Do not let the union bullies stop Britain going back to work
WHO could forget Thursday evenings in the spring when we gathered on our doorsteps to clap the carers? It wasn’t just that medical staff were potentially exposing themselves to the virus on the trains and buses that remained running. They were putting their own safety aside to work in close proximity with people who were desperately ill with the virus and were coughing it out in copious quantities.
Compared with the risks run by frontline nurses and doctors at the height of the epidemic in March and April the dangers faced by office workers now are miniscule. Many neighbourhoods haven’t seen a single case of the virus in weeks. Offices have now been fitted with screens and desks have been spaced apart to reduce the risk still further.
Why, then, have so many workers failed to return to their desks? According to a study by think tank the Centre for Cities, just 17 per cent of office workers in our 63 large towns and cities have returned. In London it is 13 per cent, in spite of the Prime Minister’s plea for a mass return to work.
MOST are presumably working from home. Free from the distractions of the office and from the stresses of commuting, it can be a very effective way to work. I should know because I have been doing it myself for the past three decades.
But you have to wonder what has happened to the nation’s productivity given that millions of people used to an office environment suddenly work from home, away from the eyes of their bosses. One clue is that daytime TV viewing soared by 36 per cent in the first six weeks of lockdown.
There is some evidence suggesting workers in routine jobs, like call centre staff, are a little more productive working at home. But we have little data as to how occupations that rely on teamwork have fared as a result of enforced home working.
An Irish study found that 30 per cent of workers thought their productivity had increased since they started working from home, but 25 per cent felt it had decreased – and that was people assessing their own performance, who had every reason to exaggerate it.
Productivity in many organisations has not exactly been impressive since staff started working from home. Just look at the backlog of passports and driving licences, the unanswered phone calls and the evident lack of joined-up thinking in many areas of government.
There are serious disadvantages from having too many people working from home.
How do new recruits learn when they are unable to observe old hands at the job? How do you keep in check that hopefully small but still inevitable section of the workforce that doesn’t want to do the job and will take every opportunity to avoid work?
I know from experience the misery of when you are working from home and your computer goes on the blink.You can’t just ring downstairs for an IT engineer. Nor is everyone suited to long hours alone.
It is remarkable that so many people are now extolling the benefits of remote working when, up until Covid-19, the trend was in the opposite direction. Just look at how technological start-ups clustered their offices in places like the Old Street roundabout in east London. They appreciated how having large numbers of people in the same industry working in close proximity helped to nurture and develop ideas. One of the world’s fastest-growing companies was WeWork, which specialised in providing flexible office space in prime locations where workers could network over coffee.
Worryingly, one of the reasons so few civil servants have returned to work is pressure from unions. The Public and Commercial Services Union put out a statement saying: “Our advice to members is clear. If you are working from home and you get approached by anyone in your department asking you to now go back to work, don’t just accept that’s what you have to do.”
It is like schools again, where for months unions frustrated the return of pupils, using the catch-all of members’ “safety”.
EXCESSIVE caution has done untold damage to children’s education, and helped widen the gap between pupils from the highest and lowest income backgrounds.
Yes, of course safety matters, and the virus is still there. But nothing in life is risk-free.
Maybe we will work a bit more from home in future, but for now the economy needs workers to return to the office. There is no reason why an overwhelming majority should not.
‘Daytime TV viewing soared by 36% in the first six weeks of lockdown’