Final Word by Paul Moore: Work shy

On the day that Trump is inaugurated it is proof that we have entered a world where what some people say is more important than what is actually the case.

If Trump and his ilk assert that the world is indeed flat there are large numbers of people around the world who will never again travel for fear of falling off the edge. While this is a good thing for those of us who have seen the pictures from space of a globe, it is a pleasure to know that our travel may be easier now that those who judge rather than think will be staying in the house.

However it underlines the idea that power allows some to fill the gullible full of nonsense, much of which can become actively dangerous in the wrong hands – for example Trump or Musk.

Closer to home, however, we had another example of this from the mouth of the former head of Asda and M&S who claimed that home working (and by inference hybrid working) is destroying work and creating a generation of individuals who will not know what work is, or as he put it ‘working from home is not proper working’. To be clear all the evidence from those who have studied the data and organisations like the Work Foundation is that home working and hybrid working actually increases productivity while producing a more balanced work force.

What is most infuriating is that it is inevitably the bosses of large organisations that have this ‘nagging feeling’ as they put it that the economy has declined because of home working and workers not being as productive. ‘Nagging feeling’ of course is short hand for ‘I actually have no evidence but it is my opinion and I am a big important man so it has to be right’.

In fact very few workplaces operate on a full work from home schedule and indeed very few of those who spend some time each week working from home want such a schedule. Meeting work colleagues face-to-face is a crucial aspect of collaborative work and team-based operations are the central part of any successful company or venture. But equally important is getting those same colleagues out of one’s space so that the administration these companies demand can be completed effectively and quietly.

The completion of such admin tasks can be done first thing in the morning, last thing at night, in the bath, in the garden, in the golf clubhouse or anywhere the administrator decides.

As long as it is completed effectively and comprehensively no-one should care where it is done.

Crucially, if a person is working from home and feels exhausted, frustrated or pressured by the work they can break away, play with the dogs, make a coffee, go for a walk or even watch a little television until they feel ready to face the spreadsheet again. I think a strong case could be made that the eventual work submitted will be better for those breaks having been taken.

I could accept such interventions from bosses if they were at least honest about them. The desire to have us all back in the office is about two things: Firstly, it is about power. Companies want to be able to tell workers where they should be and what they are doing. Free thinking workers operating in comfort across the UK will reduce the possibility of making malleable workers and reduces the power bosses have over staff; secondly, it is about empty office space, and the rent that is not being gathered for those spaces. Put these two things together and the pendulum would seem to have shifted towards the worker a little and that is a shift which capitalism and its cronies find hard to adjust to.

Perhaps they should take a little thinking time at home and get over themselves.