WFH No More?

[00:00:00] The Why Curve, with Phil Dobbie and Roger Hearing. Logging in, in your pyjamas. Reading your emails, on the beach. Since Covid, many of us have been working from home. But is it really working? Senior business figures are saying it's what's holding back UK productivity. They want us all back in the office into those shiny buildings they're paying so much to rent. But are we actually working harder at home? And helping the environment too, by not travelling so much?

[00:00:28] Or does Britain need to get back to its desks? The Why Curve So let me give you some figures to start with. These are figures from the Office for National Statistics. Based on, and presumably they did this from the office. One would assume. How many people are working from home and how many people are working? So these are the latest figures. In Britain. In Britain. This is up to the 5th of January this year. So bang up to date. Yeah, yeah. Those people who work from home and didn't travel to work. Yes. So pure home workers, 16%. 16%.

[00:00:58] Yeah. Those who purely worked from the office and didn't work from home at all, 41%. Ah, interesting. So I'm not really quite sure whether how much that's... And everyone in between is sort of people who take off Fridays and Mondays or whatever. Get a bit of a hybrid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I had thought was probably a pretty high number. Because you certainly hear, even when you go and you park at the station car park, Mondays and Fridays are not busy. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe that is part of it. But does it actually change anything?

[00:01:27] I mean, you know, we got used to it during COVID. Does it actually make any difference? This guy from the former head of Marks and Spencer said, oh, it's all part of the problem for Britain and growth and productivity. But really? I mean... Well, but that would be for his industry, presumably. I mean, he's working in retail. Yes. He's in an industry where you can't work from home. And he's like, I don't know. Well, can you tell me where the spaghetti is? Yeah. Well, actually, if you could just pop around to number 42, he'll be able to tell you. I mean, you've got to be at work, haven't you? Yeah. Well, that's the thing.

[00:01:55] The jobs that home working works for are essentially, I suppose, jobs based on laptops. Yeah. Pretty much. So that can be management. That can be, I don't know, computer programming, that kind of stuff. So my wife's in the sort of job where... I mean, I work from home all the time, obviously, because we're sitting in. We're sitting in your home, in fact. But, you know, I've got a studio here and I'm set up to work from home. So in effect, I've been the hybrid worker for a long time. So COVID really didn't change my lifestyle at all. Well, you're not hybrid. You work from home. I work from home.

[00:02:23] Pure home worker, except my work is my home as well, you know, which is pros and cons of that, of course. But my wife is a hybrid worker. She tries not to go into the office too much. She has to once a week for meetings. But really, if she goes more, she says, I get less done. Yes. Because there's distractions. Everyone wants to talk. Someone wants to go out for lunch. Yeah, but, you know, when you're at home, the cat needs feeding and the children want picking up from school. She's fairly... Well, she leaves me to do all of that. Oh, well, there we are. She's fairly devoted to work when she's in there.

[00:02:52] And also, I think, in this day and age as well, I mean, how many nine-to-five jobs are there? You know, how often do you actually have to work in the evening because you're dealing with America, for example? You know, if, you know, or this, you know, your boss comes up with an idea and they want to discuss it. But, you know, you're not... You know, that balance between nine... Which may be a bad thing. And, in fact, in Australia, they've tried to introduce legislation to try and cut back on this. Yeah, you must not answer your emails after hours. Yeah, exactly. And if you send an email to somebody out of hours... But isn't it all to do with the level at which you're working?

[00:03:21] Because if you're a manager or something like that, fine. But if you're, you know, starting out your first job, you're totally isolated. You're in some terrible bedsit sitting at your laptop. I mean, it's no kind of life. It's no way into the career structure, is it? No, it's not. Look, there's a load of questions here. Let's get to the bottom of all of this. Yeah, let's talk to someone who's researched all this, and that's Abigail Marks, who's Professor of the Future of Work at Newcastle University and joins us now. So, Abigail, I mean, you know, the obvious question is, you know, has it impacted productivity in this country or elsewhere?

[00:03:50] Is there any evidence that this hybrid model of working, which, you know, everyone's seen since COVID, has hit productivity? Probably not. It's not that simple, is it? I'm sure you know if you're going to invite an academic on here, they're going to say, well, it's not quite that straightforward. It really depends on your job, doesn't it? It really depends on the tech you're in. It really depends on how you measure productivity. So I don't think it is that straightforward.

[00:04:20] But, I mean, there's obvious jobs where you have to go to work. Absolutely. Like if you're a nurse or a doctor or you're working in retail. Or you drive the bus. Yeah, all of those things. But if you are a job where you can work from home, if we just look at that, is there evidence that, and again, you'll say, well, it depends on, again, still depends on the job. But is there evidence that, you know, it's having a profound impact on productivity? Because certainly the voices we're starting to hear, like Donald Trump, for example, are all saying, and, you know. Yeah, senior business figures here too,

[00:04:49] saying that actually that's part of the problem of Britain's productivity overall. Like Marks and Spencer's, et cetera. Yeah. No, I'm going to say again, as you've answered for me, it's not that simple. It depends on the job. It depends on the individual. It depends on their role in the organisation. It depends on their preferences. It depends on all sorts of things. I'm not sure Donald Trump is an expert on management. Yeah. And as far as senior leaders are concerned, I'm not necessarily sure how close they are to the coalface

[00:05:18] and whether they're getting their information from the productivity problem in the UK. I far predate COVID. Yeah, because that's the thing. We can draw a line, can't we? Because people didn't basically work from home before COVID. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, we're talking a very small proportion of the population had the opportunity to work from home. We're now talking between 30% and 40% of office-based workers. That's 30% to 40%.

[00:05:46] I mean, we looked at some stats from the ONS a little bit earlier. So 30% to 40% are hybrid, would you say? I would say the majority of home workers are hybrid to some extent, yes. Okay. So I suppose the point then to say is, to bring it down to details rather than stats, people say, well, if you are at home, you have a number of distractions. People are not necessarily disciplined about, you know, shutting the door, getting the cat out of the room, you know, all the sort of things that you would otherwise do

[00:06:15] if you were at home, perhaps a cup of tea, whatever. So therefore, your actual time per day of devoted work is less. But contrary to that, when you're in the office, there's people who come up to your desk, they start talking to you, they say, let's go for an early lunch. You get distractions in both places, don't you?

[00:07:02] Absolutely. You know, how's your family? How was your holiday? And I think it's too easy to blame being at home. I always had a thing when I was undertaking interviews, I asked people a question. Certainly in the first round of interviews we were doing, when people were, first or second round, when people were getting used to homeworking during the pandemic, was if you empty the dishwasher while you're working at home, and it's not in, you know, it's not in a lunch break, what do you do about that time?

[00:07:32] And the majority said, well, to be honest, I'll probably take it off my lunch break. But will they tell you that? Do you think they actually do that? I don't know. Some do. I mean, some do, some don't. But even if they don't, when they're empty the dishwasher, they're probably thinking about what's happening in their next meeting in the same way that they would be sitting at their desk, although probably healthily in a more active way. I think a lot of people do. A lot of people, particularly at the start, were quite scared that, you know, Big Brother was watching them. So I think they may do.

[00:08:01] And certainly, I think people probably take fewer breaks if they're working at home because they've got back-to-back, you know, Zoom slash Teams slash Slack meetings. There's less ebb and flow in the system when you're working at home than there is when you're in the office. Well, you see, that's interesting, isn't it? You mentioned Zoom meetings because that is something that really came out of COVID. So there was a lot of mistrust, wasn't there, from before COVID from working from home because, you know, no one knew whether you did anything at all, actually.

[00:08:31] You know, you could have taken a day trip to Brighton and no one would have known. Whereas now, you know, you can have meetings scheduled in. So that mistrust element perhaps has disappeared. Yeah, and I think people do ultimately have more on, you know, on time when working from home than they would do in the office. There is less of an ebb and flow. And I'm not sure that is, you know, maybe that's a productivity problem. I don't think it's as simple if there is a productivity at home working.

[00:08:59] I don't think it's as simple as people going to Marks and Spencer's to do, you know, whatever, a shop or walking the dog for three hours a day or having their friends around for coffee because you get those distractions. There are distractions at work. People don't work eight hours in the office at one, you know, work pace. If you actually worked at what people do in the office or at home, I think you'll get more productive, well, productive, in inverted commas, out of people at home.

[00:09:26] So it's just we don't really understand what enhances productivity. Well, have we got a handle actually on how we measure productivity in the workplace? I mean, from an economic point of view, you know, it's how much your GDP is for the country per hour work. Yeah, and if you're working in a factory, it's how many ballpoint pens you produce or whatever. But there's very few jobs like that anymore. Yeah, for most jobs actually. How do you measure it?

[00:09:53] But if you measure the number of hours worked and the money created based on that work, then are we working too many hours? Well, I mean, a lot of people involved in the UK economy would say we're probably not working enough. Or if within those hours we actually produce what we're supposed to produce anyway, then it's not a problem. But your point is we're wasting time at work, and certainly a lot of that goes on, isn't there? We're wasting time at work, but there's also work has changed. Particularly office work, work has changed.

[00:10:22] So we work on this model of, you know, the eight hours labor, eight hours rest, eight hours leisure, right? Which was in itself a construct. It wasn't based on any research. It was a made-up construct. And still that is, you know, broadly the norm for full-time work. Work has changed. We're not. That eight hours was based on waking widgets in the factory. It wasn't based sitting in front of a Zoom meeting. Now, it's a...

[00:10:51] And there is a reasonable amount of evidence that people can't do that sort of work productively for eight hours a day. But I wonder whether, you know, this idea that, you know, are you working too much or not working effectively is because when you're sitting at home, you have those meetings. It just becomes part of the routine. And if you're in a workplace, maybe people are firing off each other a bit more and you're getting new ideas. Exactly. It's that interaction that you don't get. And certainly one thing, you know, the boss, the big bosses who you're saying

[00:11:21] are perhaps a little bit out of touch, the ones who are saying, you know, we've got to get people back into the workplace because that's where the work happens. They'll be saying, look, I work hard, you know, in my job. That's how I made this company as big as it is. I've made the sacrifices. So I'm a little bit dismayed to see all these people working from home, just having all these meetings and not firing on all cylinders. And hence the distrust. And we need to engender that spirit of hard work and sacrifice back into the business. You can sort of see their point of view.

[00:11:51] Yes, but that does suggest that they are somewhat naive in terms of the way that work has changed and the way that people's behaviours have changed. And I think, I mean, I think the other thing, I don't think it's as simple as productivity is less when people are working at home, productivity is more when people are in the office. I think the nature of work has changed. So I think we need to look at, A, how many hours people should be working. But I think the other thing we need to look at is the problem with hybrid working

[00:12:21] is there was no strategy for the implementation of hybrid working. It was a reaction, well, home working and then hybrid working was a reaction to the pandemic. So it's probably one of the biggest shifts in the organisation of work in the last 50 years. And most big shifts like that, or big transitions would be, you know, they'd have management consultants, you know, everywhere trying to organise it. Yes. You've saved billions by not having that happen.

[00:12:50] There's our first bit of productivity. Yes, we've saved billions of pounds and obviously we are now destroying professional services companies by not employing them to do it. It's an issue. It's not, yes, it's not being planned. Thought through. It's not being considered. Given that, I mean, one of the things that he said to me when I talked to my kids about this as well is that if you, because they're out beginning to work now, if you are young and perhaps don't have vast resources

[00:13:19] and certainly don't have a big house to install your home office in, and you want to go into work because when you're in work, you actually interact with other people, senior people. You get influence from. You get the social life quite apart from anything else. You learn the job as well. And that is really the problem. Otherwise, you're stuck in some bedsit with a laptop and, you know, not getting the kind of life that you want. Well, it is a question of privilege, isn't it? For some people, it's far easier to do this. The, you know,

[00:13:47] the privileged laptop set rather than those people who haven't got those privileges. Absolutely. I mean, the whole thing is about privilege. But, you know, people, it's a real mess because people are starting out on their careers. And again, we're probably still talking about the privileged middle classes here. Some of them want to go in the office to meet people, to develop a social life, to do what we probably did at their age

[00:14:17] and go out and go for drinks after work and whatever else. Then you've got a significant other group of people whose first question is how many days do I get to work at home? So that isn't a clear, but that's not clear. And then obviously, it is better to have people at the start of their career in the office so they can learn the job. But the people they're learning from are going to be in the office every day. So the whole thing is really, really complicated. It sounds like it's actually disadvantageous too

[00:14:47] for almost everyone. So that's why you're saying that perhaps we needed those management consultants to at least come up with some sort of formula. Oh no, maybe not, never. I think you need an academic to do it rather than match. Oh yes, that's the important thing. But it is working, it's actually working out the process that's sitting behind all of this. So it's not just a haphazard approach. It's what we're seeing everywhere at the moment. Yes, I think, I don't think you can remove home working from that significant minority of people that have it because it has made

[00:15:17] their lives better for them, for many of them. And so it has improved their ability to manage their non-work life. So in terms of children coming home from school, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What it hasn't done, however, is improved their work-wide conflict has probably increased their well-being to some extent has decreased. So even the management of their life is possibly easier. Their well-being may not be,

[00:15:46] is what we have found, but you're not going to... Why is that? Would that be because they're stuck at home? Is that... They're not using their legs and getting healthy. Is that part of it? No, I think it's part... And people, people are very aware that they're missing the commute, so they do create bucklers still by going for walks into the gym, et cetera, et cetera. But what I think the problem... I think there's two problems in terms of well-being. I think one, these things, they're with us the whole time. This is an audio-only podcast, but for those...

[00:16:16] All right, okay, so mobile... Sorry, mobile phone. Yes, life on the phone. Laptop. I mean, I check my emails always, even when I'm on holiday, in the evenings, first thing I do in the morning. A lot of people do that. And that's, you know, and your child is asking for something, you know, I've just got to finish my email at six o'clock in the morning or nine o'clock at night. So I think that's really had an impact on well-being. I like the elevated voice there. I completely got

[00:16:46] the tensions within your house. I'm just doing this email! Yes. I'll deal with you later, please. Oh, yes. Yeah, so they are, but you're just describing the tensions that are created. Well, that's nothing to do with working from home, is it? That is to do with... Well, it is. It is, because it's a technology. Yeah. Because we have the technology in our house. Having that technology in our house has become normalized. Yeah, there's no decompression chamber between work and not work. That's essentially what I do. But even if you're going into the office, you've still got that situation,

[00:17:16] haven't you? You've still got a mobile phone when you're at home. In fact, you've got that, plus you've added the hours of the commute into your day as well. But it's, yes, but it's a normalization of it. So I certainly think in the data we have, that those people that are in the office full-time have a much clearer boundary between home and work. So they are less tempted to sit on the loo and check their emails or whatever. Because, there is that very, very, very clear

[00:17:46] structural barrier. For those people working at home, I think there's a two-fold thing. There's the normalization of having the technology and the access to work-related information at home. But there's also, I think there's still a degree of people thinking, this is a privilege, this is a privilege, this is a privilege. I need to be seen to working really hard. I need to be out of my emails all the time or maybe it will get taken away. So that's interesting because Elon Musk, another man who we admire enormously on this podcast. Huge.

[00:18:15] But his knowledge about all things. Oh, everything. Absolutely everything. He's called it all a moral dilemma. His point is that you are working from home and as a knowledge worker or part of this laptop class and all the essential workers, you know, the people who are looking after your health or the people who are delivering the food that you eat don't have that same advantage. So how can you sit there morally accepting the fact

[00:18:44] that you've got this privilege that all the other workers don't have? He says, and for his reason, in his mind, that is a reason not to allow anyone to work from home. But that's slightly ridiculous. I'm not saying it makes any sense. No, that makes no sense at all. So one of the things I was interested in looking at, although our funding got taken, was not accepted. So I'm just going to feel a bit bitter at this. What's the class divide in terms of access to remote working? And I think there are

[00:19:14] a number of factors in this, which are one, the home infrastructure that I've got good Wi-Fi because I pay for it. I work in an area where there's good Wi-Fi. I've got a laptop because work provides it. But even if I didn't, I'd probably buy myself a look for work. Many people have got an office. I'm based, you know, I'm in the spare bedroom, which is my office. I have the home infrastructure that means I can work productively from home. There are other people that can't. Even if they have the type of job that they could work

[00:19:43] from home, they can't because the resources aren't there. So I think one thing we need to think about is for those people looking at other ways of supporting people. So, you know, things like community hubs. Why are we not using places like libraries and churches? Yeah, which would make a lot of sense. And I suppose one of the things that comes out of what you're saying on both sides is that people, particularly at the beginning of their careers when they don't have that many resources, are paying for heating, lighting, Wi-Fi, all those things you're talking about, effectively subsidizing

[00:20:13] the people they're working for by providing that themselves. and also the other end of it, these companies have these enormous shiny offices they've rented in the heart of the City of London. They're paying vast amounts for them. They want people back in them because that justifies that cost. Although a lot of them won't fit in now because they've all downscaled. Yeah, a lot of them have sold them and yeah, you're right, they won't fit in. And I think, again, going back to if we'd had all these great management consultants in, the issue about

[00:20:41] who was paying for what, what the obligation for work to provide, what employees should provide because of the privilege. Even if there's, there is no real health and safety in terms of making sure I'm working in a sensible, you know, when you're at work, there are people checking your desk is the right height and that's not going to happen at home. So, but then the question is if the management consultants that come in and we'd all been given

[00:21:11] this opportunity hybrid, would it ever actually have happened? Or would the whole process of setting it up become so elongated and problematic that it would never actually have happened in the first place? Because the desks are the wrong height. I mean, the fact that, I mean, that raises a broader question, doesn't it? The fact that all of those questions haven't been asked, you know, have we been asked too much in the workplace? You know, we're quite happy for people to just make do and muddle through somehow at work and that's perfectly acceptable. But the moment you're in an office environment, then there's all sorts of stringent health and safety regulations which

[00:21:42] don't apply at home. And also a lot of industries that kind of depend on people being there. I mean, someone, I remember when I was working in Bloomberg, people talked about the, in the city of London, the sandwich industry. People queue up at lunchtime to buy their sandwiches. That goes if they're not there. Yeah, but then you've got, so you talked about local hubs, Abigail, and I wonder whether that's the next stage. And I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. But, you know, our community used to be, if you worked in central London, your community was your home community at weekends and central London

[00:22:11] during the week. Now it could be the town where you're living. You're going to, you know, the local cafes in your town rather than in the centre of London. And so there's an opportunity there to get people out of the house and into local hubs where, you know, local authorities, I guess they haven't got the money, but it would make sense, wouldn't it, for them to turn libraries into shared workspace, almost like WeWork. Or is it WeWork or you? Well, WeWork didn't do that well. No, but that's because they cost a lot of money. Because we, if you had, and certainly the Welsh, the Welsh government have been better at this,

[00:22:40] the Welsh government have been really quite good at local hubs and having local hubs that don't, I mean, the extension of this and certainly the Welsh government were looking at this was to look at local hubs that had things like nurseries, laundrettes, other facilities that you need on a daily basis. But it means that you are with, you know, you are developing community. I mean, I mean, the sandwich shops, I mean, certainly, I mean, I don't,

[00:23:10] I don't live in London. I was in Melbourne 18 months ago and the CBD in Melbourne had died. London doesn't look from when I've been down there as catastrophic as that. Although I did notice that pubs and things are very busy on a Thursday evening because Thursday is now the new Friday, isn't it? Yeah, because people are being unproductive and not working on Friday. That's it, because they're sitting at home sleeping in from their hangover on Thursday evening. More than life. Have you done research into this? I mean, maybe we have.

[00:23:39] and that was very tongue-in-cheek. I don't believe that is happening for the majority. But Abigail, you're the professor of the future of work and we've talked about where we've got to really, I suppose, how we've reached this, you know, post-COVID, we're now in the stage of this hybrid world really. What do you think is going to happen in the next 10 years? Because the people who are, you know, we describe them sitting in their bedsits with their laptops and no social life at the beginning of their careers. The managers who are lucky enough to be able to manage from home most of the time. Or from the Caribbean.

[00:24:09] Or from the Caribbean, yes. The beach people with their laptops. You know, where does it go from here? If we were talking about this in 10 years time, how would you think it will have changed? I am very reluctant to even think about that. I know, ironically, I am the press professor future book, but I don't have a crystal ball. And certainly, nobody could have predicted what happened with COVID and changes there. I really hope, all I can say is what I would hope would happen is that I really hope

[00:24:39] that we resolve the issue about people in their bedsits. Although, I think they're more likely to be in shared houses than bedsits, to be honest. And that there is a more structure, structure is the wrong word, but a better, a more logical approach to how working it doesn't get removed from people, but there is some way of balancing, improved balance between office work, being in the office and being at home. Because people don't have a choice, do they? So imagine if you are a young couple, for example,

[00:25:08] who are in one bedroom and that's all you've got. You've got the bedroom and the kitchen and you both have professional jobs where you want to work from home. What are you going to, you're both going to be yelling over each other for your Zoom calls. one will be in the kitchen and one will be in the dining table and one will be in the bedroom. I would imagine what happens, which isn't great in terms of the viewing your house as a leisure space, a place of leisure. But if we, if there was greater investment in community hubs, then you A, re-engage people

[00:25:38] within their community, with their community. You stop people having to do big commutes. If you've got gyms and laundrettes and nurseries associated with the community. That's the answer, but I wonder if we'll get there because I sense and it's not being helped by the likes of Donald Trump but also industry leaders in this country. There's growing mistrust that, well, okay, you've had your fun now back into the office for whatever reason and, you know, logic's defying the reasoning here apart from, well, you should because, you know,

[00:26:08] it's got to be the same for everybody. Why should you have a better life? You know, why are you miserable like the rest of us? Well, what about being more creative about other people's jobs? So, for example, if you work in retail, if you work, for example, I'm just saying Catecos because I've got a Tesco club card sitting on my desk. If you work in Tesco... Other supermarkets are available. Other supermarkets are available. But not as good, not as such good value, I have to say. I don't know. I have to say... You can't beat Tesco for a meal deal at lunchtime. He's after sponsorship. I don't know. I've got a Tesco

[00:26:37] club card on my desk and I don't think I've beat Tesco in five years. I'm not sure what he's doing there. Anyway, for example, why, and I do know some organizations have looked at this and maybe done it, why don't you have your retail star also trained as your call center star so they can do the call center work at home two days a week and be in the retail outlet three days a week? So not only are you, you're multi-skilling them in case of, you know,

[00:27:10] requirements and change requirements within the organization but you are also investing in their lives as well, their non-work life by allowing them that flexibility. And COVID 2.0, they can all work in the call center and they know how the whole retail operation works, you know, if we get here with another pandemic. Exactly. When apparently the next pandemic happens, we need more imagination really amongst employers in all sectors, not just, you know, management and laptop top runners. Yes. But is there also an element of feeling

[00:27:40] that, you know, there's been a lot of talk about how AI is transferring everything and, you know, the number of jobs that will require to be done generally will diminish but also the amount of time we'll need to spend doing them. Is working from home in a way a kind of rehearsal for that? That we're going to be, you know, basically not doing as much work? I don't believe that. I mean, how long has that narrative been going on for? Technology is going to take over the world. Technology is going to stop us. AI, it's not. I think, you know,

[00:28:09] because you still need the people to create the technology. Jobs just get, work gets created. AI technology takes work away but then more happens. Well, it has to happen, doesn't it? Because otherwise AI creates no benefit. So AI has got to replace jobs. If you want the economy to grow, then something else has got to happen to create that growth. So the jobs have to be there outside the AI to create the growth for the economy. And I don't think AI can make your meal deal. Definitely not.

[00:28:40] Your Tesco's meal deal cannot be made by ChatGPT although don't quote meal that. Well, let's see. I mean, I'm sure they'll get around to it eventually. Perhaps the new Chinese version could. But I suppose that the point in all this is work is changing, has changed dramatically since COVID in terms of what we do and how we do it. The next big change could be, as you say, these hubs and community hubs if they can make that work. But essentially what we're looking at, I mean, are we really seeing the end in one form or another of the normal

[00:29:09] nine to five go into your office, sit at your desk, do your job, come home? That will just disappear entirely pretty much maybe in the next five to ten years. I don't think it's going to disappear in the next five to ten years because, I mean, it's sort of instilled in our psyche, isn't it, that that's what work is. Even with the evidence against that, so home working, people working constantly, you know, 24-7 work, we still have this thing in our heads that work is nice to find

[00:29:38] even though the reality is different. So I don't think that will disappear in the next five years. But I think we need to look more creatively at what can be done to make work better for people. So as I said, looking at hybridising people's roles, so between call centres and shop floor, looking at community health, but also looking at the working day. So, I mean, you know, there is reasonable

[00:30:08] bits of data that say that in Britain we have the longest overtime hours in Europe, yet we're the least productive. I think the French can do what we do in five days, they can do it in four days. And, you know, you don't think of the French as being the most productive nation in the world, do you? No, you don't. We're behind them. So the idea then, it sounds like what you're saying is, I mean, on the one side, you know, it became easy, doesn't it? For some people,

[00:30:38] it was just a no-brainer, if I can work from home, I will work from home and we can argue about whether I'm more productive or otherwise as a result of that, but probably, yes, you are. Then there's other people who can't do that. We almost need to start with that blank sheet of paper without necessarily calling in the management consultants and there will be some management consultants listening to this podcast and I think they do valuable work and we are grateful for them in society. Absolutely. But whoever does it, we start with a blank sheet of paper and say, well, what about all the other jobs now? Because we've got an opportunity,

[00:31:07] the world's changed, there's different places where people can work. Let's throw all the cards in the air and see how we can make them land in the right places so that we have a more productive workplace across the board and you're saying we haven't done that. And a healthier workplace for employees. And we haven't done that because all we've done is reacted to a crisis. Yeah, and there's been some really good stuff about coming out of that crisis which is, we don't all have to be in the office nine to five. Certainly the evidence now is that those organisations offer flexibility,

[00:31:37] attract more candidates. If you attract more candidates, you're probably likely to attract better candidates. So if organisations take the next step forward and are even more creative about the way that work can be organised. So as I said, you know, game of supermarkets doing a combination of retail and call centre or really engaging with community hubs, they are going to attract better candidates. Those organisations, say you're all back in the office, good luck to them in recruiting people to work there unless we end up

[00:32:06] in a drastically bad labour market situation. They're going to find it more challenging. So it is actually, it's a story as old as time itself, isn't it? If you've got bosses who sort of do the whole power play thing, I'm the boss, you've got to work hard for me just so I can afford to make even more money versus those people who've got a more holistic approach and are looking after their workforce. Who will get the better people so in the end the market works in favour of what you're saying? Yeah, yeah. Donald Trump and Neil are the most well-known

[00:32:37] rate leaders. But we're saying Marks and Spencers as well. Well, the former Marks and Spencers boss, yeah. Right. But essentially, in a way, the wind is against them. In the end, we are going to see pretty much permanent hybrid working at least as companies come round to the idea that that's what they have to do. Yeah, because people have also set up, many people set up their lives round it. Other people that don't have it would like it. I mean,

[00:33:07] it is, you know, it is better for people to be afforded that. So, if you've got children that can get themselves to and from school, you don't have to actually go and pick them up anymore or be at home. You will be at home working anyway. They can look after themselves. It makes people's management of their external responsibilities better. Something everyone strives for, I'm sure. It's just making sure that there's a path there for people to be able to reach that from whatever start point. Which would be the ideal.

[00:33:37] Abigail, thank you so much for walking us through that and doing it from home, I think. So, that's a good thing in itself. I am today, but I am in the office tomorrow. Reassurance. And I'm feeling a bit peckish now. I feel like a Tesco lunch. Let's talk, Abigail. Thanks very much. Thanks. No problem. Nice to meet you, guys. Who knows? None of us have a job in a year or two because all those jobs might have gone to China. It's possible. I mean, a lot of them have gone to China anyway already, but are they going to claim more? We thought China had

[00:34:07] sort of, you know, had reached the end of their growth phase. I mean, they still grew up, what was it, 5.6% or something last Yeah, it's all relative, but the thing is what they are able to do, it seems, when they're being cut off in various ways from our technologies, developing their own perfectly, happily, and rather better. Well, I think that's what's changed, isn't it? So China, you know, in the early days, it was just seen as a place of cheap labour and they took what the West did and did it with cheaper labour, but now they are developing

[00:34:36] expertise and have been for decades. Fast numbers of PhDs and, you know, it all comes to the point they can do some things better. Are we then in a position where, frankly, their technology is way outstripping anything in the West? Yeah. Well, I mean, just look at what's happened with the AI story where they were prevented access to NVIDIA chips because they were the powerful chips needed for AI. They didn't get them, so they develop an AI solution that doesn't require such powerful deep seek.

[00:35:07] And we will be doing a deep dive into deep seek and the rest of China's future. And what does it mean in terms of our security? Is China back next week on The Y Curve? Join us for that. The Y Curve