Dire warnings about WFH overlook one small thing
It has taken a pandemic to prove that people can do their job from home, and do it well. Critics are annoyed that “hybrid working” – some of the week in the office, the rest at home – seems to have been so congenial that employees appear reluctant to change back to the traditional way of doing things. I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend two hours a day on a disgusting, overcrowded, extortionate train?
Slurs like “slackers” are bandied about. (I have worked from home for more than 20 years and have yet to enter my slacker period. I wish!) Dire warnings suggest that if people don’t go into the office, they will miss out on connections, promotion and pay rises. Er, yes, thanks – it’s called being a working mother.
Not once in any article have I seen the word “children” mentioned. Yet the UK has the highest number of households in which both parents are in full-time work. How good is that for our society? What does
it do for the divorce rate? Why are our kids among the least happy in the world? How productive are people who feel so stressed and tired and torn? Is everyone in the office really a dervish of dutifulness, or are they, too, perhaps, wasting time getting coffee and scrolling through Amazon?
Don’t get me wrong, offices can be wonderful places, particularly for the young, who have so much to learn. A Zoom meeting will never have the fizz of the real thing. But things are not going back to how they were. A new generation of parents would now trade a bigger salary or a permanent desk for more time with the family. It makes them happy.
Undoubtedly, this is a seismic shift in our culture. Many businesses in inner cities will close and many will open in market towns like mine and thrive. Martin, who came to talk to me about building an office in our garden, said that lockdown made his company unviable. In desperation, he switched to designing garden studios. His order book is full until next year, driven by overwhelming demand from recent homeworkers. He’s not sure he’ll bother switching back.
We know home is where the heart is; increasingly, it’s where the brain is, too.