UK's workers to continue grafting from home

The United Kingdom's workforce has been warned that working from home will continue for a long time because of the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 disease it causes.

The heads-up from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, says it is time to forget "presenteeism", the culture of rewarding people for spending time in an office.

Peter Cheese, the CIPD's CEO, told the BBC there has been "a moment of real change in the world of work".

"It's a big paradigm shift… It's the biggest experiment we've ever had in homeworking," he said.

And a survey of 1,046 workers carried out by the CIPD found productivity had increased by 28 percent among those working from home, something that more than half of the UK workforce has done continuously since March.

Employers expect working from home to continue, with around 22 percent of the workforce likely to work from home after the pandemic ends. In the past, around 9 percent had done so.

Cheese's comments follow Bank of Scotland announcing this week that 50,000 of its workers will work from home for the rest of 2020.

Facebook, Google, and Fujitsu have all made similar moves.

The need for long-term working from home reflects scientific opinion that the novel coronavirus will be around for the long haul.

Jeremy Farrar, director of the research charity Wellcome Trust, told the House of Commons' cross-party Health Committee this week that "things will not be done by Christmas".

"This infection is not going away," said Farrar, a member of the government's scientific advisory body known as SAGE. "Even, actually, if we have a vaccine or very good treatments, humanity will still be living with this virus for very many, many years… decades to come."

He said a robust testing system must be in place.

And testing was touted by airlines, including British Airways, Lufthansa, and United, as a way to get transatlantic flights back in the air. In an open letter to the United States and European Union they said a joint novel coronavirus testing program should be established, so passengers who have been declared virus-free can fly.

"Given the unquestioned importance of transatlantic air travel to the global economy… we believe it is critical to find a way to reopen air services between the US and Europe," they said.

China introduced a similar program on Tuesday in which people wanting to fly to Chinese mainland airports must obtain negative nucleic acid test certificates no older than five days before boarding.

The British Chambers of Commerce said in a new report that almost half of UK companies have been unable to fully restart operations despite lockdown easing that continued on Wednesday with beauticians, nail salons, and tattoo parlors reopening in Scotland. In Wales embattled colleges and universities will get a government bailout worth 50 million pounds ($63 million) to help them continue to function.