Working From Home Can Work: Why Dylan Jones is Wrong.
Working From Home Can Work: Why Dylan Jones is Wrong.
7 Key Reasons Work Culture is Changing. Taking on powerful voices of intolerance to change that benefits more people than it challenges.
“What happened to the big return?” So cried the front page of the London Evening Standard on Monday 25th September. “Millions are still working from home” wrote Dylan Jones, Editor in Chief, and occasional music writer, author of a series of lucrative book publishing deals for his take on 80’s and 90’s musical zeitgeists. He complained “Remote working is killing London.” Ordering us to “get back to work”.
This as data showed that commuter train travellers are down a third from pre-pandemic levels. Workers are now commuting into the capital Tuesday to Thursdays instead of Monday to Friday, commonly spending the rest of the working week working from home. Dylan’s crusading campaign consults, Angela Rossi CEO of investment bank M&G, looking down from his 11th floor corner office over empty streets below on a Friday afternoon. “I get a bit frustrated when I come into work on Friday, because the whole City, its empty” Rossi remarks. Dylan Jones goes on to add, “Many companies still only expect their staff to come to work three days a week – making a mockery of the working week”. At this point confirming, Dylan Jones is confusing the definition of work with the singular location of the office. That nobody is capable of working from home.
On he goes, consulting the MD of a private members club, “It’s ridiculous. Tuesdays to Thursdays are back to where they ought to be, with people cramming into bars and restaurants, but Fridays are still quieter than they ought to be, while Mondays are a real problem.” Dylan adds that Goldman Sachs are encouraging “teams” into the office five days a week. “Others are still timid”. Dylan Jones then rampages; “Me, I’ve had enough”. “Come Friday… restaurants are starved of trade”. “Remote working is killing London…its’s killing trade, killing commerce,…the city’s ability to properly get back to work”.
Once again in closing, Dylan Jones is making a misguided assumption on how economies work in the 21st century. But to break this down further there is prejudice, misunderstanding, entitlement, and delusion throughout his bitter tirade of patriarchal, “I know better, obey” rhetoric. The claims are sensationalist, badly researched, and miss the majority of key socio-economic groups that make up the population. Every one of Dylan Jones points are backed up by people in his own camp; white, male, senior middle aged, privileged, wealthy, entitled people, looking down from central London ivory towers.
I would point out that there are key reasons why working habits have changed for the foreseeable, if not for good. Dylan Jones and his pal’s need to wise up and accept the state of play, that they are losing control of the means of innovation and the inevitable evolution of work practises.
7 Key Reasons work culture is changing:
1/ Productivity
In many sectors where work from home has been culturally accepted and in place for years, productivity levels are in most cases higher than in five day a week traditional office environments. Trust is in place. Results are still hit and in fact often surpassed. Meta/Facebook and Google are two case points of many over the last fifteen years. Both emerging as multi-billion-dollar revenue global companies, both with key hubs in London. For those behind the curve of innovation and progress, a natural progression evolves, but sometimes an uncomfortable cultural shift is required. Certainly, such is uncomfortable for certain senior executives who have been around a while. Some sectors need to emerge from traditional practises to hybrid working. Innovation is about people and culture, just as much as business.
2/ Working styles evolve.
Nothing beats regular social interaction with colleagues, peers, and collaborators in person. But, we are now largely a device and display working economy, portable and flexible via connectivity. Colleagues are often not an hour’s train ride away. International collaboration has become more effective and productive through technology over the last two decades. This will only improve. Furthermore, we must recognise that working styles for productivity differ person to person – this must be respected to get the best from people. Two- or three-days a week in the office can make sense for many sectors, and many people, but often the open plan office is not conducive for focused work that suits quieter environments. Equally office attendance throughout the week simply does not guarantee productivity.
3/ Commerce
We are in the 21st century. eCommerce in 2022 in the UK made up 30% of total retail commerce, up 50% since 2020 and rising. 82% of the UK population engage with online shopping, a higher percentage than any other country. Many eCom enterprises reflect high street brands. Online retail is vitally more inclusive for entrepreneurial opportunity, so much so, people who cannot afford extremely expensive red brick rents can set up their own retail presence online, there are many successful examples of course. The concept can be applied across multiple industries.
4/ Hospitality
Fact is, people are still visiting restaurants, bars and café’s in central London five days a week. Just not Monday’s and Friday’s as much. Business has to adapt to change. Furthermore, this gives hospitality staff a couple of days off. The article also forgets the positive benefits to suburban and commuter town trade from new working patterns.
5/ Mental Health & Wellbeing
People’s lives and their wellbeing should be respected. We live in a time when this sentiment is finally emerging, but there is more to do, more people to convince. Mental health and wellbeing for the UK population at large is in crisis and needs addressing; it is certainly a high priority agenda item for commuters. We are busier than ever; work hours have been stretched longer than ever for many over the last two decades, and way beyond health practitioner recommendations. Work life balance needs to be rebalanced.
6/ Inflation and the cost of living.
The price of a sandwich, crisps, and a drink in a time sensitive lunch break from the office are higher than ever. Often devoured hunched over a laptop after a long queue. £50 to £75 across a five-day week. The amount an energy bill used to cost per month, prior to the doubling and trebling of electricity and gas prices. Dylan Jones’ Ivory Tower men are completely out of touch with broader society and the impacts of incompetent governance and economic strife on people’s lives as we head toward another winter of discontent. In most sectors salaries are often significantly behind inflation. There are record numbers of highly skilled people out of work in many industry sectors too, hidden by official stats due to an inability to claim benefits. For commuters, the rising cost of food, travel and household outgoings is not sustainable and incomparable to pre-pandemic levels. Budgeting a necessity for most.
7/ Commuting:
The money pit for the five day week. Well, first there is the positive environmental impact of less fossil fuel guzzling vehicles on the road, slow moving traffic jams snaking across suburbs, backed up traffic lanes into the archery’s of the capital and elsewhere. Most commuters into London use the train. Since the privatisation of Britain’s rail infrastructure, commuter ticket prices have risen way ahead of inflation and are now out of reach for many working people. Those that do succumb to paying through the nose for peak travel (and off peak) due to a necessity for higher wages, are seeing more and more of their take home salary taken by rail contract owners making huge margins, while lowering staff counts, driving business costs down, as conditions for commuters worsen. Overcrowding, delays, often no seats for those paying thousands per year for services. There is a lack of regulation. These rail service businesses cannot fail with current contract terms, with government bail outs on offer. It’s a win-win for investors and a failure for commuting workers.
Dylan Jones seems to have no idea that one of many key factors for people not commuting into the office five days a week is the high cost of commuting into central London. The train line contract owners have been allowed to take liberties, against the interest of the British people. Such profit margins from the UK rail industry, ironically in some cases funding public services in multiple countries across Europe (as the following video demonstrates), as private and public enterprise from other nations have been allowed to divide and conquer our own state assets. Firstly, pricing needs review. As a next step, the entire British rail network needs repossession and re-nationalising for the good of both British people and the British economy – with accountable management in place.
Later in the same edition of the Evening Standard, in another column, Dylan Jones goes on a mission to explain why the NHS should be privatised. I think we now see the measure of the man who claims cool, and is anything but.
It’s about time the old order is challenged. Why is it that society continues to give power to these voices preaching their intolerance to change that benefits more people than it challenges.
Time lost to commuting often totals fifteen hours a week for commuters in the Southeast, that’s before we can factor the common theme of delays and further disruption added due to strikes. Experiences of commuters standing up for an hour or more on a crowded carriage going through email on a mobile with intermittent bad reception are only too common. This is not conducive to wellbeing or productivity day after day after day. It reflects a flaw in our society, sticking to regimented and dated time structures defined in times long ago. Failing infrastructure. Exorbitant pricing. Furthermore, a retrograde 9am to 5pm work structure is not a reality in modern working environments for a multitude of reasons, one example; international time zones and the need for connections and video conference meetings beyond the U.K. More than ever, we are an isolated island in need of trade and revenue, after all.
Factory hours are outdated. So are views expressed in Dylan Jones’s article, based solely on a limited world view. We cannot go on letting such viewpoints dominate our media and define methods. The natural and much needed evolution of work and life balance has begun.
Live to work, or work to live a better quality of life. Our direction should be clear to most.
Digital version of Dylan Jones article here.
