Jonathan Reynolds, the United Kingdom’s business secretary, is touting the benefits of remote and hybrid work, as well as the right disconnect, saying “there is genuinely nothing to worry about.”

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer recently threw his weight behind remote work, with his spokesperson saying companies need to stop perpetuating a “culture of presenteeism,” and focus on “on improve productivity.” The statements were some of the most high-profile government endorsements of remote/hybrid work and the right to disconnect.

Listen to a podcast conversation on the benefits of remote work. Not ‘Presenteeism.’

In an interview with The Times, Reynolds built on those statements, emphasizing that remote work was an important tool to keep employees motivated.

“I think it’s important to stress that good employers understand that workforce, to keep them motivated and resilient, they do need to judge people on outcomes and not a culture of presenteeism,” Reynolds said.

The official then contrasted the Labour government’s embrace of remote work with the previous Tory government’s war on trend.

“Jacob Rees-Mogg made this big thing as business secretary [in] declaring war on people working from home,” he says. “That’s pretty bizarre given the economic position the country was in and the real business agenda that needs to be pursued.”

Flexibility Is the Key

Reynolds acknowledged it doesn’t have to be either/or, with flexibility being the key to success.

“I think there are times when it is absolutely necessary, it’s legitimate to need the workforce in the office,” he says. “You’re basically learning from more experienced colleagues on the job.

“We’ve had flexible working laws for quite some time in the UK,” he added. “I think where people reach agreement with their employer … it does contribute to productivity, it does contribute to their resilience, their ability to stay working for an employer.”

Ultimately, however, Reynolds told The Times that he sees remote and hybrid work as a boon for the UK economy.

“A lot of businesses will say their motivation for being a workplace that offers this is because it opens up a much wider group of talent that they can recruit … there are real economic benefits to be had from the UK adopting this approach.”

CEOs Should Take Note

Unfortunately, some CEOs—especially older, male, workaholic CEOs—still value presenteeism over productivity.

This was on full display Monday as Amazon CEO Andy Jassy demanded corporate employees return to the office five days a week. While framing the RTO mandate in the context of returning to pre-pandemic norms, employees were quick to point out that the mandate was actually far more restrictive than the company’s requirements before COVID forced a transition to remote work.

“Please do note that this is (in a lot of cases) significantly more strict and out of its mind than many teams operated under pre-covid,” wrote one employee on the company’s Slack channel. “This is not ‘going back’ to how it was before. It’s just going backwards.”

Amazon is, predictably, facing significant fallout from Jassy’s mandate, but the company is far from the only one. In fact, the data shows that RTO mandates have largely been a disaster for companies, with such companies experience the following issues:

• 42% experienced higher attrition.
• 29% struggled to recruit new employees.
• 76% of employees are willing to leave a job if flexible or hybrid work is removed completely.
• 80% of executives regret how they handled RTO mandates.

Meanwhile, studies consistently show that remote and hybrid workers are more productive and work harder than their in-office counterparts. In fact, according to Microsoft remote employees work an average of 10% more. Similarly, remote workers are 13% more productive on average. Unfortunately, Microsoft found that many executives are driven by “productivity paranoia,” rather than trusting their employees.

“Many leaders and managers are missing the old visual cues of what it means to be productive because they can’t ‘see’ who is hard at work by walking down the hall or past the conference room,” wrote Microsoft in their report. “Indeed, compared to in-person managers, hybrid managers are more likely to say they struggle to trust their employees to do their best work (49% vs. 36%) and report that they have less visibility into the work their employees do (54% vs. 38%). And as employees feel the pressure to ‘prove’ they’re working, digital overwhelm is soaring.”

Unfortunately, until CEOs adopt a progressive, productivity-oriented approach to their employees, more companies will experience the kind of backlash Amazon is currently facing.