Working from home severs vital lines of communication between staff
SIR – I have no doubt that a third of office workers would prefer to work from home (report, telegraph.co.uk, July 19). I had many years of long commutes, together with a lot of overseas travel, and it is all unpleasant. However, there are considerable downsides (from a businesses perspective) to abandoning the office.
A large percentage of communication is non-verbal and all about body language. When chairing a meeting or discussion, it is important to tease out people’s real feelings on a subject. The verbal message might be positive but the body language message less comfortable. A manager might well go away from a Zoom video conference thinking that everybody is on board with a particular decision when the truth is somewhat different.
Furthermore, one of the main roles of experienced managers and staff is to coach and develop rising talent. Informal discussions around the coffee machine about how well (or indeed badly) particular junior staff members are doing form important lines of communication. Without office space these lines will be lost.
Peter Little
Herne Bay, Kent
SIR – Of course people want to work from home – but if their jobs can be done from home, then they can also be outsourced to India.
Jonathan Camp
Chard, Somerset
SIR – Nick Hazelton and Ted Shorter (Letters, July 19) imply that those of us currently under the Government’s furlough scheme are in some way refusing to return to work.
In fact a great many of us are desperate to return to work and to our offices, but due to the pandemic have no work to do. Personally, I work for a tour operator unable to operate due to various countries’ border restrictions, including those placed on incoming US citizens by our own Government. My company has been extremely successful and I have worked there for 25 years, but my colleagues and I now find ourselves clinging to employment by our fingertips, through no fault of our own or indeed of our employer.
Elizabeth Laird
Feltham, Middlesex
SIR – The Government exhorts us to go shopping to boost the economy.
I live 25 miles from London city centre. My options are follows:
a) Park at local railway station, don mask, sit on train. Keep mask on, take taxi to shops; keep mask on, enter shops. This is all fairly expensive and a miserable experience.
b) Take car (mask free) and park in London. Pay £27.50 plus parking costs. Put on mask, enter shops. Again this is expensive, and a miserable way to shop.
c) Stay at home, shop on Amazon. Mask-free, relatively cheap and very pleasant.
Under the present circumstances London and other city centres are doomed.
Anthony Summers
Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire