Workers urged to return to offices for good of Black Country economy
Employers were today urged to “get back into gear” and bring staff back to the office in a bid to support struggling independent businesses.
Leading members of the community say employees still working from home are having a detrimental effect on smaller firms that rely on office workers visiting them during the day.
Leader of the opposition at Wolverhampton Council Wendy Thompson said it was time for the city to “get back into gear”.
Her place of work, the Civic Centre, employs approximately 3,000 people but staff are not going back into the office until October.
Mrs Thompson said: “I just think it’s really concerning. These small businesses rely on office workers being back and we really need to do everything we can to get back into gear and get the city back to normal.
“Wolverhampton has seemed quite quiet on certain days, it’s eerie. Things look like they’re getting back to usual and we need that for the city too.”
Wolverhampton Council chief executive Tim Johnson, said: "Many council workers have continued to operate from their normal places of work during the pandemic to ensure the smooth running of services for our residents. The bins would not get emptied, Meals on Wheels would not be delivered, social care colleagues would not look after vulnerable people, streets would not be cleaned if all council staff were all working from home.
"In line with Government instructions to work from home at the start of lockdown, most of our office-based staff have been doing so since then and have utilised technology to ensure we are still able to deliver services to the public.
"Safety of our workforce and the public is our primary concern. We are continuing to work on plans for a partial and phased returned to the office for our staff but will only implement them when it is safe to do so. This decision will be based not only on our ability to create a Covid-secure environment on our sites, which we believe we can, but also on the prevalence of the virus in the community, which we should not forget has been rising in recent weeks. We are keeping the situation under constant review.
"We recognise that this is a challenging time for businesses. Throughout the pandemic we’ve worked closely with city businesses to ensure they accessed vital business grants and to reopen the high streets in a safe way with appropriate social distancing measures in place. Our business development team has also been working alongside partner agencies, such as the Black Country Chamber of Commerce, to offer support and advice."
Another major employer in the city centre, the University of Wolverhampton, said it will be welcoming back students to live and study on campus from this month, which will help boost the local economy.
MP for Wolverhampton South West Stuart Anderson said small local businesses such as cafés and sandwich shops were the “backbone of Wolverhampton”.
He said: "I've spoken to a lot of those sorts of businesses. Some are adapting and changing but what we need is everyone back at work in a safe environment.
"We need to kick start the economy but not at the sacrifice of safety. We need to do everything we can to get people back in a safe environment."
Walsall 'needs people back'
Councillor Mike Bird, leader of Walsall Council warned that cafés and sandwich shops in the town could go bump unless big employers get their workers back on site as soon as possible.
He conceded that social distancing measures meant that bringing back vast numbers of workers was impossible. But he said that the staggered return of more staff could give independent shops a desperately needed boost in footfall.
The majority of Walsall Council’s 1,500 Town Hall staff have been working from home since the start of the lockdown.
Council leader Councillor Bird said that although the site was in the process of being made safe for the return of staff, it would only be able to accommodate a maximum of 350 people under current Covid-19 guidelines.
He said: “If we can get our people back – probably on a rota basis – it will make a difference.
“We have to get our message across about living with Covid-19. It is not going to go away. People have got to make adjustments to their lives and the way they work.
“Footfall is increasing, but it is slow. We know that the workers of Walsall Council can have a huge impact with their spending power.”
Walsall town centre has suffered a series of blows in recent years.
One in four stores are empty – including M&S which closed in 2018 – while the future of the town’s Debenhams branch remains under threat. Councillor Bird said increasing the number of homes available in the town centre may be key to its survival.
“Retail is on its backside and we have lost our destination shops,” he said.
“People need a reason to visit a town centre and sadly, we have a very poor shopping offer at the moment. We have got plans to encourage more people to live in the town centre by remodelling the station quarter. Those people will be spending their money there, and we believe that holds the key to regeneration.”
Dudley needs normality
Council leader Patrick Harley also urged major employers to get their staff back on site as soon as possible in a bid to increase town centre footfall in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown.
He said traders around the borough would reap the benefits of a “return to normality”, with stores in Dudley in line for a boost due to more council staff returning to work in the town centre.
The majority of Dudley Council’s office-based staff have been working from home since the start of the lockdown, but Mr Harley says he hopes up to two thirds of them will be spending some time back in the workplace by the end of the month.
“We want people to return to normality as quickly as possible,” he said.
“We appreciate safety is key and those who have some sort of underlying health condition will need to continue working from home.
“But with social distancing measures now in place it is important people get back into work if they are able to do so. Dudley has been quite busy and footfall is increasing, but for the sake of traders we need the workers to get back in.”
It comes after ministers launched a drive to get people back into work, with employers encouraged to make offices Covid-secure.
Dudley South MP Mike Wood said the “whole economy” was reliant on the return of workers. He said: “People’s jobs and livelihoods are dependent on it, as so many places are reliant on the support of workers from offices and factories that are based around the town centre.
“You can see with the Waterfront less occupied than usual it has had a knock-on effect on Brierley Hill high street.”
Critical
Black Country LEP board member, Ninder Johal, said the successful reopening of schools would have a major impact on people returning to work.
"It is critical that we get workers back, and if all goes well when children return to school this week then more people will feel confident about safely returning to the office," he said.
"There is a concern that big businesses are reevaluating their offices, but many of them are seeing that while there are benefits from having staff working at home, you really need your people back in the office if you want to develop team work and innovation."
Pressure to return to work
The pressure on businesses in England to get their workforces back in the office in the wake of the coronavirus crisis has ramped up this week.
A Government ad campaign is encouraging people to stop working from their homes and return to their workplaces – after concerns about the damage that being done to the economies of city and major town centres with people continuing to stay away from offices because of the pandemic.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said "it is now safe to go back" to work and the Government ads emphasise the benefits of employees returning to workplaces and also encourage businesses to ensure their offices Covid-secure.
The chief executive of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce, Corin Crane, said there was a very mixed picture on staff returning from working at home.
"While there are more people coming back to the office in the Black Country it is nowhere near the levels before Covid-19," he added.
He said the campaign was putting the burden on business to get people back to the office.
"People want confidence in the data that it will show where problems are and the confidence that the right precautions are being made by the Government to protect them," said Mr Crane, who added that many businesses were now looking for smaller offices to reduce costs and having staff working from home was suiting them.
He said the worry for businesses in the Black Country, where there were still quite high levels of coronavirus in places, was that they would go to the expense of getting people back only for there to be a local lockdown
