Lord Rose slams WFH as "not proper working" and says it its harming productivity
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Former Marks & Spencer and Asda boss Lord Rose ignited a heated debate over working from home when he said the practice is creating a generation “not doing proper work”. The Tory peer told BBC’s Panorama programme he was worried that the continuing preference - particularly among younger staff- for WFH was damaging productivity and contributing to the UK economy’s “general decline.”.
His comments came as many major employers, including Amazon, Boots and JP Morgan, step up the pressure on staff to spend more time in the office amid criticism of a “generation lazy” culture. Lord Rose, who was chief executive of M&S and recently stepped down as 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 think, by 20 years in the last four.”.
The number of people working from home more than doubled between December 2019, shortly before the start of the pandemic, and March 2022 from 4.7 million to 9.9 million, according to official figures. JP Morgan and Amazon have told staff they must attend work in person five days a week and major employers are investing heavily in new and refurbished office space to persuade more staff members to commute in. Citigroup last week said it would spend £1 billion to renovate its offices in London as part of the push to get workers back.
But Rebecca Florisson, Principal Analyst, at the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, said: “The recent push-back from some employers to roll back on hybrid and remote work is unhelpful, and risks undoing some of the gains that have been made in this area since the pandemic.
