Some workers feeling left out as the world goes hybrid

There are ways to spread the benefis of working from home to our blue-collar workers.

Workers across the board are looking for a new approach to work. Picture: iStock

After three years of the world focusing attention on the rights of knowledge workers to work from home, it’s not surprising blue-collar and grey-collar employees who have to front up every day are cutting up rough.

These workers are having a “what about me?” moment as it becomes clear many prac­tices pursued in the pandemic are being locked in as hybrid and remote work for a slice of the workforce.

According to research by recruitment and HR services company Randstad Australia, only 22.5 per cent of grey-collar and 17.7 per cent of blue-collar Australian workers feel flexibility in their job has increased since the pandemic. This compares with 52.6 per cent of white-collar workers.

(Grey-collar workers in the survey refers to people in customer-facing roles such as teachers, nurses, police officers and pilots.)

Angela Anasis, executive general manager of Randstad, says more than 40 per cent of grey-collar and blue-collar workers believe flexibility is impossible for them; and 30.9 per cent of grey-collar and 40.1 per cent of blue-collar workers feel it’s not in their employer’s interest to provide flexibility.

Research by the firm also uncovered another statistic that underlines the pressures on these workers because of a lack of flexibility: 63.2 per cent of grey-collar and 45.6 per cent of blue-collar workers took a sick day to manage personal responsibilities in the past year.

Anasis says discussion on the issue has been oversimplified and reduced to a question of whether you work from home. But flex is not just about location and is far more nuanced, she says.

“Just looking at that research, I’m just really astounded actually at how high (the numbers are),” she says. “For blue-collar workers two out of five were saying flexibility was actually more important than salary. For grey workers, it was 48 per cent, yet two-thirds of employees believe employers are not really trying hard enough.”

Anasis says blue-collar and grey-collar workers are now saying, “ ‘Well hang on, we want some flexibility as well. You guys (white-collar workers) can kind of come back and choose your hours.’ I can understand why the conversation was a very simple one in the pandemic, when we would literally only talk about can you leave the house or not.”

But employers need to take a broader approach to flexibility which, for blue-collar workers, could involve flexible schedules and shifts; job sharing; and time off for professional development.

Anasis says the fact some people had been forced to take a sick day to manage personal responsibilities was a wake-up call to employers. They should consider whether it was better for their business to have people take unplanned sick leave or to have scheduled flexibility.

The Randstad survey looked at the reasons respondents wanted flexibility and found half of blue-collar workers and up to 40 per cent of grey-collar workers wanted the opportunity to follow a hobby or a passion project.

Anasis says while many jobs cannot be done remotely, there is value in allowing employees to do even 5 per cent of a job outside the workplace.

According to the survey, the most valuable type of flexible working arrangements for these workers are:

● A flexible working schedule (for example, a four-day or reduced working week, working split shifts, working night shifts, working weekend hours). This was supported by 36.3 per cent of grey-collar and 29.9 per cent of blue-collar workers.

● Number of hours (for example, setting the number of hours per day based on workload, ability to take days off after having worked longer hours). This was supported by 25.7 per cent of grey-collar and 28.6 per cent of blue-collar workers.

● Type of work (for example, choice of indoor, outdoor, office, factory or on-the ground work). Supported by 10.3 per cent of grey-collar and 15 per cent of blue-collar workers.

The question of whether blue-collar workers have been ignored in the pandemic is not new: in 2020, Bharat Ramamurti, managing director of the corporate power program at the Roosevelt Institute in the US, wrote about the way the pandemic could widen the racial and gender gap in the US workforce.

He referenced a study from the University of Chicago that found “people who had jobs that were harder to perform at home had lower incomes and wealth, and were more likely to be non-white, than those who had jobs that could more easily be done remotely.

“As a result, we are likely to see an even more bifurcated economy after the pandemic, in which a disproportionate number of wealthier white people work from home while disproportionate numbers of poorer people of colour work on-site. White-collar workers will at least have the option to do their jobs remotely, while blue-collar workers will continue to have to go into work.”

In a report, the Oliver Wyman Forum, the think tank of US management consultants Oliver Wyman, coins the label new collars to describe blue-collar workers who used the pandemic to learn new skills so they could find better jobs.

It says during the pandemic blue-collar workers put themselves “and their loved ones at risk, while they watched white-collar employees migrate to safe remote setups, with their jobs and pay protected”.

The forum also argues: “Our research also shows that blue-collar workers are looking to the white-collar pandemic experience of work from home, hybrid work and general flexibility on the part of employers, and wondering when they will benefit from these gains too.”

It says there is an opportunity for blue-collar employers “if they can respond quickly enough and make meaningful changes that offer some of the same perks as white-collar jobs”.

In a recent piece in Computerworld, columnist Mike Elgan argues that “the blue-collar remote work revolution is coming”.

He writes: “It’s not just laptop labourers who can work from home. Technology will enable many jobs to go remote.”

Elgan cites a couple of examples: “A convenience store chain in Japan, called FamilyMart, is experimenting with remotely controlled robots to stock shelves. The employees can work from anywhere using what are essentially VR googles and controllers, and among their number can be disabled employees with limited mobility – people who lack the physical ability to stock shelves.

“Heavy equipment maker Cat is developing increasingly capable remote-control earth movers and other such equipment, as are several other European companies.”

Elgan argues that “planes, trains and automobiles could be piloted and controlled remotely.

“Some factory work can be done at home, as long as the equipment isn’t too large or complex. In fact, a great many jobs now considered impossible as remote positions could become remote with the right technology, along with some creative thinking.The bottom line is that while we’re all fixated on how to proceed with white-collar, information-worker jobs, the blue-collar, non-information worker jobs are poised to go through a remote work revolution of their own, enabled by technology that’s far more advanced than what underpins white-collar workers.”

Read the article at www.computerworld.com

“