It is fair to say that people professionals have now had to navigate several years of upheaval in workplaces. From COVID-19, through the cost-of-living crisis, to stubborn skills and labour shortages – our profession has been at the heart of all these challenges.

Yet despite the pressures, the underlying inequalities and trade-offs across job quality dimensions have barely shifted. The CIPD’s Working Lives Scotland report has been tracking our working lives for five years now and has become key evidence for policymakers as well as practitioners interested in improving work for us all.

In addition to the usual analysis of the five fair work dimensions, the 2024 report offered additional insights across a few areas.

Attendees at the SPDS Conference had a chance to hear about conflict, hybrid working and, perhaps most interestingly of all, a growing sense of unease across public sector employees.

Workplace conflict

Working Lives Scotland 2024 found that, concerningly, over a quarter (28%) of all Scots experienced some form of conflict at work. This included being undermined and/or humiliated in a job, being shouted at, insulted or even serious forms of assault and discriminatory behaviour.

As with most aspects of job quality, we found differences between groups of employees. Women were more likely to experience conflict at work (especially being undermined) as did those with disabilities. We also found that homeworkers were less likely to experience conflict, showing that proximity to colleagues, superiors and indeed customers has a direct impact.

We also see significant impacts of conflict experience on other aspects of job quality, for example poorer manager ratings or weaker job satisfaction. But managing conflict should also be a business priority – those who experienced conflict report poorer task and contextual performance and are also much more likely to say they will quit. Indeed, 16% of those who experienced conflict say they either left or decided to look for another job.

Home and hybrid working

We continue to see deep inequalities between occupational groups, with those on the lowest incomes least likely to be able to work from home. Broadly, we still find that current homeworking patterns match future homeworking preferences, with the majority of those working hybrid wanting to continue to do so.

That being said, the trend over the last four years is clear – there is a slow drift away from primarily working from home towards more time being spent in the office. Currently, we see around three quarters of all employees work less than half of their time at home (including not at all) and a quarter work more than half their time from home (including all the time).

Around a third of all employees say they are in jobs that cannot be done from home and another 13% don’t want to work from home at all. That means that for nearly half of all Scots homeworking is not an option and it is crucial to consider flexible working more broadly.

Public sector unease

We know from years of research that there are pros and cons when it comes to public sector job quality. Employees tend to report better job security and pay, better access to benefits and flexible working, as well as much better meaningfulness of work. On the other hand, we generally see public sector employees struggle more with high workloads and labour market confidence.

This year, however, we have picked up three areas of concern. First, meaningfulness of work. Not only do we see a slow downward trend in the answers to whether employees feel their work is useful for society (traditionally a strong recruitment and retention driver), but we see a 22 percentage point drop in those who say they feel inspired at work.

Second, while public sector employees report better objective pay (how much they actually get paid) and subjective pay (whether they feel it is appropriate), feelings of work centrality have dropped dramatically. Public sector employees have overtaken private sector employees for the first time in responses to the “a job is just a way of earning money, no more” question.

Third, while we saw some really positive improvements in employee voice quality in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, these have largely returned back to pre-pandemic levels last year. This year, however, we have picked up a further dramatic drop in how public sector employees rate the quality of their voice.

All of these signs point to a certain growing unease across the public sector. With well-documented funding pressures, strike action around the time of the survey as well as customers vocally airing their frustrations across the public sector, this is perhaps not a surprise. The findings also tally with conversations we had recently as well as the roundtables at SPDS Conference.

The warning lights are on and policymakers need to act before a growing unease becomes a full-blown workforce crisis.

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Blog by Marek Zemanik, Senior Public Policy Adviser, UK Nations, CIPD