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To flex or not to flex? How will work life look in 2025?



Are the past few years of office flexibility and the rise of the TW&T (for the avoidance of doubt, that’s people who work in the office Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) coming to an end?


The Press is awash with news that big employers are mandating a return to the office.  Lloyds Bank, having championed flexibility post-pandemic (and won a prize for doing so), has u-turned and now seeks to link bonus payments to face time.   Amazon, Asda, JP Morgan, BT, PwC the list goes on of large companies cajoling and sometimes forcing their employees back into the office full-time.  


Despite Labour’s plans to promote a better work-life balance, there appears to have been a power shift away from employees, back to employers over the last few months.  Have we reached the high-water mark in terms of flexibility? 


But there is pushback from some quarters – this week saw the world’s biggest advertising agency, WPP, in the news as thousands of their employees signed a petition requesting the company revoke their new back-to-the-office mandate.


The BBC’s next Panorama show which airs on Monday 20 January,  will ask the question “Should we still be Working from Home?” and will look at whether it is good for us and for the economy.   Brew Dog boss, James Watt, never shy in voicing an opinion, has argued that work-life balance was created by people who hate their jobs, and he encourages “work-life integration” instead. 


The benefits of flexibility and recognising that one size does not fit all, remain.  The UK economy employs five generations.  What suits one generation may be very different to the others.  There is further evidence of a divide between the sexes - a 2024 article in the Journal of Demographic Economics by Margherita Agnoletto, finds that in the UK, men derive greater benefits from flexitime and women find working from home more beneficial; the flexibility was found to improve job satisfaction and mental health. 


But equally, different companies have different requirements – collaboration can be hard over a glitchy and stilted Teams call.  And there is no doubting remote working cannot replicate what Julia Hobsbawm calls “birdsong” – the passing but valuable interactions innate in office-based life. Plus with over 45% of respondents in a recent survey saying they met a "substantial" romantic partner at work, in-person working has its advantages.


Navigating the path between the desire of some to retain flexible working and the needs of the employer for more in-person office time will be, for many employers, one of the challenges of 2025.


Ellie Rogers, Senior Associate



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