When homeworking versus the office isn ’ t a straightforward choice

UNISON’s annual equalities survey found that most UNISON members continued working during the pandemic with 45% working from their usual workplace and 40% from home. For those working from home, over 6 in 10 members felt there were no risks to their health, safety and wellbeing. As one member said: “I’d like to continue working from home as much as possible, I have zero desire to ever go back into an office again.” Many members felt more productive working from home, including one person who summarised: “I get more done without all the distractions of being in a noisy, open-plan office.” However, this was not the case across the board, and 49% of respondents said that they had a lack of suitable equipment to be able to fulfil their work duties from home. Technical equipment and communications For numerous people, working from home has highlighted the flaws and failures in IT systems. As one member stated: “Although expected to work from home, I did not have suitable equipment and was not provided with any by work. I had to buy myself a new laptop, but still did not have access to three essential work IT systems. “Working from home had an adverse affect on my mental health as I felt under pressure because I was classed as working from home, but could not be productive as I couldn’t access all work systems.” For a number of members, there was inequity in access to IT and communications equipment. One member described: “At home I could not acces...
Source: UNISON Health care news - Category: UK Health Authors: Tags: Article Covid-19 women working from home Source Type: news