For two years, Milan’s Mayor Beppe Sala tried to get the city’s public servants to return to the office after working from home at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now he is asking staff to stay home more, to cut high municipal energy bills.
He isn’t alone. Around Europe, some employers are encouraging their staff to spend less time at the office as high electricity and heating bills become outsize overheads, slowing down—or even reversing—the push to end widespread working from home.
“It...
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For two years, Milan’s Mayor Beppe Sala tried to get the city’s public servants to return to the office after working from home at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now he is asking staff to stay home more, to cut high municipal energy bills.
He isn’t alone. Around Europe, some employers are encouraging their staff to spend less time at the office as high electricity and heating bills become outsize overheads, slowing down—or even reversing—the push to end widespread working from home.
“It started with the war in Ukraine,” said Mr. Sala, who recently made Friday a day of mandatory remote working for more than 2,000 of Milan’s municipal employees. “We all need to save energy.”
Europe’s energy crisis is flipping the work-from-home debate on its head. Remote working is now a favor that bosses are asking from their workers, not a pandemic-era pattern that managers want to end.
Energy costs in Europe have soared since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as Russia slashed natural-gas supplies to the region as punishment for Europe’s sanctions on Moscow and support for Kyiv.
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Some office buildings in Europe are being closed one day a week or more to save on energy costs. In Spain, government workers are often required to work remotely up to three days a week when their offices are closed. Until recently, the workers had the right to work from home one day a week.
Private-sector employers are joining in. Italy’s biggest telecoms company, Telecom Italia , is in talks with labor unions to shift most employees to compulsory remote work on Fridays, when most buildings will stay shut, the company said. Staff are already allowed two days of home-working a week if they want.
Not all workers are happy to be told to work more from home again, for the same reason that employers don’t want them in the office: It is expensive.
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Labor unions say it is unfair to dump the rising cost of electricity and heating onto workers, demanding financial compensation for working from home.
“People who work from home are being saddled with costs that really belong to employers,” said Florindo Olivero, a representative of Italy’s largest labor union, CGIL. “Using remote work only when it is convenient for employers can generate conflict, particularly at a time when families are struggling with high costs.”
In the U.K., nearly a quarter of employees plan to work from the office more often to limit their energy consumption at home, according to a recent survey by market-research company OnePoll.
After going fully remote at the height of the pandemic, most workers in the U.S. and Europe have gradually returned to the office for at least a few days a week, studies show.
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At many companies, managers say working from home is bad for productivity.
“All the Covid stay-at-home stuff has tricked people into thinking that you don’t actually need to work hard. Rude awakening inbound!,” Elon Musk said before banning remote working at Tesla in June.
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Last week, Mr. Musk told staff at Twitter, which he just acquired, that he would end remote work for most of them.
In Europe, where energy bills have nearly doubled from a year ago, concerns about the productivity of home-working have faded.
Mr. Sala, Milan’s mayor, saw working from home as an unfortunate necessity, to be eliminated quickly, after Covid swept through northern Italy in early 2020.
“It’s time to get back to work,” he said in June 2020. His strict stance has softened. He recently increased the number of remote-working days for his staff to an average of around 10 a month from eight, because of high energy costs. Mr. Sala also introduced other energy-saving measures in Milan, such as shorter hours for street lighting.
When the mayor of a Brussels district announced a mandatory stay-at-home day for his staff last month, he issued a note of apology. “These are not pleasant measures to take,” said Emir Kir, mayor of St. Josse, announcing that offices would stay shut on Fridays for the foreseeable future. “Unfortunately we don’t have a choice, if we want to preserve our jobs and fair levels of taxation.”
Some employers are offering financial incentives to stay away from the office. Air France is paying employees an extra 4 euros, equivalent to around $4.14, for each day of remote work. The French airline is prolonging its pandemic-era policy of hybrid working, which allows some 11,000 workers to work from home up to three days a week. The head office and other sites remain closed on Fridays. Public-sector workers in France are paid €2.50 a day for working from home.
In the U.K., the extra cost for employees working from home all week this winter could range from 50 pounds, equivalent to around $57, to 130 pounds a month, studies have estimated.
The cost is lower for hybrid workers. In Italy, extra energy costs—including winter heating and summer air conditioning—add up to around €400 a year for people who work from home two days a week, according to a study by Osservatorio Smart Working, a research center at the Polytechnic University of Milan.
But working from home saves money in other ways. “On average, workers save around €1,000 on commuting costs alone,” said Mariano Corso, who heads the research center. “There are clear savings with remote work.” For companies, the net savings add up to around €500 per employee, the study estimates.
Milan hopes to save up to €2 million this winter by keeping four municipal office buildings shut on Fridays. Those who don’t want to work from home on Friday can go to other office buildings that are staying open.
Federico Gamberini is among the roughly 2,300 Milan city employees whose office is shut on Fridays. He likes working from home but thinks employers should share some of their savings with workers.
“It’s not so much about the money, it’s a matter of principle,” Mr. Gamberini said.
The mayor’s office is in talks with unions about possible financial incentives but says the savings from remote work aren’t much. “We are just limiting our losses,” Mr. Sala said.
Write to Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com