WFH is now coming under accelerating attack. JP Morgan will now require employees to spend five days a week in the office and other big companies may soon follow suit. A perverse strain of rightwing thought opposes almost any social progress that improves other people’s lives. This Scrooge-like instinct yearns to make work as grindingly hard and low-paid as possible. Recall Jacob Rees-Mogg pacing civil service offices like the Child Catcher, leaving “sorry you were out when I visited” notes on employees’ desks in 2022. The same age-old sentiment prompted the CBI chair, Rupert Soames, to savage Labour’s flagship anti-gig economy employment rights bill on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, warning that the new bill would force businesses to let people go.
Now, I'm in favour of WFH, but I'm aware it's within the gift of my employer. At the moment, it's considered a benefit to the workforce - one the greedy bastards in the Treasury haven't figured out how to tax yet - so it's likely to stay. And if it didn't, well, there are other firms...
When Whatton in Nottinghamshire was severely flooded on Tuesday, villagers criticised the Environment Agency for removing its flood warning prematurely, leaving them unprepared. That may be so, but the Telegraph chose to convert an apparent failure into WFH warfare, claiming the agency’s flood resilience team in Nottingham “appears to have shifted to a working from home culture in recent years”. Evidence? “A job advert from last month said members of the team could ‘blend home working’ with time in the Nottingham Trentside office.” The agency bristled with indignation, and confirmed that the floods had nothing to do with anyone working from home.
Public sector workers are hopelessly incompetent whether in the office or at home.
WFH battle lines seemed, until recently, clearly drawn. Last year, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said it was “bizarre” that Rees-Mogg, one of his predecessors, had been “declaring war on people working from home” and praised the “real economic benefits” of Labour’s flexible working policies.
To whom?
Much evidence suggests that WFH benefits employees and employers alike.
Glad to hear it, but I notice you don't offer any evidence.
The government needs to get a grip on its mixed messages. Does it want to be nice to employees, or nasty?
Why does it decide to be either?
It should ignore the Tories’ accusations that it is kowtowing to union paymasters, and emphasise how new employment rights will help civilise working life. Growth-boosting plans to get “economically inactive” people with disabilities or caring responsibilities into jobs will only succeed with maximum flexibility. And WFH, remember, is free, which makes it look like a very sensible policy in a year when large pay rises seem unlikely. It’s time to count effectiveness, not desk hours.
Spoken like someone who knows her own effectiveness will never be judged...
