Ministers face backlash over messaging campaign calling time on home working

[T_i_B]

There's a lot of stuff in the press shouting at people for working from home at present. And a big part of the reason for that is that the newspaper industry is one of those heavily affected by people working from home and therefore not buying a paper on the way to work. Ultimately the question of working from home or in an office not a matter for employers and employees, not for politicians.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/government-backlash-working-home-coronavirus-a4535756.html

Pressure is building on ministers to back down on plans to bombard the public with messaging next week to encourage employees back to work.

The Government is planning a newspaper and television assault to get people back into the office, with an unnamed source suggesting to the Telegraph that those opting to keep working from home could make themselves “vulnerable” to redundancy in any post-Covid business shake-ups.

Furthermore the announcement by coffee and sandwich chain Pret a Manger that it plans to get rid of 2,800 roles from its shops because of trade slumping by approximately 60 per cent year-on-year has further worried Downing Street that town and city centres are becoming ghost areas as commuters stay away.

However, devolution leaders, opposition MPs, trade unions and Britain's equality watchdog have hit out at the intention to target those still working from home following the coronavirus lockdown, and condemned the tone of the off-the-record briefing to the press.

[Denzil_DC]

1. One of my partnership's client firms went into receivership early this summer.

They were struggling anyway (publishing always gets hit hard whenever there's an economic downturn), but the additional fallout pressures of COVID made any attempt at a recovery more difficult (and are making it hard for us to replace them as clients).

A major problem for them was that they were locked into a contract for their premises, whereas they'd figured (very belatedly, in the opinion of me as a freelancer who's worked from home for pretty much all of my career) that they could function fine if their various employees continued working from home. Once their negotiations to back out of the office lease failed, the writing was on the wall and down they went.

Similar calculations are no doubt going on in many firms, especially those services industries that aren't hands-on and don't require constant face-to-face time. The pressures will only get worse after next January, when the double whammy of what will almost certainly be a no deal Brexit adds to everyone's problems.

There's an opportunity from this current crisis to revolutionize the way business is done in many cases, to the benefit of both employees and employers. It looks like the UK government is determined to miss that boat, along with all the others.

[T_i_B]

2. Some major issues have come to light for the government

Last edited Mon Aug 31, 2020, 02:10 PM - Edit history (2)

One is that people spend more money when they work in an office as opposed to working from home.

When I'm in the office I spend more on transport and food. If the papers weren't such a steaming pile of crap then maybe I might have considered buying one of those as well. There's also more opportunity to nip out to the shops to buy other things rather than buying stuff online. Some people also socialise straight after finishing at work. All this adds up to a lot of economic activity (especially in Central London) and the loss of this is hurting a lot of people.

This is a major reason why the press is so shrill on this point. They are losing a big chunk of their readership. To be honest I wish they would admit this point when shrieking about the supposed evils of working from home.

The second point is that this is having a dramatic effect on how and where people shop. Not just the move to buying online but also where I live it is very noticeable that people are keeping to the suburbs and out of the city centre.

The future looks very bleak for town centres. High Street retail is doing really badly and town centre living with it's lack of space is looking a lot less attractive than it used to. And homelessness, which is already a big problem in town centres is going to be an even bigger problem going forward.

[Denzil_DC]

3. Yeah, for more or less any negative, there's a balancing positive in the developing situation.

Many of those I've known who've had to commute (especially to the mega-conurbations like London and New York) have not enjoyed the experience and the often miserable lengths of time it's eaten up of their waking day.

Many essential and other service workers can't afford to live anywhere near the city centres where their services are required, so have to commute. That adds to financial pressures and effectively extends the (unpaid) workday greatly. It's also added to the fragmentation of society over the years.

An old schoolfriend of mine I met up with last year described the absurd lengths he had to go to to get to and from work between suburbia and London by rail (he was in the diplomatic corps, so not exactly strapped like some). He and a few of his fellow commuters even ended up banding together as a gang to navigate through the near-nightly adventure of trying to get home against cancellations, re-routings etc. His season ticket probably cost him around £3,000+. It's money he'd no doubt have otherwise spent elsewhere, probably nearer to home, and possibly to greater macroeconomic benefit.

As people adapt to working from home (and as COVID restrictions are relaxed), they'll no doubt develop other routines, some of them maybe mimicking their patterns and habits when commuting for work. There'd be little to stop them taking a proper lunch hour and dining out if they wanted to, even arranging to meet up with workmates to alleviate the inevitable feelings of isolation. They and their families might even be able to eat out or go to entertainments, perhaps combined with a shopping trip, more often in the evenings with the money saved from travel costs and by virtue of not being utterly knackered during the working week.

So the economic activity doesn't necessarily disappear in a puff of smoke, it may get transferred to other locations, maybe smaller town centres and villages whose inhabitants have been watching them decline over the years to the situation where (like in the nearest town to me) empty retail spaces either just sit there or get filled with yet another charity shop that sometimes undercuts other shops in the area.

Another bunch who'll feel the pinch will be pension funds, which often invest in office space. That will have knock-on effects for many who assumed they were comfortably provided for.

There's some scope for converting unused and redundant office space into accommodation, but likely at quite an expense and restricting future options for the owners. And if these changes in work patterns continue, there may be less call for city and town centre living anyway.

I'm watching some of the claims from estate agents at the moment. There seems to be a (partly COVID-encouraged) drive among those who can afford it to seek to relocate to, or develop a second home in, the country (and in some cases, if the claims are to be believed, moving from England to Scotland, for instance). In the absence of restrictions on part-time habitation and without greater initiatives to provide affordable local accommodation, that's inevitably going to worsen local housing shortages and drive up what are often overheated property markets.

Still, if Brexit pans out as badly as it looks it may at the moment, relatively few of us are going to be working anyway, so there's that to look forward to and the problems may take care of themselves.

What I strongly doubt is that any attempts at scaremongering or bullying by the government or their mouthpiece newspapers are going to alter people's and companies' choices and decisions. It's the the holy market forces playing out, after all!

[T_i_B]

4. Personally I enjoyed the London commuter thing

For the brief time that I did that in the mid 2000's. It may be expensive but I liked the hustle and bustle. And London commuting has been a big part of the home counties economy for a long time.

If you ask 100 different people about whether they prefer working in an office or from home you will probably get 100 different answers. Different people have different jobs, circumstances, preferences and needs. Working from home doesn't necessarily mean you have better work life balance if you are answering e-mails at 3am for example.

The point here is the government needs to listen to other people more before it intervenes. And to pick it's fights much better.

[Denzil_DC]

5. I think we're broadly in agreement.

Quite a few of the authors I've worked with have been American, so I'd have had problems finishing editing their books on time if I hadn't had the option of working late in the UK time zone to make the most of the overlap to exchange emails more quickly, rather than playing catch-up next day. If I'd been office-bound, I'd probably have had to chip in work at home at that time anyway, or risk running behind deadline.

Different strokes for different folks - I've never been an early bird, always a night owl, so it suits me. I loathed commuting in the Thames Valley when I had to do it when I first started work, and didn't enjoy my exposure to petty office politics and having to look busy even if there wasn't much to do.

At least many people have now had a taste of working from home and can make more informed decisions about how they work in future.

[T_i_B]

6. The big Boris back-track: Government denies return-to-work push

Bit of a strange way to go about a U-turn if you ask me...

https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/the-big-boris-back-track-government-denies-return-to-work-push-20200903

Boris Johnson's government claims that its week-old campaign encouraging people to return to the office never existed.

"There has never been a back-to-work campaign," the prime minister's official spokesman told lobby reporters today.

The U-turn follows remarks from a senior Bank of England official that the busiest office districts, such as the City of London, would not be able to accommodate as many workers as they did before Covid-19

[Denzil_DC]

7. I thought of adding that BoE statement to this thread, but it was kinda late at night.

So the Tories' tame media get to tie themselves in knots again with yet another reverse ferret that, as you mentioned above, goes against some of their vested interests. I wonder whether/when their patience will run out?

The next step would be to pressure the government to extend the furlough and small business grant schemes into next year. Other European countries are offering extended support, and they're not at the gnarly, pointy end of a prospective no deal Brexit.

From our own experience as a struggling small firm, we're nowhere near seeing light at the end of the tunnel yet, and if we go under, which seems as likely at the moment as it has in about 30 years, we'll have to resort to claiming benefits anyway.