Cumbria Chamber of Commerce Business Engagement and Policy Manager Richard Miller discusses the issues surrounding hybrid working in the county.

He says: "Over the last few months, businesses have been getting used to living with Covid-19, and for many of them it also comes with a host of different working arrangements in what has come to be known as ‘the new normal’.

Businesses of all sizes and across all sectors have had to adapt their old way of working to take into account the ongoing impact of potential staff illness, knock on difficulties in supply chains, and pressure from employees to maintain flexible working arrangements.

One thing is clear, hybrid working is here to stay. Rural areas across the UK, including Cumbria, have seen an increase in the number of people not having to make the long daily commutes to urban hubs.

There are both positive and negative impacts of this, and how you perceive them will likely depend on individual views, but most obviously a better work life balance and reduced carbon footprint are two factors that many people are reporting as being of benefit from both workers and employers' point of view, respectively. Negative impacts could be factors such as unsuitable working space at home or lack of engagement with employees.

Cumbria has a number of large employment sectors which require on-site presence such as hospitality and manufacturing, but we have found that even some manufacturers such as Oxley Group Ltd have taken to a four-day working week after trial periods proved successful. A survey, recently conducted by Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, found that 61% of respondents plan to implement hybrid working as a permanent feature, up from 14% pre-pandemic.

However, people not returning to offices and town centres could also negatively impact other businesses, such as your local tearoom, bakery, butchers, coffee or sandwich shops used by many office workers. It should be noted though, that only 23% of businesses surveyed said that they were seeking to downsize or discard office space entirely. Commercial property owners therefore, may not have to be too concerned about loss of income at this stage.

That could be explained by the fact that 56% of businesses said that hybrid working was not available to all staff. This could be for a host of reasons such as the employment is not compatible with home working due to the need for access to specific resources, or employers are not able to facilitate home working as a permanent feature of employment due to productivity issues. We found that some businesses were able to allow people to work from home as a necessity, but under normal circumstances, where for example immediate communication or referral to other staff was required, it was negatively impacting customer experience, which in turn was not justified by the potential for cost cutting in office space.

Overall, it appears that both employers and employees seem to have adapted to this new way of thinking, but we do recognise that in some industries where access to staff is already limited for example agriculture, manufacturing, hospitality and tourism which are our key employers here in Cumbria, that the demands which staff are now putting on their employers can be a difficult tight rope to negotiate for fear of losing out to competition.

Only time will truly tell whether this is the future of working life, but for now it appears that people are keen to move on, adapt and make the best of what the year ahead has to offer."