Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Head back to the office – it’s your patriotic duty

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Give or take a few leader-writing shifts and editing projects, I’ve been working from home for the past 30 years, so it may seem hypocritical to tell anyone else to return to the office. But it’s time to bring normality back to the world of work. I believe few people are capable of higher productivity in isolation than they are amid the shared energy and competitive pressure of a physical congregation of colleagues. Employers should not be allowed to use WFH as cover for cutting office space and certainly not for cutting wages. So on this issue I’m unusually but firmly at one with Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon, who said earlier this year that remote working is ‘not a new normal, it’s an aberration’.

And restoring normality also means — yes, kids, I’m talking to you — that if you’ve been taking it easy for the summer, it’s now your patriotic duty to get a job as well as a jab. The furlough scheme has kept unemployment unexpectedly low — 4.7 per cent in the quarter to June — while the exodus of foreign-born workers contributed to a UK record of 953,000 vacancies in May to July, most visible in the number of hospitality venues closed for lack of staff. The Office for National Statistics says this squeeze is contributing to earnings growth of between 4.9 and 6.3 per cent, which is a serious inflationary threat on top of the shortages and blockages I’ve recently highlighted. We elders need to explain to the young, who have never experienced it, just how painful inflation can be. And all of us, whatever our age or ability, need to get back into the workforce and workplace as soon as we can.

How revolutions happen

My forthcoming book on capitalism (out in October) expresses greater faith in entrepreneurs and private-sector companies than in ministers and civil servants to bring about rapid change when it’s needed.

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