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.
The government is there to help…
It is perfectly legitimate for companies to take different approaches. What they could do without is official “guidance” on the question from the government. But it looks like that’s what they’re going to get. Its “Flexible Working Task Force” is set to recommend that staff should be allowed to work from home at least part of the week. That might soon become a legal right. The unions are campaigning for it to become part of employment law. This is a mistake.
MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Firstly, we are still waiting for the evidence. We have just been through a year-long, forced experiment in working from home. In the short term, it has gone surprisingly well. Most white-collar workers have managed to get their jobs done and there is even some evidence that productivity and job satisfaction may have increased. If that can be maintained while companies cut back on the expense of an office, then it may well be an improvement. And yet, working from home during a pandemic is a different prospect to being permanently perched on the end of your kitchen table. Staff may feel differently when half or more of the workforce is heading back to the office. We will see. In reality, it is far too early to draw any real conclusions on whether it works or not.
Secondly, we still don’t know what the impact will be on city centres and on the suburbs as well. Official reports fret about what will happen to all those office blocks and the jobs in the sandwich bars that surround them. But it may well turn out that office rents fall dramatically and businesses decide it is more attractive to rent space again. Alternatively, it might be so easy to turn that space into housing that prices go up and up, making offices ever less attractive. We will find out over the next year or so. The important point is that most companies will let that settle down before making any long-term decisions. It would certainly be a mistake to rush to a judgement.
… but it’s help we could live without
Finally, official guidance won’t reflect the reality experienced by the bulk of the economy. A commission appointed to examine the issue will largely be driven by the views of the public sector, big corporations and the trade unions, and the think tanks they fund. But it will ignore small businesses and entrepreneurs, few of whom have the right contacts, or the time, to lobby ministers and officials. But they are the people who will matter most. It is the millions of people working for small and micro enterprises who will determine whether working from home is part of a new mainstream, or reverts to something restricted to a few freelancers. And it is those businesses that will struggle to meet the cost if the right to work from home is made mandatory in law.
The market is perfectly capable of figuring out who can work from home, who can hot-desk, and who needs to spend 50 hours a week at their desk on the 30th floor. One thing is certain: the answer that businesses and their employees come up with by themselves will be far better than anything mandated by the government.
-
Premium Bonds winners announced – did you scoop the September jackpot?NS&I has announced the winners for September’s Premium Bonds prize draw, with two lucky savers becoming overnight millionaires. Did you win this month?
-
What is the 25x retirement rule and does it work?The 25x retirement rule has been around for decades but many experts question if it is a suitable strategy
-
The financial crisis in UK universities – what can be done?UK universities are running out of cash and have begun to shed staff; bankruptcies look likely. What’s gone wrong, and what should be done about it?
-
'Governments are launching an assault on the independence of central banks'Opinion Say goodbye to the era of central bank orthodoxy and hello to the new era of central bank dependency, says Jeremy McKeown
-
Why investors can no longer trust traditional statistical indicatorsOpinion The statistical indicators and data investors have relied on for decades are no longer fit for purpose. It's time to move on, says Helen Thomas
-
The most likely outcome of the AI boom is a big fallOpinion Like the dotcom boom of the late 1990s, AI is not paying off – despite huge investments being made in the hope of creating AI-based wealth
-
The rise of Robin Zeng: China’s billionaire battery kingRobin Zeng, a pioneer in EV batteries, is vying with Li Ka-shing for the title of Hong Kong’s richest person. He is typical of a new kind of tycoon in China
-
How retail investors can gain exposure to Lloyd’s of LondonIt’s hard for retail investors to get in on the action at Lloyd’s of London. Here are some of the ways to gain exposure
-
The goal of business is not profit, but virtueOpinion Serve your customers well, and the profits will follow, according to a new book. It rarely works the other way around, says Stuart Watkins
-
Earnings estimates are a rigged game – especially in the USThe number of US stocks beating earnings estimates tells us only that guidance has deliberately been set too low
