Monthly Archives: January 2021

The pandemic is making employers and employees re-assess the value of the workplace. One factor, as Business Minister Paul Scully MP has pointed out, is rarely considered: are employees being subjected to domestic abuse?All employers have a duty of health and safety towards their employees which includes when employees are working from home. Employers need to really think about this and not assume everyone has the same home life. For example: an employee is desperate to go back to the office when they seem ok working from home – why is this? An employee is particularly distressed at the idea of being furloughed – could this be because they are scared of being at home? It is not implausible that an employee may be safer going to the office and risking contracting Covid-19 than staying at home with their abuser. Employers must be alive to this fact.It is good to see that the government is actively considering the impact of domestic abuse on employees and giving employers tips on how to recognise the signs, but the awareness campaign needs to go further. It is for all of us to spread the word that this is a real, sometimes life-threatening, issue which happens every day.Many victims of abuse are employed, meaning that they will likely have a boss they speak to every day. If that boss were trained to pick up the signs that something is wrong then a dialogue of how to combat the issue can start, and that is the first step to a way out for the victim. Everything starts with colleagues paying attention to each other more and talking about abuse openly. Employers have the power to start that dialogue today.Read Mr Scully’s full letter for advice on how employers can combat domestic abuse here. This includes free tips which employers can do almost immediately, and I would strongly recommend that employers read it.

The Chancellor makes some good points in this article, but he does seem to paint an idealistic picture of working in the City which does not necessarily reflect reality.The Chancellor is right that we are social beings, and we all miss even the minor interactions we used to have with colleagues in the office, but does that really mean we will be going back to the office full time and resuming our working lives as they once were? The Chancellor has pointed out that 75% of investment banks would let their staff work from home at least some of the time – I find that figure surprising (although I do not think this is representative of most sectors as investment banking is somewhat unique in its working style). I too am missing the buzz of central London, that ‘spark’ of creativity the office brings, and after work dinners and drinks with friends. But are we all really ready to give up the liberties working from home provides?It is a question for employers, too. The prospect of paying (often astronomical) overheads for prime London real estate only to have some of the workforce actually use that space is by no means a tempting one and is perhaps enough for some to close their premises altogether. Some employers may even find that their staff are even more productive when they are at home because a better work/life balance should go some way to preventing the ‘burn out’ which some London employers have historically struggled to prevent.I do not think that most London office workers will ever fully return to the office. Instead, I think we will see a new ‘hybrid’ way of working emerge which can take the best of our traditional working habits and of working from home. What that will actually look like, we simply do not know.