The CEO of Unilever expects that office employees will continue working from home, at least more than before, once the pandemic is suppressed.
Alan Jope said at a conference organized by Reuters that he doesn’t expect the pandemic to break until at least April. Once that happens, he said, Unilever employees will go into a “hybrid mode” that will entail at least one day a week of work from home.
“We anticipate never going back to five days a week in the office,” Jope said. “That seems very old-fashioned now.”
He added, however, that he would be glad to stem what he called “a slow erosion of social capital” caused by working from home. Negative effects include more difficulty in innovation and in mentoring younger employees.
Unilever has already experimented with work alternatives, including instituting a four-day workweek for employees in New Zealand.
