The return to the old nine-to-five is a matter for business, not government

Should we stay working from home or go back to the office? Whatever we decide, let’s keep Whitehall out of the question, says Matthew Lynn.

Woman in a hammock with a laptop
“Working from the beach” – time will tell whether that’s a good idea
(Image credit: © Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Different companies are taking different views of how quickly, and how far, they should get back to the old nine-to-five office routine that was the norm before any of us had heard of Covid-19. BP, for example, has said that 25,000 of its staff will be expected to work from home two days a week. HSBC has started shifting staff onto home-working contracts, as has Lloyds.

A few have gone further. Revolut, the finance app, will not only allow staff to work from their kitchen table, but from a beach bar overlooking the Caribbean for at least a couple of months a year. By contrast, Amazon says it plans to return to an “office-centric” culture as soon as possible. Google has been accelerating plans to reopen its offices and has said it expects staff to “live within commuting distance” of their workplace. The boss of Goldman Sachs has described working from home as an “aberration” and one that should be brought to an end as soon as possible.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.