Recovery means going back to work
OPINION: Working from home works for some but the knock-on harms could be devastating.
Image by Elchinator from Pixabay.
One of the problems with a government so overflowing with ministers, advisers and policy wonks is that they all have to find ways to occupy themselves.
Unfortunately, many do so by coming up with ideas, an activity of which anything good seldom comes. A document leaked last week suggested the government was mulling over giving Britons a legal right to work from home, or at least making remote-working the default option.
Dubious ideas are not something we have to worry about as much north of the border, where the Scottish Government gets round the problem by not having any ideas. (Well, except one.) If Whitehall is turning out some questionable blueprints on getting the country back to work, it is at least addressing the subject.
Nicola Sturgeon's current priorities appear to be extending her monarchical lockdown powers and picking fights with the mayor of Greater Manchester. That her position as the nation's micromanager-in-chief must eventually come to an end doesn't seem to have crossed her mind and if there is a plan to kickstart the economy, it is being kept as secret as the SNP's finances.
Remote-working has its part to play in the new economy, whether as a full-time model for some or as part of a blended way of working for others. However, business leaders have thrown shade at the notion of a right to work from home and the Prime Minister is reportedly unenthused.
His scepticism is well-placed. Economic recovery is not just about getting people back to work but getting them back to the workplace. That is how we will expand the economy in all sectors and generate the wealth needed to pay for Covid-related spending.
Making home-working the default, tempting as it might sound, would inflict devastating knock-on harm to much of the retail sector, especially in towns and cities. Shops and small businesses that have been mainstays of the high street for generations would suddenly become unsustainable. Profits would plummet, shutters would go down and thousands would find themselves unemployed.
It would also risk setting progress on work-life balance in reverse. The office door serves as a demarcation, with work on one side and your personal life on the other. Even before the pandemic, remote-working and technology had seen work creep more and more into family life. Saturday afternoon emails and Sunday evening texts; phone calls from your supervisor while you’re watching the boy’s five-a-side game or the girl’s taekwondo competition.
Labour is calling for a ‘right to disconnect’: that is, creating in law a reasonable assumption that employees don’t have to check emails and field phone calls from the boss outside of working hours. Supporters of such a move warn we are drifting into a work culture where staff are ‘on call’ 24/7, even if their contracted hours say something very different.
Employers who see in remote-working a crafty way to cut their rent, business rates and utilities costs should prepare themselves for a right to disconnect. The more spare rooms become offices, the greater will be the clamour for a new demarcation.
We typically talk about employment and business practices in term of the financial costs and benefits but there are other bottom lines. Hollowing out town and city centres would create more unemployment and the societal damage that goes with it. In theory, the barman and the barista can find similar casual or flexible work, but what of the publican and the proprietor? The gig economy has little to offer those whose experience involves building up a business from scratch by getting to know a local population and its preferences.
Of course, some will reorient their businesses: from a pub to a specialist beer delivery service, perhaps, or a cafe to a corporate catering service. But many more will struggle to find their footing. If we are in for large-scale unemployment, it will not look like empty collieries and dole queues in Durham. It will more likely mean middle-class entrepreneurs (and even professionals), people who thought they were set up for life, finding their firms rendered obsolete by changes in how we live and work and the democratising bulldozer that is technology.
A sudden and permanent shift to home-working would be disastrous for entire sectors largely built around commuting customers and centrally-located offices. Taxi drivers, already hounded and harried out of city centres, won’t need to worry about bus lanes and low-emission zones getting in the way of picking up hires, because there won’t be as many hires to pick up. Rail services will see their footfall drop, which will in turn send some of the newsagents and snack kiosks that operate out of stations to the wall.
Walk around the block outside the Daily Mail’s Glasgow offices and you’ll come across any number of excellent coffee bars, sandwich shops and small convenience stores. If the office workers in this part of the city never return, many of these small businesses will be hard-pressed to survive.
Yet it is about more than just jobs, important though those are. Town and city centres have their own sense of community spirit, different to villages and suburbs but no less part of the social fabric. As well as pints and paninis, these pubs and cafes serve up conversations, social interaction, and all those little moments of connection that make up communities and the feeling of belonging to them.
This isn’t cosy conservatism: empty shop fronts deter investment and when new leases are taken out, they are likely to be for businesses that contribute nothing to the local community or the wellbeing of those living there. There isn’t any street in any town in any part of the country that would benefit from another betting shop.
Interaction matters in the workplace as much as it does in the shops that surround it. Zoom is no substitute for in-person contact, where non-verbal communication can be as important in conveying or hinting at meaning as any spoken words. There is no warmth from a screen, no sense of professional cooperation or even friendship.
Office-based working allowed a mixture of scheduled meetings and five minutes suddenly grabbed to fix a problem or test an idea, but the pandemic changed that. Speaking to colleagues stopped being spontaneous — a chance meeting in the kitchen, gossiping during a smoke break — and became a wholly regimented process of set times, muting and unmuting, and inaudible cross-talk. In effect, every work interaction became a meeting and every meeting much less interactive.
That can impact on productivity but it can also take a far harsher toll on mental health. The working-from-home revolution wasn't all that revolutionary for me, since a combination of panic attacks and depression had driven me to a largely home-based life a few years ago. (I was social distancing before it was fashionable.) But once a week I still had to make the journey to Holyrood to observe First Minister's Questions from the Scottish Parliament press gallery to write the Mail's weekly sketch.
Oftentimes it was tough getting there and being there, trying to focus on the job while anxiety shoots up all around you, but I think forcing myself to go along was beneficial. Being among other hacks — the old timers whose tales seem to get taller with every telling, the young up-and-comers eager to make their mark — accounted for most of my interaction with other people in any given week. The Mail's cramped office in the Holyrood media tower (with a very on-brand Union Jack flying from the coat stand) was a source of conversation and camaraderie.
The past 15 months have given me an excuse to stay bunkered up in the home fortress. At first it seemed like a blessing, with no need to worry about having a panic attack while scribbling down Patrick Harvie's question. (It would be the first time anything interesting happened during a Patrick Harvie question.) But I know removing the need to go to Holyrood has done nothing good for my mental health. I am more averse than ever to venturing outdoors.
Not everyone is in the same position, of course, but all this time in lockdown has taken its toll on the mental wellbeing of many. The prospect of not having to schlep into the office every day might seem appealing but the effects of losing out on conversation, face-to-face interaction and after-work socialising will have an impact, even if it takes time for symptoms to emerge. We are social beings. We cannot expect to shift from hives to silos without consequence.
Working from home may be right for some businesses and some employees, but government should not foist a one-size-fits-all model on firms across the country. Fighting the virus took a great national endeavour, steered by government. Building back the economy will take an effort of similar scale, but this one will be led by the private sector and individuals. It is government's job to remove barriers to that effort, not to erect new ones.
Originally published in the Scottish Daily Mail on June 21, 2021.
Well this has "I'm a manager and need to justify my career." written all over it...
Working from home might work for some but I can’t see those being the people that will get promotion within an organisation or business. It will also cut off the interactions that are necessary to stimulate new ideas. Can we envisage a manager that doesn’t interact with people except by zoom?
I also worry about the impact of this long period at home on peoples mental state. My wife and I are in Brazil due to the difficulties of returning to the U.K. and we have only left our house 3 times since March 2020. I am starting to worry that it will need a considerable amount of effort on our parts now to actually throw ourselves into the trauma of returning to the U.K. It will mean a mountain of paperwork and probably a much more drawn out trip, via some amber listed country that we can stop in en route, all of which will act as a barrier to taking the plunge.