As more and more employers order their workers back to the office, employees say they like flexibility to work from home, and some who return to corporate workplaces are not so happy to be forced to return.
According New data from the Angus Reid InstituteThree out of five Canadians would prefer to spend most of their time working from home, while 79 percent say they would like a schedule that allows some remote work. The numbers also show that 51 percent of employees who told them had ordered them to return to the office more days a week were annoying or very annoying.
Ope Akanbi, professor at the Metropolitan University of Toronto who has studied remote work, says the feeling of workers makes sense.
“They have learned to bring work to their lives instead of trying to adapt to their lives to a work schedule,” Akanbi said.
The workers who passed through the Toronto Union station agreed on Monday morning: they support the work from home when possible.
“I think that if the work can be done at home, they should be allowed to stay at home,” said semi -withdrawal teacher Cherie Lamont. “From Covid, we have learned how effective we can be if we are working at home.”
A recent Angus Reid survey suggests that most workers would prefer a totally remote or hybrid workplace, but many employers are choosing to have employees in the office more anyway.
She says that while working in the office she still has some merit, a hybrid model that allows remote work and is usually the best.
Devi Rajkumar says that in a perfect world, he would also like to have the option of working from home. While many people in their office work remotely on something of the week, you have to travel to Toronto from your home in Alliston, Ontario, every day because your work requires working with paper documents that cannot be taken home.
“I would like a balance, sure,” Rajkumar said. “You can work with people, you build your own social circle, [but] Being at home, you are in your comfort. “
Banks leads the return to the office office
The new numbers occur when the great banks of Canada have led the position to return to a work model mostly in person, TD, Scotiabank, Splash and Blood cell Everyone has asked the staff to be in the office four days a week from this fall. Rogers and Starbucks They have also made similar demands that enter into force in the coming months.
Companies have justified the election saying that workers are more productive and benefit from collaboration and tutoring when they work in office.
TD told CBC News in an email that they are remembering people because work in person “builds energy and alignment, offers continuous development and learning and strengthens our culture.” In a recent story in the Globe and Mail, BMO aforementioned “Collaboration, problem solving, tutoring, innovation and professional development” as reasons to be in the office. Starbucks said in a statement “We do our best job when we are together.”
But Akanbi says that employees do not necessarily believe that they are more productive in the office, given the ease with which people made the transition to work from home during the pandemic.
“The companies published profits, everything seemed to remain well,” Akanbi said. “So it is not a very convincing argument” for workers, she says.
Akanbi says that employers are also better able to control workers when they are in the office more frequently. “For executives, they want to maintain the traditional definition of work because it allows them to control how work looks and how the worker plays his role.”
And despite half of the respondents who say they are not happy with the mandates back to the office, Akanbi says that in a difficult labor market, employers have more power.
“The leverage is really the name of the game here,” Akanbi said. “Times have changed … I think there are more opportunities for employers to force workers to do what organizations want.”
Sunira Chaudhri, founder and main lawyer of the Labor Law, also points out that the ability to work from home benefited certain employees, particularly women who have been able to balance child care and their careers due to work assignments from home. And as the work from home shrinks, she also says that these benefits will also.
“I would not be surprised if we saw some discriminatory behaviors or claims because these groups will be affected by these mandates,” said Chaudhri.
Workers have some power to delay: lawyers
Mackenzie Irwin, a employment lawyer based in Toronto, says that employee contracts are key to determining where the work is done.
If hybrid or remote work permits are written in a contract, then that is established in stone, says Irwin.
In that case, a change in the work policy would count as a “constructive dismissal,” says Irwin, and would require the employer to pay compensation.
Tendai Dongo de Airdrie, Alta., He returned to part -time work because he was very overwhelmed by the demands of his work and his children during the coronavirus pandemic.
But if it is not written in the contract, Irwin says it is more complicated. The longer the employees have been working from home without mentioning, the more integrated that policy becomes the agreement of the worker.
That means that employers who allowed people to work from home during COVID-19 and have not remembered them in the five years since they could have “lost the boat” to be able to order their workers back to the office, says Irwin.
According to Chaudhri, changes in health and family state, such as a new health condition or having children, could also give employees motives to work from home. Because health and family state are protected reasons, employers may have to make reasonable adaptations.
However, Chaudhri warns that adaptations must still be reasonable. If a child needs to be collected from the nursery at 3:30 pm every day, for example, that could mean that an employee would be allowed to leave the job early some nights, but he would probably not exempt them from entering the office completely, he said.
Chaudhri says that employees who have been ordered to return to work in person who have medical or family concerns should talk to their employers about the search for a solution.
