Farewell to the scourge of hot-desking

As offices begin to reopen, the latest advice to employers from the British Government is clear, says Pilita Clark: “workstations should be assigned to an individual and not shared”. Hallelujah. “Finally, blessedly, it is possible to imagine the end of one of the great scourges of modern working life: the hot desk.” Forcing people to “hunt for a new place to perch each day” has proved popular in companies in cities where property is pricey. But it has been “grim” for workers – and was made “far worse” by companies pretending that it’s all about boosting “collaboration”, rather than cutting costs. Hopefully this won’t be just a temporary measure. Not every company will follow the likes of Twitter and let everyone work from home for good. Yet polls suggest “sizeable slabs” of the workforce are “in no rush to return to the office”. It’s certainly “hard to imagine remote working ever being the outlier it was before the pandemic”. And if that eases office costs, it should in turn lower the pressure on desks. Hot-desking probably isn’t dead, “but it is perhaps in intensive care”.

Horta-Osório gained a public reputation as a touchy-feely boss when he took eight weeks’ leave for stress soon after joining. But I fear few at Lloyds will “mourn” his exit, said Jim Armitage in the London Evening Standard. Critics of “A-Ho’s imperious style internally are legion. His rollockings are legendary.” Some in the banking industry will never forgive him for “rolling the dice” on PPI compensation, which ended up costing Lloyds £22bn, rather than the £3.5bn he’d budgeted. And his “ruthless” culling of overheads was painful. “At first glance, it’s not the prettiest legacy,” said Alistair Osborne in The Times. But to assess Horta-Osório’s achievement we need to look at the bigger picture. “When he climbed aboard the Black Horse, it was headed not so much for Glorious Goodwood as the knacker’s yard.” To get the nag race-fit again was “quite a feat”.