The reason behind the WFH crisis? People want the lifestyle of an entrepreneur without the risks, writes Jamila Robertson
By Donald Trump’s orders, today is the day federal employees must return to the office or face termination. The President remarked that apart from being unproductive, the allowance for federal employees to work from home was unfair to the millions of people working hard from job sites. The battle lines have been drawn, this is about fairness.
And it’s a battle taking place on our shores too. I was struck by the end of Panorama’s recent report on whether we should still be working from home, especially the remarks of Chris Goss, co-founder of Hospital Records: “All of a sudden, it seems like there’s a notion that everyone should be able to have their full-time, fully-paid up bonus-ridden job from the comfort of their kitchen. It’s simply my conviction that we, as a team, can do so much more when we’re together; and that’s my privilege, because I’m the boss and I’ve built this up.”
And he’s right. If you’re looking for complete flexibility in when and where you work, you should work for yourself. Yet, despite 25 per cent of UK adults wishing they could, only 15 per cent do. According to the ONS, in 2019, there were 5m self-employed people in the UK, the highest number since records began. In 2024 this dropped to under 4.4m. There are many reasons for this. Post-pandemic and navigating the cost of living crisis, a guaranteed income is attractive, but perhaps a more honest assessment is that WFH has given employees the same freedoms, and lifestyle, as a freelancer or entrepreneur but, crucially, without the risk.
The cost to employers
Unsurprisingly, this isn’t working as well for employers. Following the Budget, their margins have been further squeezed by increases to national insurance contributions (NICs) and the minimum wage, changes to business property relief, a reduction in the NICs threshold and empty office costs; surely it is time they were cut a little slack?
Employers like Amazon, JP Morgan, Meta and the US government are asking employees to come into the office five days a week. Meanwhile in the UK, civil servants have rejected calls to return to the office for just three days a week and WPP’s four-day-a-week mandate has backfired; simultaneously Sainsbury’s, BP, Ford and Volkswagen are cutting jobs. It’s a mess out there. So perhaps more stringent work from office (WFO) rules will be better for everyone?
The UK government’s incoming Employment Rights Bill gives the illusion of an employee’s right to work from home, but this isn’t really the case. Employers can refuse the right to work from home on reasonable grounds such as: “detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand; the burden of additional costs; inability to re-organise work among existing staff; inability to recruit additional staff; detrimental impact on quality; detrimental impact on performance; and insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work”. All fairly easy for an employer to establish. The overstating by ministers that this bill offers the right to flexible working “from day one” has empowered employees with a false confidence.
WFH is driving teams apart
The truth is that WFH is a Covid hangover that has outlived its purpose. Initially introduced to keep teams together when we were forced to be apart, it now does the opposite. There are of course instances in which it will remain useful, such as providing opportunities for those with limited mobility. But for those that want work to work around their lives, its purpose is perhaps being exploited.
Giving employees the option to work from the comfort of their kitchens, cut their commute or take up a morning cold-plunge, while all noble pursuits, are not necessarily the job of an employer. And as workers threaten to walk in response to a fairly reasonable request that they return to their places of work, we must allow the market to take precedence here. If employees would rather quit than return to the office, then it will be up to them to work for themselves to enjoy the liberties life as an entrepreneur brings. As the old adage goes, no risk, no reward.
Jamila Robertson is the director of the Centre for the Future of Work