Work-from-home problems in South Africa

South African employers are facing a backlash from workers as they cut back on remote working benefits implemented during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Most recently, Nedbank and Arena Holdings amended their work-from-home policies, Rapport reports.

Arena Holdings publishes the Sunday Times, Business Day, Sowetan, and TimesLive. It ordered employees back to the office full-time to arrest a decline in productivity and performance.

Nedbank announced stricter remote working policies, requiring staff to be in the office at least three days per week, including Mondays and Fridays.

Previously, Nedbank allowed employees to work remotely three days per week.

Earlier this year, Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub ordered senior staff to return to the office, ending the company’s blanket hybrid work-from-home policies.

“This move has been necessitated by the prevailing complex business environment caused by various micro and macro-economic challenges,” a Vodacom spokesperson told MyBroadband at the time.

Vodacom said its business environment requires fully present and accessible leadership to steer the organisation in the right direction.

“Therefore, in our view, by being on-site, leaders can collaborate more effectively and ensure issues are resolved timely for our customers,” the company said.

“Being back at the office also means opportunities are executed at pace and leaders steer the business to new levels of success.”

Like most companies that could operate remotely during the pandemic, Vodacom had allowed employees to continue working from home even as lockdown restrictions relaxed.

Until February, Vodacom allowed all employees to work from home twice a week, where their jobs allowed.

Companies that implemented highly permissive remote working policies have struggled to reverse them as problems started emerging.

Decreased productivity, higher staff turnover, and training and onboarding difficulties are some of the issues organisations started experiencing with the advent of work-from-home.

Webber Wentzel partner Brett Abraham told Rapport that data from several employers now proves that productivity is negatively affected by workers not being full time in the office.

This is despite staff reporting that they are working longer hours.

Abraham said employers have observed a deterioration in workplace culture, and training and mentorship due to the lack of in-person interactions.

He said the development of junior staff was particularly negatively impacted by remote working.

However, while many companies want to do away with or reduce their remote working benefits, they face challenges such as staff that semigrated under the belief that they could work remotely in perpetuity.

There are also legal concerns.

Abraham said employers could not unilaterally change their conditions of employment regarding remote work.

He explained that there must be consultation before a new agreement is negotiated.

Meanwhile, professional recruitment firm Michael Page has found that although companies are fighting to get staff back to the office, employees in favour of remote work are winning the war.

Michael Page recently released its latest Talent Trends report for 2024, which is based on a global survey of 50,000 respondents in 37 countries, including South Africa.

The survey gauges how the employment landscape has shifted so far this year, and what is driving talent trends in professional industries.

In the 2023 survey, around 20% of employers saw hybrid/flexible working arrangements and flexible working hours as core recruitment requirements.

In 2024, this increased to almost 30%, showing that more companies believe this is a serious consideration for workers.

At the same time, 37% of employees who are working in some kind of hybrid arrangement report having to go into the office more in 2024.

25% say they’re working remotely more, and 35% say their arrangement hasn’t changed.

Michael Page found that those back at the office more regularly were not doing it out of choice.

Most cited company policy changes and stricter work requirements as the main reason.

“Many employers are struggling to find a hybrid model which works for all sides — all while recognising the fact that, for employees, work-life balance is not a ‘nice to have’, but a ‘need to have,’” the recruitment firm said.