Working from home is 'not proper work', says ex-Asda boss

Former Marks & Spencer and Asda boss Lord Rose has warned that working from home is creating a generation of people who are "not working properly." He told the BBC's Panorama program that working from home is part of a "general malaise" in the UK economy, with employee productivity falling.

Meanwhile, some companies are ending remote work. Companies like Amazon, Boots, and JP Morgan are now requiring their head office staff to be in the office every day. However, Professor Nicholas Bloom, a work-from-home expert, says that while fully remote working can be "quite damaging" to some workers' productivity, overall productivity with three days a week in the office is the same as being in the office full-time.

Lord Rose, who was formerly the chief executive of Marks & Spencer and recently stepped down as chairman of Asda, said: "We've gone backwards as a country in the last four years by 20 years in terms of how we work, productivity, and the well-being of the nation." A survey by the UK's Office for National Statistics in November 2024 showed that 26% of people said they had worked a hybrid pattern in the past seven days, spending some time in the workplace and some time at home; 14% worked fully remotely; and 41% commuted to work every day (the remainder did not work in the week surveyed).

The shift to working from home has transformed local economies. Industry estimates show that vacant office space has almost doubled since the pandemic, a quarter of dry cleaners have closed, and golf rounds during the working week have increased by 350%, suggesting some people are mixing work and leisure. Working from home is rapidly becoming a major battleground in the culture wars. The government is currently legislating to strengthen the rights of workers across the UK to request to work from home, saying it intends to make it harder for employers to refuse these requests.

But some employers, including government agencies, are battling with their staff to get them back into the office, arguing that face-to-face interaction is vital for collaborative work. In some cases, such as independent record label Hospital Records, this requires negotiations between younger staff, some of whom may never have worked full-time in an office, and their older bosses. Since the Covid pandemic, the way we work has shifted, with more people working from home. But is this good for us, and good for the economy?

Company founder Chris Goss introduced a new policy requiring staff to work three days a week in the office instead of two. He said he had a "creeping feeling" that remote work was impacting the company's bottom line. He said: "I'm a firm believer in the music industry being all about relationships, and the way any of us build those meaningful relationships is by being face-to-face." Maya, 25, a marketing manager at the company, said she liked being in the workplace with more experienced colleagues. "There are a lot of people in my team who are further along in their careers, so if I need help I can ask anyone." But she doesn't think she could be in the office five days a week "because my social battery would run out and I sometimes need to get a lot of admin done at home."

Professor Bloom, an economist at Stanford University, said his research on working from home suggests that employees in their teens and twenties should probably be in the office at least four days a week to maximize their opportunities to be mentored. However, he said surveys of tens of thousands of workers in the UK, US, and Europe show that workers see working from home two days a week as being worth an 8% pay rise. Employment Rights Minister Justin Madders told Panorama that there is growing evidence that working from home is more productive. He also said that this is good for economic growth because companies will have "a more motivated workforce" and "if we can get more people into work because of flexibility, that will help us with our growth objectives."

Professor Bloom may be less optimistic about the impact of hybrid work on productivity, but he does think that increasing the number of jobs that can be done at home could help economic growth because it encourages more people to return to work, such as those with caring responsibilities. "This is a huge boost" and "a win-win" because people can work in better conditions, contribute to tax revenues, and "everyone benefits." Harlin is one of those who could benefit; she was made redundant after having her second child and has been unable to return to work because she cannot find a fully remote job that fits around her autistic son's routine.

She said: "I don't see these jobs being advertised. I don't see any jobs that fit around that flexibility." "I wake up every day feeling like I'm living in Groundhog Day. All I do is be a mum. I love being a mum, but I want to be productive. I'm starting to feel like I'm just brain-dead." In the public sector, productivity is at its lowest level since 1997, apart from during the pandemic lockdowns, and some are blaming working from home. Since November 2023, civil servants have been required to return to the office for two to three days a week.

But in several public bodies, including the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in Newport, South Wales, some staff are refusing to return. Ed, an IT delivery manager at the ONS and a PCS union representative, said he has worked almost entirely from home since the pandemic. He said it helps him take his children to school and nursery and that he is not wasting time commuting. "At no point have the senior leadership at the ONS ever told us that there's been a problem with productivity, that there's been a problem with quality, or that we're not delivering on time," he said. "We're never going to see an opportunity like this again. We have to fight for workers' rights."

He and other members of the union are threatening to strike if they are forced to work in the office 40% of the time. Civilian staff at the Metropolitan Police and union members at the Land Registry are also in dispute over return-to-office policies. The ONS is in negotiations with the union and says it believes that "face-to-face interaction" helps to "build working relationships and support collaboration and innovation." But whatever the outcome of such disputes, it is clear that the days when we all worked full-time in the office are gone.