Working from home – Stonewater has supported new research to enable better home working 

The way we work has changed rapidly since the start of the pandemic with more and more people working from home. While the positives and benefits of working from home for people who previously had office-based jobs have been widely reported, the voices of those in different fields and on lower incomes have been missing from the conversation. Our recent research project aimed to put that right.  

New ways of working should bring big opportunities for people looking to get into work or changes jobs. With where you live becoming less of a factor when it comes to the type of work you’re able to access, the job market looks very different than it did 18 months ago. 

Over recent months we’ve been working on an exciting project to understand the experience of people who earn less than £20,000 a year working from home and the possible barriers in accessing this type of work. 

Today we launch a report with Demos, a research organisation, which calls on the Government and businesses to ensure that workers – especially those on lower incomes – are supported to be able to work from home, and that they get the same benefits and opportunities as higher earners.  

You can read the report online here. The project has involved a number of our customers, who gave us their views on what works for them and what doesn’t. It’s been great to include so many Stonewater customer voices in the report. 

 

 

We wanted this project to be more than words and felt it was really important to find real solutions, allowing us to look at what we can do as a landlord and employer and what other businesses and the Government could also consider. In response to the report’s findings, we’re 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.  You can see our vacancies here.
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 made training available for our customers who would like help getting into work. 
8. We’ve funded a project to help customers improve their digital skills and we will look to see how we can build on this. If you’d like to be referred please email or call us. 
9. 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. You can find some information on the support in our latest customer newsletter. 

We hope you find the report interesting and useful. If you have any questions about the report, or any of our plans mentioned above please contact us on customer.engagement@stonewater.org.