BUISINESS IS AN AUTHORITARIAN HIERARCHY
Managers more likely than junior staff to be offered home working perks

Tom Haynes
Sun, 27 August 2023

manager working from home

Higher-paid management jobs are more likely to offer working from home perks while junior staff are more likely to be forced into the office, according to new analysis of jobs data.

Data compiled by jobs website Adzuna found the office was the most prominent workplace for entry-level to junior advertised positions, while “hybrid working” was the most common working style for roles advertising an annual salary of more than £40,000.

Job vacancies posted in July 2023 showed around a quarter of senior roles paying £60,000 or more to executive level advertised jobs were hybrid.


Last year, jobseekers looking for a senior role were more likely to be offered fully remote roles, with 29pc of job vacancies allowing them to work from home.

It comes despite government calls to push more workers into the office, amid fears of a slump in national productivity. Last year, the Government said the Civil Service would “lead the way in a return to office working”.

Steve Barclay, the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said: “We need to move away from a reliance on video meetings and get back to the benefits of face-to-face, collaborative working.”

The proportion of ‘office’, ‘hybrid’, and ‘remote’ jobs

Andrew Hunter, of Adzuna, said: “Senior managers and top executives not only have bigger paychecks but also greater flexibility.

“To effectively motivate workers to go back to the office, decision-makers should consider leading by example.”

Across the private sector, salaries for junior positions were found to be higher for employees working from home.

Analysis by market specialists the Stepstone Group found that the average salary for a hybrid worker was £42,000, compared to £37,000 for someone in the office full time.

That same analysis found there were three hybrid roles for every office-based job, meaning jobseekers desiring an office environment were met with lower pay and stiffer competition.

There are growing fears younger workers are missing out on vital guidance and career development by not being in an office with their superiors, who largely prefer to remain at home.

In May it emerged that Gen Z – roughly those born between 1997 and 2012 – were in fact leading the charge back into the office, according to the Chartered Institute of Personal Development.

The Institute similarly found that older workers were more likely to be in the “mainly work from home” category, and this was especially the case among high-skilled professional and managerial workers, such as managers, directors and other senior officials.

Writing in The Telegraph, Liz Emerson, of the Intergenerational Foundation think tank, said: “The social contract relies on the passing on of knowledge, training, expertise, behaviours, workplace culture and ethics to younger and future workers.

“The intergenerational transmission of workplace knowledge is at risk if older, senior workplace leaders ignore their responsibilities of passing these skills on to younger colleagues today.”

The enduring popularity of hybrid working, despite the easing of pandemic restrictions last year, has meant the average worker spends 1.75 days a week in the office, according to a study by AWA, a global workplace consultancy.

That same study found that company bosses were responding to the shift by reducing office space, often by downsizing – and that 37pc of employers were planning to reduce their office space through disposals, subletting or consolidation.

Roughly 70pc of offices in the study had less than 40pc attendance, while only five offices had attendance rates of more than 60pc.

Andrew Mawson, of AWA, said that while office attendance had risen, “we may have reached a steady state on hybrid working”.

He added: “While some organisations have taken a ‘let’s see what happens’ approach to hybrid working since the end of the pandemic, it’s now time for all organisations to develop holistic hybrid working policies and address a wide set of issues to prepare themselves for the future.”