One of the realities that all businesses have had to get used to over the past two years is maintaining delivery whilst managing new challenges around workforce planning and supporting their employees.
Covid has created a number of unique challenges and UK businesses have responded in a range of ways. Like many, ENL Group had to rethink the way that we manage the staff across our business. We moved to flexible working arrangements such as homeworking wherever that was possible. Where it was not, we took steps to ensure that our workplaces were as Covid-secure as they could possibly be.
With the vaccination programme accelerating there were hopes that, as we entered 2022, UK businesses might witness a return to something resembling their previous work patterns. However, the recent spread of the Omicron variant has led to another increase in homeworking and a rise in staff absences.
As businesses across the UK manufacturing sector deal with these ongoing labour shortages, we reflect on what measures manufacturing businesses can take to keep staff safe whilst maintaining production.
The Homeworking Revolution
One of the most significant impacts of the pandemic has been to usher in a fundamental change to the working patterns of the UK workforce.
The numbers are startling. Before the pandemic, only around 5% of the workforce worked mainly from home. According to research from ONS, by spring in early 2021 this figure was 37%. At the height of the pandemic, it was substantially higher.
This might have started out as a short-term trend but recent data suggests that this could well be a more permanent change in our national working habits. Data from the Government’s Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) indicates that 24% of businesses intend to use increased homeworking as a permanent business model going forward, while 28% were not sure.
Analysis of recruitment adverts supports the idea that this is far from just a temporary adjustment. Job adverts referencing “homeworking” have increased at a faster rate than total job adverts. Adverts mentioning homeworking in May 2021 were three times above their February 2020 average.
It does appear that homeworking is here to stay for some staff. There are benefits to this for both businesses and employees. Businesses can recruit from a wider geographical area and can offer opportunities that enable staff to balance work obligations with their home life and caring responsibilities. Homeworking can also help meet wider organisational objectives around wellbeing, diversity, and sustainability.
However, switching to working from home is not always straightforward. For instance, many of us will have personal experience of the considerable challenges of balancing home-schooling with continuing to deliver our work deadlines earlier in the pandemic.
Some employees also report difficulties in differentiating between home and work life. If not carefully managed, working from home can create expectations that emails will be dealt with and responded to in evenings and at weekends. That sense of “always being at home” can very quickly become a less positive feeling of “always being at work”.
How ENL Group Responded
Homeworking clearly lends itself more to some roles than others. Waiters or construction workers cannot work from their kitchen tables. Similarly, for a manufacturing company like ENL Group, some roles simply cannot be delivered remotely. However, for other functions, arrangements to support working from home have been in place since the start of the pandemic.
Like many companies, this has been something of a learning curve for managers and employees alike. What we have learned is that some roles can be delivered from home without impacting on the day-to-day running of the business and the delivery of our key operational and strategic objectives.
Key to this was rethinking how we communicate with staff who are based remotely and developing our digital equipment and infrastructure to ensure that it could deal with the increase in staff working from a home base. With the right equipment and processes in place, homeworking is now an established part of how some members of our team work.
Ongoing Challenges
However, for our frontline operational staff involved in the manufacture of high-quality plastic components, homeworking was simply not an option. Instead, we focused on making the working environment as safe as possible, with social distancing, sanitising stations, and staggered shift patterns. This enabled us to continue production, maintain quality, and keep our promises to customers.
And the challenges of maintaining staffing levels are still with us as we move into 2022. The rapid recent spread of the Omicron variant and the requirements for self-isolation has resulted in a high number of staff absences following the Christmas break. These have impacted mainly in our mould shop, where our quality plastic components are produced.
Like all businesses, we have to find ways to manage these new daily challenges. The simple fact is, that no business can fully prepare for a global pandemic. For us, the key lesson is not about the specifics of our response. Instead, what we have learned is that what will characterise successful businesses in the future is not simply “what they do” but “how they work.”
Key to this will be responsiveness and agility. Over the last two years, as a business, ENL Group has learned a lot about the benefits of having plans that are flexible enough to cope with whatever the pandemic could throw at us. These have helped us to retain staff, deliver for customers, and maintain business continuity. Moving forward, the lessons that we have learned will help us shape a future that can deal with the rapid and constant change that increasingly characterises our operating environment.
About ENL Group
ENL Group is based in Portsmouth, UK, and Veľké Kostoľany, Slovakia. Established in 1958, we have been servicing UK-based and European companies for decades. Working with a secure supply chain, ENL provides quality components for quality-driven customers – with full certification for all of our products and quality checking at every stage.
Operating 24/7, we design, manufacture, and deliver critical components for our customers across the UK and Europe.
Contact Us for more information about ENL and how we can help your business.
