the rise and fall of the office
Are you sitting down? Good. Now, whilst I make every effort ‘never to say never’ I genuinely believed I’d never find myself almost agreeing with The Rt Honourable Member for the 18th Century, arch-Brexiter, pork-pie-telling, Jacob Rees Mogg. Ouch. Let me explain…
Earlier this year I decided to undertake the highly sensible act of electing a Power of Attorney and duly completed and posted the necessary documents to the Office of the Public Guardian, along with the appropriate cheques totalling £164. And then waited. And waited. And waited. Twenty weeks later they were accepted and confirmed. Apparently, that was quite speedy as receiving a tax rebate will take in excess of six months and expect a four month lapse if you need to renew your driving licence or passport. These delays are now the norm and they’re grating on the Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency to such an extent that he’s leaving official govt cards for ‘absent and offending’ civil servants stating “Sorry you were out when I visited. I look forward to seeing you in the office very soon.”
Undeniably crass, condescending and passive-aggressive in the extreme, Jacob is nonetheless sending a very clear message to the public sector to hit the commute, get back to their desks forthwith and put all this working from home (WFH) nonsense behind them. Ignoring that the larger economy is embracing flexible hybrid working, Rees-Mogg is arguing that getting back into the office would help realise the “benefits of face-to-face, collaborative working and the wider benefits for the economy”. Does he have something? It’s worth examining exactly how we got here.
Ever since the arrival of the internet and broadband, those in the know have been predicting a revolution in homeworking. Then, just over two years ago, the future arrived with a bang as offices worldwide closed overnight and millions of white-collar workers were forced to master the delights of non-celebrity squares, microphone cut-outs, audio delays and buffering face freezes. The office has been the defining building of our times but that time has now passed and the key space where these workers interact will no longer be within four walls but in the four sides of a screen.
The office era was first born when desk jobs became aspirational, around the turn of the 20th century, when the telegraph and the railway combined to foster larger organisations with central headquarters. In 1956, the number of white-collar workers in offices overtook the number of blue-collar workers in the factory for the first time and office hell, in the form of endless meetings, closed cubicles and open-planning soon followed. Unsurprisingly, as primates we evolved to protect our back and look outwards for danger, which is exactly the opposite to the exposed nature of the open-plan environment. You’ll never find a monkey out in the middle of the savannah!
Progressive companies pioneered relaxed dress-down campuses that conspired to keep their young employees from leaving with ping-pong, free food & beer, and a bring your dog space. More WTF than WFH. Forced by the Covid pandemic even these organisations have reconsidered their approach and began to promote the WFH culture: Twitter declared their staff could WFH “forever”; HSBC announced that 70% of its call centre workers could continue to WFH. But has the appetite for this now changed?
For many, WFH may disappoint as it fails to foster the flexible collaboration on which any knowledge economy thrives. Staying home is all very well for those with a comfy garden office decorated in delicate shades of Farrow & Ball but for others there’s no way a kitchen table, noise-cancelling headphone and intermittent reception are any kind of substitute for a decent workspace. In response, Google announced that to WFH for more than fourteen days with require special permission and Amazon says it will return to an “office-centric culture as our baseline”. LinkedIn famously recently gave all staff a week’s holiday to recover from the stresses of WFH. Many, it would seem, miss the simple thrill of gassing round the watercooler, of flirting with the receptionist, meeting for the post-work cheeky beer and enjoying the once-ubiquitous fag-break. Exiled for our desks, we are surprised to discover how much we miss them. At work we may not necessarily be loved but we are named and known.
Hot, or even warm-desking is now the thing: desks are shared and space is determined on a first-come/first-served basis. It makes sense, with the move to hybrid working but it also reflects a broader shift in middle-class employ. Since the early noughties, white-collar jobs have become far more precarious and whole tiers of administration and management have fallen prey to software innovation and efficiency. Once secure individuals must constantly adapt to new ways of working, with more performance benchmarking and, very probably, more online surveillance. The next restructure is always just around the corner, and in such a fast-paced corporate world, dedication and loyalty are no longer prized. Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon for people to spend their entire working lives in the same position, often with the same employer. Now, we’re all just passing through.
So, upon further investigation, Rees Mogg appears to have two issues regarding blended working. The first is that civil servants can’t be trusted to be productive if they are not at their desks and the second is that empty desks equate to an unacceptably high cost for the taxpayer. Does this mean he will now be leaving his notes on the empty benches in the House of Commons and that he’ll be campaigning for a new parliament building that will be massively cheaper than the refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster? No, I guess not. Either way, JRM should do us all a favour by ignoring his own advice and work more from home!
