Nigel Farage calls for an end to working from home

I think he says things out loud to see public reaction - if it is negative then it'll never be mentioned again. If whatever he says gets support then he will note that & discuss it more. In the event of being in a position to do something about it, he will be influenced only by those paying him either money or attention

I work in the public sector. My team works exclusively from home. We couldn't return to an office as the local authority sold every viable office space that we could have used.

Incidentally, this one single thread is now the most scrutiny Reform has had in the UK this year. Beating the BBC, ITV, Sky and all printed papers.

One think you need to bear in mind is that reform do not believe in climate change and want to scrap net zero.

Plus ca change.

There were monks moaning about new practices in the 1300s.

There were weavers whining about new practices in the 1600s.

There were cast iron workers complaining about new practices in the 1800s

People catastrophising about change is as old as the hills.

Meanwhile you have weirdoes like me who say fuck all has changed in 50 years. Are we still using telephones to deal with companies. At their convenience ? Yes to both.

It's a weird take, and quite literally none of his fucking business. Presumably he's playing to white van man or presenteeist office blurks that think being in the office and endless meetings about work is the same as actual work. Otherwise I have no idea why he's latched onto this as some kind of policy.

I think working from home is good for parents and older people who are well established in their job role, seniors who have a lot of autonomy etc.
BUT I think we are all being quite selfish - the younger generation are not doing well with WFH in a big picture sense. Learning on the job is very hard to do when you are not in an office having face to face conversations and absorbing information through osmosis - hearing conversations happen around you, chats at the coffee machine, seeing things on other peoples screens etc. People are very much likely to have a teams to just inform a junior of what they are doing and why. Much harder to guage how someone is doing and if they look bit lost when you are not in regular contact. And there is not much point the juniors going into the office if there is no-one senior there to train them / interact with!!
Also when I think back to my early 20s a lot of my social life was based around going out for drinks after work with people from work, especially if you move to a new city away from uni and school friends.

I don't like working from home in this job. I did in a previous job and loved it as my kids were in primary school and it gave me some flexibility (only going into the office once a month or so) as it was very reports based and factual so easy to send emails with figures and actions in. I kno work for a creative agency and there is a lot of spitballing and conversations that happen around projects that are easier in person as part of the day to day chit chat - we all need to feed off each other. As a project manager it is helpful to be able to read the room and know where the pressures are. I also like the company. When I work from home it is very boring, if you lived alone you could go days without seeing someone!

It is a delicate balance but on the whole, having the entire workforce working from home is just going to be very isolating and I don't think it works for everyone and we cannot be selfish about it, there does needs to be some consideration about what is best for society as a whole.

I couldn't give a rat's arse what he thinks on any subject. Plus, if I am willing to let my employees WFH what fucking business is that of Farage's????

It could also be used to prevent disabled people having WFH flexibility. This, added to Reforms likely punishment of the disabled who 'choose not to work' is a concerning spectre.

Swings and roundabouts.

I'm autistic and really struggle with over-stimulation. Office environments just don't suit me, and previously caused a total mental-health disintegration that took me nearly a decade to recover from.

I can cope with small office working on a limited basis, but 40 hours per week in a noisy office, surrounded by ringing phones, people talking away, the commute etc, it would invariably lead to yet another catastrophic breakdown, so WFH is essential to my ability to do my job in the first place. I would resign and go onto benefits if office working became mandatory, because I value my mental wellbeing more than I do my salary.

Despite the bleating of the terminally envious / owners of big city offices who fear their buildings will lose value / standard twats, we cannot achieve net zero unless we get rid of the commute. That means everyone who can work remotely doing so or extreme (and I do mean extreme) flexitime. So suck it up, dinosaurs, you can't have it both ways.

No it won't and why would it?

It's nothing to do with WFH, it's to do with cutting staff because of online systems and AI being available so they assume fewer staff are needed.

I’m perplexed as to why this would need government involvement anyway. Seems very nanny state.
And it really happened! (Albeit the other way round.) It was very nanny state indeed, when the government practically ordered us to work from home while they partied. Has everyone forgotten 2020? Has the Orwellian government successfully memory-holed it out of existence? Indeed, is Farage's proposal an Orwellian attempt to restore the status quo of "lockdown never happened"?

Farage is a grifter who will say any old rubbish that he thinks people want to hear. See also Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, and many others.

Ok 😂

You have given me precisely 3 words to express your view lol

I voted "unreasonable" because I am fed up with being categorized by age. Not everyone over 60 votes Reform.

I think it’s due to a mixture of:

Jealousy - because it didn’t exist for most of their working life
Plus Inability to understand how it can work as they didn’t do it

I’m sure some older men hate wfh as they can’t flirt / perv over women in the office.

Local authority worker here, our council have sold off buildings so we will not have enough space.

But if the Reform government mandate back to office then the council will jolly well have to buy more buildings. Which - due to sudden demand - are now 10x more expensive than when Farages mates snapped them up.

You won't have to worry about the council affording it as they will have saved billions from scrapping SEND provision.

I think that's a very separate issue.

If your MH is reliant on social interaction with other people and you have no people to interact with outside of work, that's not a WFH issue.

I thought Reform were against the State interfering in private businesses? Isn’t that why they said they plan to remove most employment rights?

And the sheer irony of such a proclamation from a man whose constituents say he is never around…

I honestly can’t understand how people are taken in by this hate-filled untalented grifter.

That wasn't what I meant though.

It's bollocks, as usual from that odious man. He's spouting it at a bunch of older, retired Reform voters, because he knows it will garner headlines. If we had some proper journalists they could ask him exactly how he would propose to make that happen in practice. He wouldn't have a clue. All shout and no substance. I'd say mouth-and-no-trousers, but the thought of him in his kecks turns my stomach.

Will lose him a shed load of votes.

It would cost billions to buy sufficient office space, cause congestion and public transport capacity issues and wrap around childcare problems.

Precisely.

This is just another aspect of the same race to the bottom that was the real driver behind Brexit.

Remember all the nonsense about getting rid of foreign labour so Brits could benefit from increased wages to pick fruit?

Exactly the same drivel. It's about erosion of rights, and pandering to exploitative business.

Again, you'd have to have a zip up the back of your head to buy into the idea the solution to problems caused by neoliberal capitalism is turbo-charged neoliberal capitalism.

Local authority worker here, our council have sold off buildings so we will not have enough space. I was the last person to want to WFH & as a Social Worker I am often out on visits & now I see that WFH makes perfect sensem I used to drive to work, go into the office, drive out to a visit (often past my house) then back to the office again! My mileage claim has reduced substantially since WFH & I even buy my own paper, pens etc

I don’t think the fundamentals are going to stay at all! We are going to have upper echelon decision makers and we are going to have monkey workers. But middle expensive complex professional skill roles are going to disappear fast. How anyone’s going to bridge that gulf I don’t know.