Former M&S boss says working from home is ‘not doing proper work’
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WFH has harmed employee productivity, says Stuart Rose, who was also executive chair of Asda. The former boss of M&S and Asda has said working from home has meant a generation of people is “not doing proper work”. Stuart Rose, who was chief executive of M&S for six years until 2011 and then executive chair of its supermarket rival Asda until November, claimed that working from home had harmed employee productivity – a longstanding problem in the world’s wealthier economies.
Lord Rose told BBC One’s Panorama: “We have regressed in this country in terms of working practices, productivity and in terms of the country’s wellbeing, I think, by 20 years in the last four.”. The number of people working from home in the UK more than doubled between December 2019 and March 2022 from 4.7 million to 9.9 million, as the Covid pandemic forced people into lockdowns from March 2020 onwards.
Office workers were by far the most affected, although most people in Britain did not work from home. Since then some of the changes have remained, even as pandemic restrictions disappeared. However, several big companies have told workers they must come into the office more, or even abandon hybrid working completely.
US-headquartered companies including JP Morgan and Amazon have told staff they must attend work in person five days a week. Citigroup last week said it would spend £1bn to renovate its offices in London as part of the push to get workers back. Rose has himself acknowledged his personal commitment to his working life. A short biography of Rose on Asda’s website said: “Stuart appears to have no hobbies apart from work and has a dog called Bruce.”.
