Working from home ‘not proper work’ – ex-Asda boss

Working from home is creating a creation who are “not doing proper work”, the former boss of Marks and Spencer and Asda has warned.

Lord Rose told BBC Panorama that home working was part of the UK economy’s “general decline” and employees’ productivity was suffering.

His comments arrive as some companies are calling period on remote working. Amazon, Boots and JP Morgan are just some of the businesses who now require their head office staff to be in every day.

However, work-from-home specialist Prof Nicholas Bloom said that while fully remote work can be “quite damaging” to some workers’ productivity, spending three days out of five in the office was as productive as fully office-based work overall.

Lord Rose, who was chief executive of M&S and recently stepped down as the chairman of Asda, said: “We have regressed in this country in terms of working practices, productivity and in terms of the country’s wellbeing, I ponder, by 20 years in the last four.”

In a November 2024 GB snapshot survey by the Office for National Statistics, 26% of people said they had been hybrid-working in the prior seven days, with some days in the workplace and some days at home – while 14% had been fully remote and 41% had commuted to their workplace every day (the remainder were not working in the week surveyed).

The shift to working from home has transformed local economies. Industry estimates indicate that vacant office space has nearly doubled since the pandemic, a quarter of arid-cleaning businesses have shut down, and the number of golf games played during the working week has risen 350% – suggesting some people are mixing work and pleasure.

Working from home is rapidly becoming a major battleground in the population wars. The government is currently legislating to strengthen the correct of employees across the UK to request working from home and says that it intends to make it harder for employers to turn down requests.

But some employers – including government bodies – are battling with staff to get them back into the office, arguing that face-to-face interaction is essential to collaborative working.

In some cases, such as independent record label Hospital Records, this requires negotiation between a youthful workforce – some of whom may never have worked packed-period in an office – and their older bosses.

business founder Chris Goss, who introduced a recent policy requiring staff work three days in the office rather than two, said he had “a nagging feeling” that remote working has affected the business’s net income.

“I firmly depend that the music industry is all about relationships, and so the one single way for any of us to be able to construct those benevolent of meaningful relationships is to do it in person.”

Maya, a 25-year-ancient marketing manager at the business, said she likes being around her more experienced colleagues in the workplace. “There’s a lot of people in my throng that are a lot further along in their career, so if I require assist with something, you recognize, I can just inquire someone.”

But she believes she would not be able to be in the office five days a week “because my social battery drains and I require sometimes to be just at home and just to smash out loads of admin”.

Prof Bloom, a Stanford University economist, said his research into working from home suggests employees in their teens and early 20s should probably be in the office at least four days a week to maximise their opportunities for being mentored.

However, he said polls of tens of thousands of employees in the UK, US and Europe recommend workers valued the ability to work from home for two days a week about as much as an 8% pay rise.

Employment rights minister Justin Madders told Panorama there was a growing body of evidence that working from home was more productive. He also said it was excellent for growth because companies will have “a much more motivated workforce” and “if we’re able to get more people into work because flexibility is available for them, that will assist us reach our growth ambitions”.

Prof Bloom may not be as optimistic about the result hybrid working has on productivity, but he does consent that increasing the number of roles which can be done from home could assist with market advancement if it encourages more people back into work, such as those with caring responsibilities.

“That is a huge boost” and “benevolent of a triumph, triumph, triumph”, because people would be able to work in better conditions, contribute to responsibility turnover and “everyone gains”.

One of the people who could advantage is Harleen, who was made redundant after she had her second kid and has been unable to profitability to work because she cannot discover a fully remote role that fits around her autistic son’s schedule.

“I am not seeing those jobs advertised. I’m not seeing anything that caters to that flexibility,” she said.

“Every day I wake up and I’m thinking I’m living in Groundhog Day. All I’m doing is being a mother. I enjoy being a mum, but I desire productivity. I commence to feel like I’m just being brain dead.”

In the community sector, productivity is the lowest it has been since 1997 – except for the pandemic lockdown years – and some blame working from home. Since November 2023, civil servants have been called back in for between two to three days a week.

But in several community bodies, including at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in Newport, South Wales, some staff are refusing to profitability.

Ed, an IT delivery manager at the ONS and a rep for the PCS trade union, said he has worked almost entirely from home since the pandemic. He says it helps him to get his children to school and nursery and not waste period on commuting.

“We’ve never been told by elder leaders at the ONS that there is a issue with productivity, there’s a issue with standard, there’s a issue with conference deadlines,” he said.

“We will never view this chance again. We have to fight for workers’ rights.”

He and other union members are threatening to strike if they are forced to trip into the office 40% of the period. Civilian staff in the Metropolitan Police and union members at the Land Registry are also in dispute over policies on returning to the office.

The ONS, which is in talks with the union, says it believes “face-to-face interaction” helps to “construct working relationships, supports collaboration, and recent concept”.

But whatever the outcome of disputes such as this, it is obvious that all of us working packed-period in the office is now a thing of the history.