Flexible working: lessons from the great work-from-home mass experiment

For years, politicians and employers alike have talked up the promise of flexible working. And it looked like change was happening. Last year, the UK government announced a consultation around whether flexible work should not just be available, but become employees’ default option in its annual Queen’s Speech. But 2020 rapidly became a hugely different year in Westminster and flexible working rights seemingly ground to a halt at the political level. In the end it took the COVID-19 pandemic, with its attendant government-enforced lockdowns, for working from home to sit at the centre of an unanticipated global experiment and to become the catalyst for a real discussion about flexible work