Nigel Farage calls for an end to working from home

[sally037]

Nigel Farage has doubled down on his attack on remote and hybrid working, calling it “a load of nonsense” and saying people are only productive when working face-to-face in the office. He argues we need an “attitudinal change to hard work” rather than focusing on work-life balance.

AIBU for thinking this idea is just bonkers and totally at odds with how most of the workforce actually wants to work now?

I can only think it appeals to the "pull the ladder up" generation. Don't give two fucks about anyone else as long as they are comfortable or those that are unable to wfh and want everyone else to be as miserable as them.

Call centre workers productivity is heavily tracked. Likewise anyone with billable hours.

The issue is more around public and private sector workers whose productivity is not tracked using systems.

They are the ones where wfh can lead to shirking from home

I wonder how much commercial real estate he and his friends have?

just trying to appeal to the daily telegraph/daily mail readers

Farage would like to see all employment rights ripped up and thrown away.

As he's in no position to do that he just stirs the pot with throwaway comments like that. Nasty little man.

I read a theory that suggested that the majority of people who want an end to work from home are male senior managers who like being in the office and having people defer to them and see them as senior. Whereas at home they are just Nigel and they need to muck in with the laundry.

So essentially if work from home ends it will be because of the fragile male ego ruining stuff for the rest of us once more.

I'm in a LA. I already struggle to find a desk on my office days and my employer is looking at further reductions in office space to save money.

I genuinely hate that man. For many reasons. But this adds fuel. Such a loathsome individual with no redeeming features.

Can I just remind posters that Farage and Reform are our next government.

So probably best be careful what you write. Remember the fiercer the freedom warrior, the thinner the skin.

(I bet this thread never appears in the MailOnline 😀)

Personally, I think Nigel Farage is a load of nonsense.

Bit rich coming from a professional grifter

I think a lot of it is bitterness that they couldn't do it.

But also because they believe that everyone not being supervised every minute of the day must be taking the piss and that's what they're angry about.

Someone getting something for nothing whether it be asylum seekers, benefit claimants, people WFH.

And they have valid concerns in some areas but they extrapolate it to everyone doing something to take the piss, get something for nothing and drain the system.

And see those people as very different to when they themselves claim benefits for example.

Like other PP, I can't imagine why he would think this has anything to do with the national government. It's a very silly 'when I'm king of the world I'll make all my pet peeves illegal' kind of thing to say. Fine if you're being knowingly flippant but come on...

I think he's got a point actually. WFH is perfectly fine in many roles, but it's been disastrous in others. Since so much of the desk based workforce has moved to WFH or hybrid, there is no doubt in my mind at all that overall productivity, efficiency and customer satisfaction has taken an absolute nose dive. Especially in public services and banking.

MPs are most productive working for their constituents, how many surgeries has he held?

My company brought most people back into the office more a while ago. And leadership are now running round tearing their hair out going “but WHY is overtime down?? How can we get it back up??”

Oh I don’t know. Maybe people were doing overtime in the 2 hours they’re now spending commuting. Just a guess.

Total client hours are down since more office days were enforced.

(I’m off work today at a hospital appointment, in case anyone thinks I’m an example of a home worker not working!!)

It’s really none of his business.

A lot can change in three years and hopefully it does.
Britain has issues but Britain isn't broken and social issues ,crime etc didn't just spring up in the last 18months.

Anyone who doesn’t work from home, isn’t really working in the office either.

I have a colleague at the same level as me, we jointly manage a team. He is in the office at 7.30 - 6.00 every day. I do the vast majority of management tasks, on top of all my project work. I have 5 projects, he doesn’t even have one. He is frequently “too busy” to do anything he is asked. My boss asked us to do exactly the same thing for two projects last week. It was basically collation of information that already existed. It took me less than an hour. He didn’t manage to get it done within the day. I ended up doing his too. Productivity isn’t just about tracking time, it’s about tracking output. My boss is under no illusions that I am way more productive, despite WFH.

Don't kid yourself.

I started working from home some of the time in 2011. When do you think working from home started? I had a completely WFH job in 2014.

Plus I haven't rung a call centre in ten years.

How much do you think the government would have to spend to make sure that everyone in the civil service has a desk five days a week? They started to cut desks so that people had to work from home some of the week in the 2010s.

With a lot less tax take as many high earners who WFH part of the time will have left the country to work somewhere which allows WFH and many women will have to work part time or give up work due to their caring responsibilities - particularly those with children AND elderly parents.

All this bullshit is the death cry of dinosaurs. We are living through the old guard VIOLENTLY rejecting change. They will die soon and the world will become sane again.

He's just an old, scared dinosaur.

In fairness we accountants were told HMRCs move to working from home was the cause of long delays and backlogs in 2020. I don’t think it’s the case now though.

I have a friend who hasn't worked for decades (used to have a wealthy husband, now a widow). She is an avid Daily Fail reader (we don't discuss politics), and she seems to have developed strong opinions about WFH. It would be funny if it wasn't sad she is falling for the propaganda she reads.

I remind her I am fully remote and flat out most days in my onerous job. If I were unproductive, my performance would be managed by my company and, if no improvement, I would be let go.

The faux concern and frothing around WFH is so transparently pushed by those missing out on a full workforce physically present in the office (landlords etc).

Presumably Fartage is playing on the prejudices about cushy WFH skivers to those who can't work from home while supporting his landowning mates - and people fall for it.

But he’s not saying it because he thinks it, he thinks his voters want to hear it. My dad would have been a reform voter I bet, if you did anything that was office based or not manual then it wasn’t a proper job in his opinion.

it’s just like the tories courted the pensioners vote and Zack thingy is standing on Palestine but obviously not because that way he will get Muslim votes, oh no definitely not.

my first thought too

I dont see what its got to do with him?

Businesses are free to run themselves how they want to attract to and retain staff. If it doesn't work for them, they wont do it.

If he wants to have an opinion on how government employees are employed - he probably needs afew more seats.

I don't think it's a real policy, just a dog whistle to belligerent supporters who are either a) older and retired/near retirement or b) younger, but in squeezed professions that don't benefit from WFH.