The UK Insurance Working Policies Report 2024: does hybrid working hurt productivity, wellbeing and culture?
Three claims turn up in almost every return-to-office argument. People are less productive at home. Culture suffers when the team is apart. Wellbeing needs the structure of an office. In May 2024 we surveyed 116 UK insurance companies, with Insurance Times and Gerrard White, and asked what their working policies had actually done to productivity, wellbeing and culture. This post checks the three claims against what they told us.
The full findings, including the sample and method, are in what 116 insurers told us about flexible working. The hiring and retention results, including what to put in a job advert, are in our post on office policy, applications and retention. The complete report is available to download.
Are staff less productive when they work from home?
Not according to the insurers we surveyed. Companies with no mandatory office days were among the most likely to report a rise in productivity: 55% did. Companies requiring one day a week were the most likely of all, with 64% reporting an increase and only 7% a decrease. The weakest result came from a three-day mandate, where as many companies reported a fall as a rise, 24% each.
Hours told the same story. Among companies with fixed hours, 25% reported lower productivity against 19% higher. Among those offering flexibility around core hours, 51% reported an increase.
The report's conclusion is that the common assumption, that people working from home do less, is not borne out by the results, and that organisations worried about productivity should look at their working location and hours policies as a possible cause before looking at their people.
Does time apart damage company culture?
Not in the companies we surveyed, with one condition attached. Companies expecting staff in the office one or two days a week were the most likely to report an improvement in culture and cohesion. Those requiring three or more days were the least likely, and 36% of companies with a three-day mandate reported a decline.
The condition is investment. The report is clear that culture and cohesion can improve under a flexible policy, but only where the organisation puts work into making up for less physical time together: deliberate ways of meeting, communicating and bringing people into the company's values. Companies that do that can compensate for the distance. Companies that send people home and hope cannot, and that is where the "culture suffers" claim comes from. It is true of badly run hybrid working and not of hybrid working itself.
Which policies were best for wellbeing?
The fewer the mandated office days, the more likely a company was to report an increase in employee wellbeing. Fixed hours were associated with a decrease: 38% of companies with fixed hours reported lower wellbeing. The three-day mandate did badly here too, with 40% of those companies reporting a fall.
The report's recommendation for any insurer that wants to be known as an employer of choice is a combination: hybrid or remote working alongside flexibility around core hours. Location and hours are separate levers, and the survey suggests pulling only one of them leaves most of the benefit on the table.
Why three days is the awkward number
Across the survey, the three-day mandate was the pattern that did worst or joint worst on nearly every measure. Productivity: as many down as up. Wellbeing: 40% down. Culture: 36% down. Applications, covered in the hiring post, started to fall at three days.
Our reading, and it is our reading rather than a finding, is that three days is the compromise nobody chose. It removes most of what flexibility gives people, without delivering what a full-time office gives a business. Companies that had settled on it as the safe middle reported the results of a policy that satisfied neither side. If three days is what the business wants, the report's advice applies with extra force: measure what it does, and say it plainly in every job advert.
Most companies did not know what their policy was doing
On every one of these measures, a large proportion of companies answered "don't know". The report's first recommendation follows from that: measure the effect of your hybrid and flexible working policy on hiring, quality of applicants, retention, productivity, wellbeing and culture, and make sure the C-suite sees the results.
In practice that means six numbers, each split by the working pattern the role sits under. Applications per advert. Offer acceptance rate. Quality of hire at the end of probation. Productivity on whatever measure the business already trusts. Retention over twelve months. Wellbeing and culture from the engagement survey you already run. None of these needs a new system; they need a column that records which policy the person is on, and someone who looks at the split.
What to do with the findings
The report ends with practical steps, and they are worth repeating in plain words. Look at every job and ask which roles can sensibly be hybrid with core-hours flexibility, because the more people on those contracts, the better the survey suggests the team will perform. Tell candidates the policy early. If some roles must be full-time in the office or on fixed hours, offset it with a package that makes the trade worth it. Remember that not everyone wants hybrid working, but nearly everyone wants the choice. If the skills to build culture across a hybrid team are not in the business, bring them in. And if you are planning tighter rules for next year, as 19% of insurers were, do it with the measurements running, because the survey suggests the cost lands on retention, hiring and wellbeing at once.
Where Vermelo comes in
We hire into insurance businesses under every one of these policies, and the working pattern is part of every brief. An embedded recruitment team measures the hiring side of this as standard: applications, acceptances and early retention by working pattern, reported back to you. If you want to know what your policy is doing before you change it, that is the place to start: embedded talent from Vermelo, or see how we work with insurers on insurance recruitment solutions.
Download the full UK Insurance Working Policy Report 2024, or talk to us.
We have taken two of the findings further:
Is your office policy costing you candidates? Looks at applications, offers and retention.
Does hybrid working hurt productivity, wellbeing and culture? Tests the three claims made most often in the return-to-office argument.
About the survey
The UK Insurance Working Policy Report 2024 is based on an online survey run by Vermelo between 1 and 31 May 2024, with organisations invited to take part by Insurance Times, Gerrard White and Vermelo. 116 companies completed it: 41% with up to 200 employees, 18% with 200 to 1,000, 21% with 1,000 to 5,000 and 20% with more than 5,000. Respondents were C-suite (17%), HR manager and above (46%) and operations manager and above (37%). Percentages are the share of companies reporting an increase or decrease under each policy.
Insurance Times covered the findings when they were published: new research shows flexibility in working practices is vital in the insurance sector's war for talent.
Download the full UK Insurance Working Policy Report 2024
Working policy, productivity and culture, answered
Not in the insurers we surveyed, provided it is managed. Companies expecting staff in the office one or two days a week were the most likely to report an improvement in company culture and cohesion, and those requiring three or more days were the least likely; 36% of companies with a three-day mandate reported a decline. The report is careful about the condition: culture and cohesion can improve under a flexible policy, but that takes investment and innovation to make up for less physical time together. Companies that do it well can compensate for the distance. Companies that just send people home and hope cannot.
The survey suggests it is the weakest option, not the safe middle. On productivity, three-day companies were as likely to report a fall as a rise (24% each), against 64% up and 7% down at one day. On wellbeing, 40% of three-day companies reported a decrease. On culture, 36% did. Applications also started to fall at three or more days. Our reading is that three days removes most of the benefit of flexibility without delivering what a full-time office gives, so it disappoints on both counts. If three days is what the business wants, the report's advice applies with extra force: measure what it does, and be explicit about it in every job advert.
Track the six things the survey asked about, by working pattern, and put the results in front of the C-suite. Applications per advert, offer acceptance rate, quality of hire at the end of probation, productivity on whatever measure the business already trusts, staff retention over twelve months, and wellbeing and culture from your engagement survey. Split each by the policy the role sits under (office days and hours pattern) so you can see whether the policy or something else is moving the number. The report found a large proportion of companies did not know what their policy was doing to any of these, and its first recommendation is simply to start measuring. If you do not have the measures in place, an embedded recruitment team can set up the hiring ones as part of running the process.