The legacy of lockdown Pandemic changed the way we work and play

Jessica (not her real name) is facing up to the reality of juggling work and childcare for the first time. After having a baby during the pandemic, the data analyst from the north of England is now expected to spend 40% of her working week in the office, a rule enforced by her employer since January.

- Joanna Partridge Matthew Pearce

"I'm struggling with the requirements for office time and it's meaning I have much less free time and am feeling constantly stressed," she said. "The reality is that I'd need to leave my job if I had to be in the office full-time."

Despite working part-time, combining a long commute with nursery drop-off and pickup is proving tricky, especially as Jessica's husband's job is not flexible.

Even though her manager is pleased with her performance, he is unable to change what he considers a "stupid policy", which Jessica views as "an arbitrary rule imposed by senior leaders who have very different roles".

Over the past few years, Jessica and millions of other office-based workers like her have benefited from the post-pandemic rise in home working, and are now grappling with employers' enforcement of office attendance or fresh return-to-office mandates.

When the first lockdown was called in March 2020, millions of office-based workers were hurriedly packed off home with their laptops, from where they would spend much of the next year carrying out their roles from their kitchen tables, spare bedrooms or even garden sheds.

This may not have done wonders for workers' backs (ONS data charts a big rise in the number of people found unfit for work because of neck and back injuries), yet for many the temporary measure has proved permanent.

Many employers saw the proof that staff could work efficiently from home; productivity remained the same, or even increased at some organisations. Meanwhile, workers got a taste of life without the commute, enjoying more time for family or hobbies and a better work-life balance.

While remote working is not possible for all professions - prompting warnings from analysts that Britain is splitting into a two-tier workforce - professionals who are able to carry out their jobs remotely for some of the week have come to regard this as a right rather than a perk.