Today’s ‘return to work’ threatens to backfire over Government’s mixed messages – Andrew Vine

The start of September, the long school holiday almost over, the last Bank Holiday until Christmas done with and everybody heading back to work where the desks empty of colleagues away on their two-week break in the sun are all occupied again.

Except not this year. A lot of desks will remain as empty, as they have been since March, and little the Government can say is going to persuade employers and their staff back into the office. Working from home has become a way of life for many, and neither they nor their companies will abandon it lightly.

One West Yorkshire company I know has embraced the changes forced on how it works, and seized an unexpected opportunity to cut its monthly rent bill by thousands of pounds by making home-working the norm and moving to smaller offices.

Instead of its staff all being one place, only a small nucleus remains in the office, and the rest gather for a weekly meeting in a hired room. Productivity hasn’t suffered with the office empty, and the savings on rent increase the chances of the firm weathering whatever economic turbulence lies ahead without being forced to cut jobs.

The staff are heartened by that, and it is a model likely to be adopted by many other companies as they come to grips with a changed world of work. They aren’t going to take any notice of the Government’s new campaign to get people back into workplaces.

Things have changed forever, and there is no need for them to return to the old way of working.

How fundamental that change is was emphasised by two surveys last week, one which found that nine out 10 people who have been working from home want to continue and another that concluded three-quarters of large companies plan to accommodate their wish in some form.

There’s no surprise in this. A lot of people, for all their worries about job security, have found the change suits them just fine.

No more tiresome and expensive commute by train or bus, no more eye-watering car parking charges and good news for family life, as for some neighbours of mine who are saving a fortune on childcare now both parents are at home most of the time.

And for employers, where is the sense in bringing staff back together into an environment where infection can spread and potentially lead to problems because high numbers are either off sick or quarantining for a fortnight as a precaution?

Like so many of its actions during the pandemic, the Government’s drive to get people back into workplaces is bedevilled by mixed messages that raise more questions than they answer.

It’s all very well for the Prime Minister to exhort companies to shrug off concerns about the virus spreading through their staff once people are back in work, but that message is fatally undermined by the Government’s repeated warnings of the risks posed by an autumn upsurge in cases.

Boris Johnson and his Ministers simply can’t have it both ways, and the public knows that there is too much confusion in what they are being told.

As long as people feel safer at home, they will resist going back into a crowded workplace and who can blame them? They have been told for months to avoid crowds and close contact with people outside the family circle. That advice has not changed.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps tied himself in knots last week by urging people back to their offices and then admitting that trains and buses operating social-distancing would struggle to cope if passenger numbers returned to pre-pandemic levels.

The Government is right to be concerned about cities becoming ghost towns and the loss of jobs in businesses that depend on the daily trade of workers, such as the sandwich chain Pret A Manger, which cut almost 2,900 jobs last week.

But whilst its own offices remain sparsely-populated because civil servants are reluctant to go back in, it’s on a hiding to nothing urging people in the private sector to potentially take risks that their counterparts in the public sector won’t. There’s a risk that the call for a mass return to workplaces this week will be the dampest of damp squibs.

And part of the reason for that is the implication by the Government that working from home isn’t quite the full ticket. Millions would not only disagree, but also feel aggrieved. They may have been at home for months, but they haven’t been idle. On the contrary, they’ve been working as hard as possible, in order to safeguard their own jobs and keep the firms that employ them in business.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson