IS ELON MUSK RIGHT ON WFH?

The tech billionaire wants Twitter staff in the office, but many British businesses are taking the opposite approach

ELON Musk may have ordered Twitter staff to return to the office - but more than one in 10 UK businesses have adopted home working as a permanent business model. The world’s richest man reportedly told staff who survived a cull of around half the workforce that they would be expected to work from the office for at least 40 hours per week.

He has since softened his view and told workers that they could work from home if their managers said they were making “an excellent contribution”.

And the tech billionaire isn’t the only one opposed to remote working. Jacob Rees-Mogg attempted to prise civil servants away from their kitchens and bedrooms by conducting head counts in offices and leaving notes on desks reading “I look forward to seeing you in the office very soon”.

But many businesses across the UK have decided that homeworking has a number of benefits - including keeping staff morale high.

A business insights survey carried out this month by the Office for National Statistics has found that 11% of businesses with 10 or more employees reported that they were using, or intended to use, increased home working as a permanent business model.

Companies involved in information and communication such as but not including Twitter were most likely to encourage home working with 46% saying they intended to use remote working more frequently.

Home working was not possible for 19% of businesses with more than 10 employees, while 12% were unsure.

But six in 10 (58%) were of a similar mind to Mr Musk and said they would not be encouraging staff to work from home.

Of businesses that did encourage remote working, three in four (76%) cited “improved staff well-being” as a reason for doing so.

Other reasons included being able to recruit from a wider geographical pool (45%), and increased productivity (37%).

Separate data from the ONS shows that 38% of employees had worked from home during the previous seven days when asked between the last week of October and the first week of November.

That was up from 33% a month earlier, but well down from the peak of 49% during the first coronavirus lockdown.

Away from home working, the latest business insights survey showed that in October a quarter of trading businesses (25%) reported that turnover was lower compared with the previous month; while 15% said turnover was higher.

In early November a similar number (24%) said they expected turnover to fall in December, while 13% said they anticipated an increase.

Nearly half (46%) of trading businesses reported an increase in the price of goods or services bought in October compared with September.