Opinion: Help needed for lower-paid homeworkers

Hear from Nicholas Harris, Chief Executive at Stonewater:

At Stonewater, we saw that there was a real appetite from our colleagues to be able to continue to work from home. That’s why, earlier this year, we announced that we would be moving to a permanent hybrid working model, combining virtual homeworking with a small network of physical collaborative hubs for colleagues to come together where it adds value.

Our own colleagues have largely welcomed the switch (which includes more flexible working, interest-free loans to create comfortable workspaces and updated benefits) and have told us about the positives of home working on work/life balance, health and wellbeing, flexibility, etc. But we’re aware that the conversation nationally around homeworking has largely missed the voice of lower earners in society, and we recognise that many of our customers fall within this group. We want to make sure that we are as responsive as we can be to the future needs of our customers, ensuring that the homes we provide are places where customers are able to thrive.

So, earlier this year, we commissioned new research by leading think-tank Demos to look at how the housing sector, government and society as a whole can respond to the issues faced by low-paid workers in a post-pandemic environment. I am delighted to announce that this report, Inside Jobs: The experience of low-paid homeworkers in Britain today, has now been published.

While the report is clear that most people who work from home experience real benefits from doing so and want to continue homeworking, those on lower incomes have not been able to see all of those benefits for themselves in the same way as higher earners.

This is due to challenges around increased household costs, lack of space and connectivity, or not having the opportunity to work from home at all. The report particularly highlights the challenges around costs for low earners who rigidly spend part of their week in the office and part of their week at home.

The report makes a number of recommendations to government, employers and housing providers, which we will be reviewing in the coming months. I would urge you to take the time to read the report and its recommendations.

In response to the report’s findings, we are already bringing forward a number of changes:

1. Many utilities and internet providers have lower tariffs that are available to low-paid workers. We will be making sure we publicise these widely to make sure customers are aware of them.
2. We’re reviewing how we communicate vacancies within Stonewater and our partners so that customers are able to see these opportunities more easily.
3. We’ll be talking to the Government and politicians to encourage them to work with employers to make sure jobs are flexible (unless they really can’t be), that the tax relief system takes account of the increased costs of working from home and the benefits system supports people to work from home (e.g. not penalising those who are using a spare bedroom to work).
4. We’re already including working space in the design of our new homes, and we’ll continue to look at ways of maximising space to do this.
5. We’ve recently secured funding from the Government to support the installation of high-speed fibre broadband in all of our apartment blocks across the country.
6. We’ve installed WiFi services in some of our homes and are looking to see how we can build and improve on this provision, as well as how we can assist customers with connectivity more widely.
7. We’ve funded a project to help customers improve their digital skills and we will look to see how we can build on this.
8. We continue to work with our partners to offer specialised support to customers who may be struggling financially. We’ll soon be consulting customers on our offer around financial help and support to make sure that it’s as comprehensive as it can be.

We look forward to people reading the report, and to raising its findings and recommendations with government, businesses and the housing sector in the coming months. And we would love to hear your thoughts on it, so do please get in touch.