provide spaces to work and high-quality broadband. We should also take a more active role in raising awareness of social tariffs in the utilities sector, and working with the government to find ways to make sure the benefits system supports homeworking.
At Stonewater, we are already including working space in the design of our new homes – in a way that doesn’t leave them in danger of being caught by the spare room subsidy – and taking steps to implement some of these recommendations. This includes better signposting of lower tariffs, improving the quality of broadband in our homes and reviewing our support for customers who are struggling financially. For the past year, we’ve also been campaigning to improve the environmental efficiency of social housing to combat fuel poverty.
And for our own colleagues, the report reinforces our own hybrid model of homeworking first and coming together where it adds value. In order to make sure colleagues are equipped to work from home, we introduced a £10,000 interest-free loan to help them create comfortable working spaces. To allow them to come together and collaborate, we’re opening three new collaborative hubs across the country for colleagues to do just this in the new year, as well as maximising the use of other community spaces such as gyms and local hotels.
With new advice on homeworking coming from government, we should all make sure that no one is put under strain because of having to work from home. We hope that this report will be the start of that journey.
Dave Lockerman, customer experience director, Stonewater
