Working from home two to four days a week can reduce carbon emissions by between eleven percent and twenty-nine percent.
On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the day before yesterday, a warning was issued that the new bill would oblige businesses to let people go.
They chose to treat what appears to be a failure as a fight from the comfort of their own homes, claiming the agency's flood resilience team in Nottingham have largely moved to a work-from-home culture in recent times. Proof of this? A job advert from last month stated team members could "balance home working" with spending time in the Nottingham Trentside office. The agency was taken aback by the suggestion, and said the floods were in no way related to people working from home. "Our staff work anywhere – in the office, out on the ground, in warehouses, on quaysides, in fields and from their own homes, not just offices," it told me.
Even though working from home can potentially be detrimental to productivity, the anti-work-from-home narrative has had a strong impact on the Daily Mail, which has fiercely attacked the concept with headlines such as "Working from home makes you idle and lonely and benefits the well-to-do at the expense of ordinary workers. So why is Labour promoting a 'scrounger's charter'?" Not even the Mail's own readers, however, appear to agree with this view. When asked "Should employees who work from home receive a reduced salary?", they voted "No" by 61% to 39%.
Rees-Mogg's rule was apparently here to stay after all. Government officials are now required to spend 60% of their time in their offices. Not surprisingly, civil service unions such as the First Division Association called the figure "plucked from thin air", with no evidence to support it and lacking any flexibility, despite jobs which require face-to-face working demanding otherwise. They suspect sinister motives, blaming media harassment for the introduction of this requirement.
Employees voted to strike over the "irrational" imposition of returning to the office for 60% of the week, and are working to rule, refusing any extra tasks. Confronted with the immense delays that are obstructing property sales, managers may be inclined to turn a blind eye to remote working.
Against the idea of returning to the office for 60% to 100% of the week, 60 to 100 per cent. However, the police force is acting firmly, stating it will not pay staff for any days spent working from home. The Public and Commercial Services union has warned that such a move could provoke an all-out strike. Doesn't the government want to heighten conflict over something unimportant to bosses, yet vital to many of their staff's personal lives?
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Forcing staff back into the office is prompting employees to look for fresh job opportunities
Many people have changed careers due to a lack of flexibility in their work, and most job applicants consider flexibility when thinking about whether to accept a new job – and flexible working options are a major draw for potential employees. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that individuals value the possibility of working from home two or three days a week approximately as much as they would a pay increase of around eight per cent.
The government needs to get a clearer stance in what it says to its employees. Is it being friendly, or being tough? It should pay no notice to the Conservatives' claims that it is giving in to union leaders, and instead highlight how new employment laws will make working life more humane. Plans to boost the economy by helping people with disabilities or caring responsibilities get jobs will only work if they have the maximum amount of flexibility. And let's not forget that working from home is free, which makes it look like a very sensible idea in a year when pay rises are unlikely to be high. It's time to focus on what actually works, not just the number of hours spent at a desk.
