With worries about sluggish productivity having long been a prominent theme of business discussion in the UK, it has been intriguing to see how employers up and down the country have reacted to the rise in recent years of remote and hybrid working models.

The hybrid working approach, of course, is defined by employees spending some of their time during the typical week in the traditional office of their employer, and the other part of their week working from home or another remote location.

But what do business leaders in the UK actually make of such altered working practices and their persistent popularity so long after the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic has passed?

The answer is that they seem to have a rather more positive attitude towards these ways of working than has sometimes been assumed. Although data recently released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has pointed to the UK continuing to lag behind many other G7 countries in terms of workforce output, a new poll of more than 500 business leaders has found that 85% do not believe remote and hybrid working practices are to blame for this situation.

Hybrid working might be an aid to productivity rather than a hindrance

Delving deeper into the figures, well over half (61%) of the quizzed business leaders said that their employees actually showed greater productivity when they worked remotely.

An additional quarter (24%) of respondents believed there wasn’t a difference between their workers’ office-based and off-site productivity, and only 15% felt that their workers were less productive when working remotely.

Moreover, with business leaders in Germany (94%) and France (91%) reporting heightened productivity, there is reason to suspect that businesses embracing hybrid working practices might actually be able to reap productivity advantages.

It would also seem that the UK has seen a transition in how it perceives remote workers’ productivity levels. As reported by HR News, a study carried out in 2020 found that more than a quarter (27%) of those surveyed felt there was a distinct perception that staff weren’t doing much work while at home. However, most respondents – 64% – believed there was an improvement in such perceptions over the course of the pandemic.

In fact, 37% of business leaders now regard better productivity as one of the primary business drivers in adopting a hybrid model. Some 26% of those questioned, though, felt that this remained a challenge, and 32% said it was a top priority for improvement for them.

We can help your business rise more confidently to the challenges of 2023

There’s no doubt about it; there remains a lot for businesses around the UK to think about in 2023 if they are to both survive and thrive. And you might be anxious to take certain steps to modernise your firm’s approach, including how it meets its financial and compliance obligations.

If your organisation is on the lookout right now for sophisticated and dependable accountancy in Wellington, Plymouth, or Newton Abbot, please don’t hesitate to enquire today to the TS Partners team about how we can assist.