Leaked story says Labour plan to make it a legal right to be able to work from home. This would be an awful policy in my opinion. I have battled with staff who since covid wont return to the office. I only ask for a min of 1 day, ideally 2 a week. About 20% persistently dont do it. It is clear to me we do less productive work at home, as a team. There is limited interactive teamwork, where ideas are shared and problems are solved. Innovation is down. Then as a manager I have a duty of care for staff wellbeing. Hard to do that when I dont see them. Some even refuse to turn on a camera on a video call. Flexible working is great, this is as inflexible though. All about workers rights, very little thought to employers responsibilities. Then take the impact on the economy. The number of coffee shops, sandwhich shops etc that have closed because there isnt the worker footfall anymore. Offices stood empty. The list here is longer. Then the social impact. We are social creatures us humans. We do better when we meet and talk and have personal interactions. A lot of that comes from being at work with people. Horrible sounding thing this.
I think it depends on what you're doing and what you're like as an individual. I work from home (partly because my office is the best part of 2hrs away) and I find it very difficult to concentrate when I'm in the office. I am much more productive when I am on my own. There aren't people talking to me and I can get up from my desk and walk around or have the stuff that I'm working with spread out as far and wide as I like without disturbing anybody else. I am in regular contact with people in other offices via Teams and the phone so I don't feel like I miss out on any interaction (although I do avoid the petty office politics) or professional exchange. I don't think making working from a home a right is the correct thing to do though. It should be something that has to be agreed with an employer and done at their discretion. People would abuse the right if they didn't have to get that agreement.
It’s an interesting problem and although the world has changed post covid I agree it’s not a good thing making it a legal right. Every job role is different and it currently works as an agreement between employee and employer so no need to change it. I’m lucky that I work for an IT company and can truly say I am more productive at home. I predominantly work on projects for customers and when I’m in the office I get constantly asked about non project work and sidetracked or distracted by other issues. I get dragged into meetings and calls quite a lot and the colleagues in my team are the same. What I will say is it’s not fair to assume productivity drops for all employees, some will take the piss of course but in my experience the majority don’t. If anything I have noticed that people are online earlier and later in the day than when I’m the office so if anything productivity has increased. Where possible we allow working from home with an aim to be in the office 2 or 3 days a week and that balance works.
I generally agree with all of your points, you obviously know your stuff. All I would say is that there's another aspect that was apparent during Covid when millions of unnecessary journeys didn't happen. In a past life I was regularly flying around Europe 'on business' when a Skype call, even phones calls, would've easily done the job. A lot of business travel is pointless, even worse in councils. NHS, etc.
Yeah for lots of people it is a positive. Certainly dont think all people are not productive. I run large IT programmes and I find teamworking is best when in person, for somethings anyway. When we are troubleshooting nothing beats an office with some good old fashioned scribbling and debating. Mostly now I end up some in the office and some online and I find that not as productive as it would be. I also find when I am in the office I bump into people I didnt know I would benefit from seeing. Hearing about something that otherwise I wouldnt have heard about. Then there is the quick pint after work on occassion. Miss that to be honest.
Yeah mate, I agree. Certainly wouldnt want to go back to everybody in one place, being able to work remotely is a good thing in balance. Just feels a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me. We had plenty of good things in a work environment pre covid, and we learned new good things during it. Just keep the best of both worlds for me. If it becomes a legal right I know 4 people will write to me on day 1 asking for it, none of which really need it imo.
Yeah I agree it does have it benefits doing a office/wfh split, my colleagues are top lads so it’s nice to see them when we are in the office. Post work pints, those were the days!
Think there’ll be too many objections for it to become a right . The other side are going to argue it’s the employer/ company’s “ right” to say working on premises is a requirement of the job. As has been said , nothing to stop employer agreeing some home working to individuals if it suits both parties and productivity and quality can be trusted
Employer agreements is the correct way to do it in my opinion, they may try and bring something in where if you are used to working from home you can't then be asked to suddenly work full time back in the office. Any laws would probably be like the European Working Time Directive anyway so some employees will be asked to opt out when signing a contract, there is usually a way around it.
If I heard one more person say ball park figure I would of rammed the ball up his/ her arse, that’s why I got out when I did, bunch of tossers.
Should we lower the voting age to 16? At 16 you can get a job and pay taxes. Shouldnt they have a right to vote on how govt use their money?
No. The majority of 16 year olds are impulsive and don't have the maturity to think through their choices. That's why Corbyn and the SNP have both been keen on lowering the voting age because they know that, in general, 16 year olds are more likely to vote for something that appears to be radical or that rebels against things that they see as 'the establishment' without completely considering the consequences.
Hmm, most 16 year olds have to be told to get off their mobiles do their homework and get to bed... they have school in the morning!
Absolutely. 16 seems fair to me. Millions of people voted for Brexit despite not thinking through the consequences (some probably did). Millions voted for Corbyn/Boris/SNP/BNP etc. despite being "old enough" to know better. I don't forsee a Green rebellion or a rise in Communism just because 16 year olds get to make a choice to vote.
This is absolutely true, some people never mature or develop an understanding of the consequences of their actions. But by leaving the voting age at 18 you are limiting the possibility of results being skewed by populists or other bad actors who are relying on the votes of what are still legally children. If you need to lower the voting age to get elected or ensure you stay in power, there has to be something fundamentally wrong with your campaigning- your policies and governance clearly doesn't convince enough of the adult population.
Yes if they have an idea of what’s going on , no if they’ll just vote for whoever their favourite pop or reality star favours. Impractical, but a simple test to pass to qualify for a vote. Hold on though , then we should have a test before trusting many adults with a vote
