The Last Word with Matt Cooper
Will Changes To Work From Home Rules Convince Employees To Change Jobs?
20 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The last word with Life Pharmacy. Over 100 local pharmacies nationwide that are always here to help. Life Pharmacy. Live better together. So let's talk again about work from home or return to the office. They're both linked to each other. It is a major issue for many people, particularly as many companies are looking for employees to spend more time in the office, return to office.
Interesting findings from a survey done today by Morgan McKinley. We're joined by Tracey Keevans, Global Foreign Direct Investment Director at Morgan McKinley. And Tracey, you have focused on financial services, although I suspect that we can extrapolate a lot of the findings here to other forms of work from home and return to the office.
Chapter 2: What are the latest findings on work from home policies?
So tell us what you found in your survey about employees and their relationship with employers when it comes to this issue.
So Morgan McKinley's research showed that there was a notable productivity gap between how employers and employees are perceiving the in-office presence. So it found that 14% of employers believed that a full return to office would increase productivity, but 60% cited unemployment. of employees cited that lower levels of productivity. So it had a negative impact of being in the office.
So, you know, really the research found that while hybrid working has more or less stabilized in the financial services sector and wider sectors, Our research showed that employers are still risking, you know, things like damaging the retention or the productivity and well-being of their employees if those return to work policies become too rigid.
Yeah, because, Tracey, we've covered William Guider in the Business News on a number of occasions, new deals between Bank of Ireland and its staff and AIB and its staff. And obviously in financial services, that goes way beyond that. And you have many companies in the IFSC and whatever.
But the feeling I'm getting from talking to people at senior levels in financial institutions is that they feel very much that you need this ability to be present with each other, talking to each other, to make decisions, to find out what is going on. They feel this actually can't be done if working from home.
And that that is exactly it. The employers, the very strong feedback from employers through the survey was that they felt the advantages to this was fostering collaboration culture, which employees in the main agreed with. And they felt that it would enable the younger cohort of workers to learn by osmosis or benefit from some of the robust mentorship programs that they had. in situ.
However, what it isn't taking into account is the dissatisfaction with employees on the cost of this. So obviously reduced or increased fuel costs and increased commuting time. 70% of the employee service said that they would need higher pay to offset this because they see this return to office
as having a real impact on their take-home pay, with the majority saying they felt they thought they were taking a pay cut.
I'm sorry, Tracy, does it also then apply to a degree of burnout in the sense of productivity, that people feel they are tired from the commute and the stresses of the commute, that this then reduces their performance when they're actually working?
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