Social mobility at risk if we shut offices for good
COME INTO the office for a shift and we’ll see if you’ve got two heads or not…” Short, sharp and to the point, a description of both the phone conversation and the scary-sounding northern man I was having it with.
He was deputy news editor on the Daily Star and he’d agreed to let me get my foot in the door of a national newspaper in London, the place where my very careful, very northern dad had warned me the streets weren’t always paved with gold.
Still there was I, a 24-year-old father of a two-year-old son, earning £9,000 a year as a freelance reporter. No matter if the streets weren’t gilt-edged, I’d have settled for a couple of 50ps in the drain.
Moving to the capital in 2001 was a risk. But in my chosen field going into a city and getting into the office was key to getting on.
It was true in most jobs before coronavirus and its economic sideeffects struck, leaving many companies now pondering abandoning office life for good.
Understandably many business owners are wary about returning too soon, with talk of winter “spikes” meaning a swift, costly return to remote working. But ministers worry about a permanent shift to working from home.
Last week Matt Hancock made his plea for Britain to head back to the office, following on from Rishi Sunak and the PM, just days after another company – city financier Schroders – said it was abandoning city sites across Britain for good.
But it’s not just the economy under threat, it’s the risk to what passes for social mobility. The Government’s capture of “red wall” seats in December was supposed to see the rebirth of the neglected North. At the forefront would be opportunities for youth, key targets of the “levelling up” preached by the PM. But that can’t be achieved simply by building train lines and redeveloping hospitals.
It’s about giving people opportunities to succeed like other people their own age who by accident of birth or geography have a better chance of a good career.
This lot have already had chaos surrounding GCSES, A-levels and their final year at university. But for many of our children about to embark on a career there’s a danger they will have to start even further down the ladder – on a laptop in their spare room.
The office is one of the only places people from average, workingclass backgrounds have been able to climb the career ladder.
I know because I’m one of them. If you didn’t go to the “right” school or university or your dad didn’t know someone at the golf club, the office is the way in – to make connections – and to show “the boss class” you can do the job as well as the next person.
I had basic skills but quickly learned the job from colleagues. Sadly you can’t learn much on Zoom or Skype, apart from how to turn your microphone on and what not to put on bookshelves so you don’t come over like a lunatic.
In an office you soon learn who you can trust. You may be able to see from Zoom if someone’s got two heads, something my news editor was keen on, but you can’t be sure if they’re two-faced too.
Offices are where chances are created and taken thanks to hard work and, often, good luck. An encouraging word from the boss in a chance meeting can inspire bigger things. But that won’t happen if you see them once a month on screen along with 10 others, the sound cutting out every minute.
Working side-by-side can be irritating – as can the smell of a colleague microwaving kippers. But the best ideas come when colleagues spark off each other.
There are real benefits in working from home. I’m one of the lucky ones who have had a decent career and have a house big enough to swing a cat in if I need.
But not everyone is a 40-something parent enjoying a better work-life balance. And not everyone working from home has 20 years resenting getting on the 7.20am train and sitting with a man who regularly eats a small lunchbox full of boiled new potatoes before the train terminates. I really don’t miss him.
Hell isn’t other people. It’s the absence of other people for eight hours a day, five days a week
WHAT WE will miss if we end office life prematurely is the personal interaction and the benefits to us as humans and employees. Hell isn’t other people. Hell is the absence of other people for eight hours a day, five days a week, so it’s no mystery that figures last week showed a huge increase in people suffering depression.
A blend of working from home and office will be the future but locking offices up for good only creates another obstacle for those disadvantaged already.
Politicians and employers say they want children from all backgrounds to kick down the doors and force open the working world. But closing offices permanently limits their chances.
Once coronavirus is tamed there are many questions society will ask itself. But bosses, managers and politicians need to ask themselves one big question:
What’s the point of telling the next generation to kick down those doors, if there’s no one there when they get inside?