With England now waiting with bated breath for 19th July and the lifting of restrictions, we are increasingly seeing businesses getting out the hoover, antibac spray and dusting down 15 months’ worth of mothballs as people start going back to the office.

Despite the overwhelming number of articles in the media discussing the thorny issue of the ‘great return’, we recently published a poll on Twitter to ascertain the reality amongst our network – do they want to return to the office full time?  The result was that overwhelmingly people want the option to work in a blended capacity – 100 per cent of the respondents opted for a mix of office time and working from home.

However, things aren’t as black and white as they seem. It was brought to our attention that context plays an incredibly important role. For instance, what does ‘working from home’ actually mean? Does the individual have to be physically be at home? Or can it be interpreted as remotely – i.e. from a coffee shop, friend’s house or even the Maldives?

As firm believers in blended working ourselves, long before the emergence of #wfh, these are considerations with which we are familiar. Our culture has always been to treat our team as the grown-ups they are and as long as people are getting the job done and are in the meetings they need to be in they can work from wherever they so wish. So I’m now off to book an overwater bungalow for three months…

But on a serious note for organisations that aren’t remote based these are important strategic decisions, which as the economy moves into growth, will have an impact on commercial performance. It is impossible to please all of the people all of the time, but ultimately making these decisions collaboratively and keeping in mind what’s best for the organisation AND the workforce.