Working for a better future
IT HAS been three years since I and the co-working co-operative Indycube launched the #killthecommute campaign.
The idea was built on the Indycube values of allowing people to work in their communities delivering benefits for all concerned, employees, employers and communities.
That campaign has continued since, with businesses increasingly looking at home and remote working as advances in technology allows mobile and smarter ways of working to develop.
Despite these advances it hasn’t really altered the way we work. Congestion, be it M4 or A55, remains, and despite investment our railways and bus networks are overcrowded.
The world is currently in its most pressing crisis since the Second World War and our efforts and resources need to be focused on dealing with that first and foremost.
But even in the deepest crises of the past, some of our finest public policy has emerged. The Beveridge Report came at the darkest moments of the Second World War and perhaps our current crisis can deliver a similar revolutionary change?
The myths of home and remote working have been blown out of the water in recent weeks.
Organisations across the board have embraced what has been needed and made it possible for workforces to work from home.
That is in an emergency. Imagine what we could do if we planned for this change.
Our policy makers now have an opportunity to look to the future and put forward a vision of a Wales where work that we can do anywhere, is possible to do anywhere.
It’s not about someone working at the kitchen table or spare bedroom and not seeing anyone, it’s about providing the opportunities for employees to have a better work-life balance.
Maybe home working a few days a week, or working in a local hub with others in your community. The office will still be there too. We need to provide opportunities for a better balance for employees should they want it.
If we kill that commute several days a week, we are gaining that most valued of 21st century commodities, time.
More time with children, visiting those elderly relatives it’s often hard to see, or having that run or gym session others seem to manage but you never quite have time for. More time to cook?
It’s not just time, let’s not forget the savings on your bus or rail fare, or those tanks of petrol you need to get to and from work; it all adds up.
And while we rely on fossil fuels for our transport the pollution such journeys create means we breathe in some of the most polluted air in Europe.
Working in a local hub means perhaps that health magic bullet of cycling could be a possibility more often.
But what of employers wary of home working, not seeing the employee in the office beavering away? A happier, more motivated workforce is better for productivity and staff retention, and reducing expensive real estate and overhead costs may also be appealing to those in the finance department. Our current crisis shows it can be done.
What of our communities? If we put people back in our communities, they will spend more of their time there too.
Working from home or that remote working hub, library or café, they are far more likely to spend locally during the working week when so many lose their workforces to larger conurbations elsewhere.
My experience is that some of that saved time and money goes into local volunteering and charity work also.
Currently the state is decades into programme after programme to revitalise our post-industrial communities, with billions spent. At the same time, we also subsidise the transport that takes people out of these communities.
Some of that big capital and revenue subsidy can be used to invest in facilities in these communities, spaces to work from and, most importantly, getting the digital infrastructure across Wales to be world-leading.
Instead of spending so much money on taking people out of communities, invest in infrastructure to allow them to stay.
We need our tech-able workforce to be able to work where they want, and able to interact with colleagues wherever they may be. That’s not a vision, we can do that now. We need our workforce to be able to work from home, a local work hub or the office. We need that balance. We also need to make it possible for our workforce skills to be available across the globe.
The public sector can lead here, facilitate or develop workspace in our town centres that can be available for all, at reasonable rates to ensure people can work in their communities.
Many of our towns and villages only exist thanks to the industrial work that made them.
They grew with that work and they have withered as that work has gone. If we can bring employment and people back, we can get our communities back too.