Wednesday, 15 January 2025

WFH "costs nothing". WTF? Polly Toynbee is a fool

WFH  -  "It’s free, it’s sensible and it makes workers happy. The government needs to accept that this is the new normal"

Guess which idiot wrote that?  Well, no prizes, it's Polly Toynbee, in a Graun piece entitled Labour has been sucked into the WFH culture war. It should know better

We'll let her make her case, as she bewails what she detects as government reverting to neanderthal office-bound working practices. 

... many workplaces have thrived because of it ... A perverse strain of rightwing thought opposes almost any social progress that improves other people’s lives ... Zoom meetings save time and wasteful travel, employers are free to hire talent from anywhere in the country, and employees have escaped escalating property prices in London and steep commuting costs. WFH has been a boon for the climate, too; according to one US study, two to four days of remote working a week lowers carbon emissions by between 11% and 29% ... hybrid working policies [are] key to attracting talent ... people value the ability to work from home two or three days a week about the same as they would an 8% pay rise.  Does [the government] want to be nice to employees, or nasty? ... new employment rights will help civilise working life. Growth-boosting plans to get “economically inactive” people with disabilities or caring responsibilities into jobs will only succeed with maximum flexibility. And WFH, remember, is free, which makes it look like a very sensible policy in a year when large pay rises seem unlikely. 

Setting aside the ridiculously hyperbolic conclusion one is supposed to infer from that deliberately misleading sentence on climate benefits, we can assess the force of what she's saying, before entering the counter-arguments (which, true to her miserable form, she does not acknowledge at all).

Efficiency:  yes, and nobody disagrees, Zoom etc as a facility is a fine thing to have and can make for all manner of efficiencies.  So what?  The telephone has been around for well over a century.  I attended my first "teleconference" in 1986: the resolution of the mug-shots wasn't great, but even then the sound was fine and it had the ability to switch to doc-display mode.  Presumably Toynbee inhabits a tech-free world of Graun chatterers who imagine it was invented in 2020.

And ...  and?    Well, excepting only the "costs nothing" point which we'll return to, everything else in her case is basically "staff like it".  Well, staff say they like a lot of things: more money, extra holidays, free childcare, slap-up canteen lunches, company car, health insurance, non-contributory pension, golfing away-days ...   and they all take their place in a businesslike assessment of how the trade-offs are going to work out.  So let's get to the trade-offs, eh, Polly? 

It's really odd because I would have thought lefties, softies and tree-hugger types would have been the first to acknowledge the absolutely critical importance of direct human contact.  Actually, many of them would.  Humans are designed for face-to-face interactions, it's utterly intrinsic in our makeup.  Whenever this breaks down, inhumanity takes hold.  That's an extreme statement of the case, but in a less dramatic form: you try negotiating a complex deal, or making an important new hiring, by any other means than regular over-the-table contact, F2F.  And over the coffee-break - and over a beer afterwards.  I guarantee that in direct competition with companies that insist on a solid percentage of time spent face-to-face with colleagues and counterparties alike, the company that says OK, WFH, sounds fine to me, just check in online a couple of times a week will lose out very significantly over the long run.  And everyone who is serious about getting things done is coming back to this view, albeit belatedly.

What we are running into is the world of people who advocate that anyone can self-diagnose with PTSD or ME and be "supported" by the state as they skulk in their bedrooms.  That any child who doesn't like school or isn't top of the class needs an individual SEND plan + tutor at school, or can be "home-schooled".  Contrary to what people with this mindset believe, there can't be a high percentage of staff who are truly more productive "WFH" four days a week.  For the avoidance of doubt, there will of course always be some people with genuine PTSD / ME / SEND problems / high unsupervised personal productivity etc etc.  But percentage-wise, not many.  Toynbee is extrapolating from her own working practices and assuming the rest of the world runs like hers: a self-motivated journalist tripping around from home-office keyboard to restaurant-lunch-on-expenses, and back to keyboard again.  The woman is a fool.

So:  "WFH is free"?  Nope, it comes at a serious cost:  net efficiency /  productivity / effectiveness at its most functional and cash-oriented; and erosion of face-to-face human contact at its most elevated.

As with many issues, the key is resolving the trade-offs.  Toynbee, pathetic polemicist that she is, doesn't even acknowledge them.  She is a fule and I diskard her uterly, as Nigel M would say. 

ND

_________________

PS, this is all in the same week as Toynbee writes "Ignore Musk, ignore the critics – you’ll feel the benefit of Labour’s policies in your pocket before long".  What more do we need to say?

21 comments:

Caeser Hēméra said...

All depends on the work and the worker.

I am far more productive WFH than I am commuting, but I've done WFH on/off for a very, very long time, and initially I had to acclimatise to it. Unlike with a commute, I can work the number of hours I need to complete something - it'll average out around 7.5 hours a day, but I've done 6 hours, I've done 10 hours+, whatever is need to meet a deadline, really.

I don't have to base things around work, back when you see a quack and worked in an office, it would mean at least a half day off. Now I can just shift my lunch hour around, or extend it.

I'm not averse to going into the office, my preference is one day for meetings and planning, but I'm not so keen on presenteeism - worked in too many places where being seen to be working was more important than actually working, and that cannot be good for productivity.

Can WFH have productivity and efficiency issues? Yes, but that's part of what managers get paid to manage. WFH just seems to be a poster child for productivity issues that were already visible before lockdown, it's an easier target than businesses questioning their own processes and practices, but I doubt getting everyone back in the office would give much a of productivity bump, nor for very long.

Pret would be cheered up though, I guess.

dearieme said...

The Great Dugong writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Except she never bloody moves on; she's been writing the same old tosh for the last three centuries.

Anonymous said...

Back in the innocent days when you could connect external devices to your work PC (there was even such a thing as floppy disc porn, as I discovered after wondering why everyone was clustered round a desk laughing), I carried on development of a quick-and-dirty Access application in the evenings of a Scottish skiing holiday. No internet access, but I had test data and found an internet shop (remember them) in Aviemore to mail the completed app in. Got two days pay for it too, which was nice.

But conversation at the coffee machine is a vital part of working life - so much information is dispersed there...

Anonymous said...

That Polly piece about forthcoming worker wealth got hammered even by the Guardianistas. Top comment "Utterly delusional"

But there is a good poll report in the Guardian today

Summary

The world doesn't hate Trump or Russia as much as the West does, views generally positive

But they have IMHO an inflated view of European power and capabilities, unaware of how much damage has been done. The people with the lowest opinion of European power are Europeans, who can see decline in front of their eyes

General agreement that China will soon be World #1

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/14/european-jitters-about-trump-20-not-shared-by-much-of-world-poll-finds

Anonymous said...

Working from home is much less fun when it starts with London in the mornings, continues with New York in the afternoons and ends with San Francisco in the evenings!

Anonymous said...

I’ve worked from home since I was made redundant in 1992 initially picking up a contract from my former employer to do some of the work I previously did in the office. I also nicked some of my former employer’s clients, clients whom I’d always serviced who wanted to continue with me.

I bought a Gateway 2000 PC, an inkjet printer, a 56K modem (remember those?) and a fax machine.

I was lucky in that we have a five-bed house because of having four children, and one of our children was off and away.

The most expensive purchase was a car. I’d always had a company car. The cost of insurance was huge because I didn’t have any no-claims bonus!

After years building up my business, and working stupid hours, I went into partnership in 2003, and we rented a very small rural office. We ended up with 14 of us and most worked from home.
You have to choose WFH employees very carefully. They must be self sufficient problem solvers, trustworthy, and motivated. It’s not hard to find such people if you have worked from home yourself – you know the type. But you also want them in the office fairly often. Human contact helps with the flow of ideas.

Two of my four children WFH as do their spouses. But they do have to attend their offices frequently. In the case of number one son, his firm has offices in Manchester, Birmingham and Belfast. So he does spend some time commuting around.

I’m semi-retired now, but I still WFH on projects to my liking.

Cheers Yet Another Chris

Bill Quango MP said...

The Spectator noted a few weeks back that companies looking to shrink their workforce to pay the Chancellors tax on employment. And to avoid the pitfalls of hiring someone on a Monday morning who could take them to a tribunal in the afternoon. Could look to their WFHers. And replace them with WFH on the Subcontinent or sub Sahara.

Nick Drew said...

BQ : that last sentence of yours is the killer. I know an entrepreneur of impeccable 'liberal' leanings on all matters social, except that ... in his most recent venture (successful) he offshored the whitecollar work to the max poss extent from Day 1.

y.a. Chris - what you say here is balanced and right:

"You have to choose WFH employees very carefully. They must be self sufficient problem solvers, trustworthy, and motivated. It’s not hard to find such people if you have worked from home yourself – you know the type. But you also want them in the office fairly often. Human contact helps with the flow of ideas."

Even then, you'll probably catch any problems later than you otherwise might have done.

My story is similar to yours. Left fulltime 5-day/week office work behind forever at age 48 (sold the company), moved onto whatever-I-fancied consulting etc, generally WFH. BUT - (a) how typical is that? Not particularly.
(b) I make damn' sure to see the whites of my clients eyes on every engagement, & frequently, too. Things can start going wrong between F2F sessions, with the best will in the world on both sides.
(c) Some of my clients, on bigger jobs, have said, you need to be in our offices, using our infrastructure 3/4 days a week, nice hotel etc but them's the terms. And I agree!

Nowadays I don't care to maintain the 'corporate infrastructure' even for that kind of flexible business, and mostly sleeve through a small specialist consultancy on an as-and-when basis. These guys are first-rate & ultra personally motivated / responsible / driven - and still mostly reckon on a few days a week in the office. AND they have a perceptible, non-stop attrition rate of people who realise (or are invited to realise) they don't quite have personal drive this takes.

In the special forces they have a saying: take responsibility for your own morale. It's a very harsh dictum, and won't wash for the vast majority of soldiers, and many officers, too - i.e., most people in general.

Anonymous said...

..you’ll feel the benefit of Labour’s policies in your pocket before long"
I am already - they are getting steadily lighter to cart around. And with less money I am closer to owning nothing, which apparently will make me happy.
BTW. Nigel M usage was 'fule'

Anonymous said...

Nick Drew, I totally agree. The key word you use is ‘driven’. I’m driven – four kids do that - and I looked for WFH employees equally driven, preferably with lots of kids. Two of my own WFH kids are driven, as are their WFH spouses. Maybe, it’s an atypical quality and the vast majority are not sufficiently qualified and must go into an office everyday. Some 99% of people I’ve worked with in a career spanning over 50 years would not qualify to WFH, which probably proves the point. That’s why I was always very picky.

As to working for clients at their offices, my line of work – research and analysis – meant it wasn’t necessary. I only needed to turn up twice: once for the pitch and once to deliver the results. On these, I liked short and sweet. The only exception tended to be German clients. They liked death by PowerPoint at every stage. My PowerPoints tended to be eight slides and twenty minutes. German clients seem to like 50 PowerPoints and four hours! Needless to say, their daily rate was much higher.

I have subcontracted for other consultancies and that meant turning up at their offices usually in London. No names, no pack drill. But I would note that the main expertise of these consultancies seemed to be landing contracts and then subcontracting to firms like mine. They happily paid the massive cost of four-star hotels in London, taxis, etc for me (or my employees) to work in their offices.

The other qualification for WFH is ‘unique skills’ (Liam Neeson, Taken?). I’m lucky’; I’ve got ‘unique skills’. The WFH people I employed had ‘unique skills’. My two kids, and spouses, who WFH have ‘unique skills’. Add that to ‘driven’ and you have the recipe for success and earnings, albeit very long hours.

Bill Quango. You mention off-shoring. I tried this. It seemed to me that the one-tenth rates of research and analysis companies in India was an obvious winner. Except it wasn’t. I hooked up with a company in Pune and went out there. On my first day, I addressed the staff. I was assured that they all had PhDs etc in research, analysis, maths and statistics. I was sh*tting myself as a mere mortal with a BSc (hons) in engineering. They were rubbish. They probably bought their certificates in the local market. My number one son – in software development – has had the same experience.

Cheers Yet Another Chris

Nick Drew said...

Interesting, Chris. So I'll add that my offshoring mate used S.African professionals. Certified, English speaking, very good, cheap(er)!

I will recount one amazing story about another firm, to whom I was sub-contracted once. The deal was to run a Europe-wide survey (for an EC office in Luxembourg) in all the different countries - and languages. I was drafting the questions (in English!). MO was: get written responses (from professionals in the energy industry), then interview them by 'phone with follow-up qns.

The EC people left us to do the survey however we saw fit but, to our surprise, suggested exploring what could be done using Indian firms. We found an Indian co that offered every European language, written and verbal. It wasn't difficult to put them through their paces before giving them the contract - and they were as good as their multi-lingual word!

and we were easily able to QA their work / get feedback from the respondees etc. Went without any serious hitch.

Amazing.

PS - in your terms, I like to think I have 'unique skills', too. Ahem. But I'll leave t'readership to be the judge ...

SubOptimal said...

Software development can be done remotely. Worked on one project nearly twenty years ago where there were just 8 of us in the tiny office, everyone else worked from home. The office only really existed to give the publishers somewhere to visit so they could see were a real company. Let the business hire people from all over the world, not just in commuting distance of London. Took effort to make communication work over a distributed team.

Much of my opinions about WFH haven't changed. The business has to really lean into it, and it wont suit many organisations. It's great for experienced staff, later in their careers with a house large enough for a home office - plus they dont have to relocate. Its not so good for junior staff who live in a shared flat.

But a lot of what people call WFH is 'hybrid'. Two or three days in the office, the rest at home. Some people love it, I find it to be the worst of both worlds. You are in the office enough that you probably want to live in commuting distance of London - so expensive. Yet you still need some space to setup as a home office - so a large flat near London, which is even more expensive.

jim said...

I have tried and seen various forms of WFH and it comes down to trust and incentives. I should say better for the more experienced workers, not afraid to ask or investigate. Maybe better suited to a particular type of person.

A rather unsuitable set of types came from a govt department with a particularly nasty culture of blame and fear and uselessness. They knew what they did was ineffective and low paid and the chances of the sack = zilch. So they skived off at every opportunity and as for WFH - forget it - but in Covid they had to. Their managers were guided by paperwork written by consultants and academics who followed Polly-like nostrums. Not that those managers believed a word of it.

So horses for courses but Covid led to unsuitable people in unsuitable cultures being forced to WFH. Difficult and slow to steer a way out that muddy field.

Sobers said...

WFH is just another middle class scam, designed to make their lives more comfortable, at the expense of the working classes. And of course only made possible by the working classes who can't exactly deliver Waitrose orders from home, or supply utilities from home, build houses from home, grow food from home etc etc etc. WFH is just another stage in the long term middle class plan to create a world of Eloi and Morlocks.

Bring on AI I say. That'll wipe away most of the WFH types, and a lot of the wealth in society can instead accrue to those who actually physically do stuff.

Nick Drew said...

An infinitely more balanced thread here than Toynbee can muster: thanks, all.

Correction made to the Molesworth usage! Thanks for that, too.

Elby the Beserk said...

WFH? Believed to induce up to an18% drop in productivity, in a sector where productivity has been dropping for decades

Even better, Rayner's 4 day week for the public sector will put that well up into the high 20s.

Elby the Beserk said...

I was WFH for many years, saving an hour plus commute into and back from the far end of Bristol (from Frome).

Coding. As one whose Autism (😉) was best served when coding - on a roll, the worst thing was to be interrupted in the creative act. So deffo much more productive that way.

Also missed all the pointless meetings the boss who finally drove me out like to hold...

Elby the Beserk said...

As any fule kno.

I sill have the Complete Molesworth on my bookshelf. My headmaster at prep school slightly disappointed that this was my choice of book for winning the school Latin prize.

BlokeInBrum said...

I think Musk drove the point home when he said that - either return to the office or “pretend to work somewhere else”.

In reference to Sobers` comment, he also said;

"It’s a productivity issue, but it’s also a moral issue. People should get off their goddamn moral high horse with that work-from-home bullshit. Because they’re asking everyone else to not work from home while they do."

There are certainly people and jobs that don't need to be tethered to an office, but I think it's highly divisive for an organisation (or a society) to have the laptop classes swanning about at home or in Starbucks , while the majority still have to put up with the daily grind.


Charles said...

One thing no one mentions is training new employees. At the end of my time as a worker I could work from anywhere and was trusted by my clients and executives in other companies. That took at least 7 years of being in the office and travelling to other people’s offices in the company of experienced executives where I learned from them. After 25 years it was second nature but as a new boy I would not have lasted more than a couple of weeks working from home. The other issue is that it is incredibly difficult to build and maintain the desired corporate culture if people don’t meet regularly and work together. It’s not just poor standards and sloppy working, it’s making sure that the team all know what standards are expected….

RS said...

I know your pain.

Except my day also starts with Singapore 😄