Dr Elizabeth Stamp, Professor Stacy Clemes –Written evidence (HBW0038)

Written evidence submitted by Dr Elizabeth Stamp and Professor Stacy Clemes to The House of Lords Select Committee inquiry into Home Based Working

1. Dr Elizabeth Stamp is a Senior Lecturer in Lifestyle Behaviours and Health at Loughborough University and a member of the PHRASE (Promoting Health in Remote And Sedentary Employees) research group. Dr Stamp’s research focuses on exploring lifestyle behaviours in different population groups and developing theoretical based interventions to enhance health outcomes.
2. Professor Stacy Clemes is a Professor of Active Living and Public Health at Loughborough University and leads the PHRASE research group. Professor Clemes’s research focuses on the development, implementation and evaluation of pragmatic behaviour change programmes designed to encourage people to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviours, with a particular focus on the workplace setting.
3. For over a decade, Professor Clemes has led a large programme of research focusing on at-risk occupational groups – particularly commercial drivers. This research led to the development of the Structured Health Intervention For Truckers (SHIFT) – a multicomponent programme for HGV drivers designed to promote physical activity and positive lifestyle changes, now implemented by logistics operators as a driver training resource.
4. Following the change to remote working since the Coronavirus-19 pandemic, Professor Clemes and Dr Stamp’s research has focused on exploring the impact of remote and hybrid working on physical and psychological health outcomes, through qualitative and quantitative methods, to develop theoretically informed interventions to support the hybrid/remote working population and maximise employer benefits (e.g., productivity). This response synthesises the evidence from research projects undertaken by Professor Clemes and Dr Stamp.

Summary

Question 2. What is the impact of remote and hybrid working on individual physical and mental health? How does this impact and the steps taken to manage it compare to traditional site-based work?

5. Based on data collected after the pandemic, we have found that working from home results in:

• Less opportunity for incidental physical activity due to factors such as a lack of commute, loss of routine, online meetings, and less distance to facilities (e.g., kitchen, bathroom). 
• Longer sitting throughout the day, and longer periods of uninterrupted sitting. Due to the established links between high volumes of sitting (approximately 8 hours or more per day) and increased risks for a number of chronic conditions (e.g. heart disease, type 2 diabetes, some cancers)(1), the potential impact of remote working on increases in sitting time is a major public health concern.
• Negative emotions, such as feelings of isolation due to a lack of social interactions with colleagues and blurred boundaries between work and home making it difficult to ‘switch off’.
• Musculoskeletal discomfort, which may be due to the setup of home working space not being ergonomically suitable to support musculoskeletal health, which results in increased demand on the NHS.

6. The steps taken to manage this impact within traditional site-based work, include development of theoretically informed behaviour change interventions, which are not transferable to the hybrid and remote work context.
7. Recommendations:

• Organisations should take accountability and responsibility, following guidance from the government, on supporting employee mental and physical health when hybrid and remote working. Organisations should develop comprehensive risk assessments for health behaviours (e.g., physical inactivity, sedentary behaviour) associated with working from home. Specific consideration should be given towards ergonomic workstations and necessary equipment to support employee musculoskeletal health, as well as breaking up prolonged periods of sitting time, increasing movement, and supporting mental health. Government policy should set the standards and criteria for organisations to achieve this, ensure organisational accountability, and provide guidance on how organisations can support the employees to mitigate associated risks.
• The government should continue to recognise their health priority of improving the health of the UK workforce, with specific focus on remote/hybrid work. Focus should be on further researching the impact on physical and mental health across different sectors, to inform government policy of standards that organisations should meet to support employer mental and physical health in remote and hybrid working. Strategies to overcome the challenges and maximise any benefits of remote and hybrid working require further research. Theory and evidence-based interventions are required to support organisations and employees.

Question 7. What is the impact of remote and hybrid working on individual, organisational and national productivity and resilience? How can the productivity impact of remote and hybrid working be more accurately measured and defined so that meaningful comparisons can be made between different organisations? 

8. Our research has found that when hybrid workers work from the office, they are significantly more productive than when they work from home. This is contrary to other literature in the area that has reported significant increases in productivity when working from home, demonstrating inconsistencies in findings on the impact of remote and hybrid working on productivity.
9. We have observed that the majority of the research in this area is self-reported and relies on an individual reporting their perceived productivity. Furthermore, the evidence is based across multiple sectors, and we believe that remote and hybrid working can impact productivity in varying sectors differently. Therefore, it is too soon to answer these questions.
10. To address this question, there is a need for more objectively measured productivity measures to be developed and implemented, which are tailored to the respective sector it is being utilised.
11. Recommendations:

• Develop objective measures of productivity at the individual, organisational, and national level, which are tailored to the relevant sector that they are being implemented.

References

1. Zhao R, Bu W, Chen Y, Chen X. The Dose-Response Associations of Sedentary Time with Chronic Diseases and the Risk for All-Cause Mortality Affected by Different Health Status: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Vol. 24, Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging. 2020. Lin: DOI: 10.1007/s12603-019-1298-3https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1279770723010977

17 April 2025