Read: Creative solutions show businesses are one step ahead in hybrid working

The lockdowns of the last couple of years may be behind us, hopefully never to return, but it is increasingly clear that the debate over the role of the office in driving productivity is far from settled.

With the latest figures suggesting that office occupancy nationally is about 25 per cent of capacity rising to just under a third midweek, business leaders in sectors with the option to work remotely are still devoting considerable thought to how to set the best balance. They are deliberating internally on where the sweet spot might be between returning to face-to-face culture and the home working model forced on most of us during the pandemic.

Some CEOs worry that the separation of their workforce is diminishing a vital buzz of innovation they feel comes from having people sparking off each other in the same physical space. This seems particularly apparent in parts of the tech sector.

Others are looking at the issue primarily from the perspective of staff wellbeing – which good businesses of course understand is itself a key driver of long-term productivity. With that in mind, some firms are actively enabling continued working from home as a tool to help their employees manage spiralling cost-of-living pressures by reducing travel fees. Still more think those same inflationary pressures might drive people back into the office, particularly as they need to heat their homes with record energy tariffs after the summer. Many are taking a more active role in supporting their employees’ mental health, mindful of the impact that isolation can have on those who remain based at home. The best employers grasp that financial health and mental health are intrinsically linked and are focusing on how to help their employees through these extraordinarily difficult times. The need for this active approach is acute: a recent survey by financial wellbeing platform Mintago found that, amongst millennials, 36 per cent felt that money worries had impacted their performance at work. More generally, a report by CIPD found that one in four employees say money worries affect their ability to do their job.

Alongside the question of what constitutes the optimal blend of office and remote working for any particular business is the equally taxing challenge of how best to achieve it. Many managers are understandably reluctant to mandate a particular working pattern for their teams and so are experimenting with how to reset or shift norms of behaviour through encouragement, incentives and allowing their employees to take the lead in shaping collective habits.

There was much publicity recently surrounding the launch of a six-month pilot scheme which will see employees in over 70 UK companies working a four-day week. It is based on the 100:80:100 model – 100 per cent of pay for 80 per cent of the time, in exchange for a commitment to maintain 100 per cent productivity. Crucially, researchers will track the impact on productivity and the wellbeing of its workers, as well as on the environment and gender equality.

It is fascinating and insightful to support members of the Purpose Coalition as they grapple with these issues, and inspiring to see the dedication to improvement and the sophistication and nuance in the analysis.

A sophistication and nuance which, it has to be said, is often missing from the discourse in politics on hybrid working. In Westminster, we seem to be stuck between opposing caricatures, with certain ministers wanting - almost literally - to chain people to their desks, decrying workshy servants who would rather procrastinate on their Peletons while sipping home-brewed kombucha. The Prime Minister has weighed in on the side of the office, colourfully describing slow walks to the kitchen fridge to suggest that people get endlessly distracted when working from home.

But it is in everyone’s interest that we get beyond the caricature and knockabout on this important issue. Not least because failing to do so risks overlooking the important role that hybrid working, or even location-less recruitment, can play in levelling up.

The Government is clear that it wants people to be able to fulfil their potential at work while living where they want, rather than needing to relocate to an overheated South East of England, or staying in a north west town rather than moving to the regional economic powerhouse of Manchester. Of course, that means attracting more high-quality jobs to geographically disparate areas in need of levelling up. We are delighted that many Purpose Coalition members are doing just that, such as software developer, Sage, in Winnersh and aerospace company, Leonardo, in Yeovil.

But levelling up can also mean giving people the chance to stay anchored in their communities and spend more of their week working remotely at a job nominally based in a big city. As I have written before, if you are living in Barrow or Blackpool and have your heart set on a job in a firm thriving as part of Manchester’s burgeoning creative hub, you might feel that you could do it without uprooting your family if given the option of working remotely for part of the week. If the requirement is to be full time in the Manchester office, you face the difficult choice of moving everyone out of a town that needs more of its brightest and best to stay, or a significant commute, or not applying at all.

The Purpose Coalition seeks to contribute to environment, social and governance issues by improving the quality of dialogue and understanding between those businesses who are doing so much to improve standards across a range of issues, and government and political representatives who will always have a crucial role to play in setting the framework in which private enterprise can succeed.

So, the Purpose Coalition was delighted be in Parliament last week to launch its assessment of Virgin Money’s contribution to levelling up, including its innovative approach to breaking down the geographical barriers that can hold back recruitment https://www.purpose-coalition.org/impact-reports/virgin-money-impact-report. The commitment of this inspiring purpose-led business to location-less recruitment and hybrid working is exactly what the political world needs to understand better how to enrich its own conversations.

Like so many other areas, business leaders in the Purpose Coalition are driving productivity growth by applying their progressive values to a challenging and shifting economic environment, keeping a close eye on what is working and what is not.

Political leaders who remain determined to level up the UK in this increasingly tough fiscal climate must approach the issue of where to work with the same open eyes and open mind.