According to the Daily Mail (don’t judge me as I was sent a link) ‘Civil servants face curb on working from home ‘Tuesday to Thursday’ as ministers draw up plans to tackle plummeting public sector productivity.’
Really? Reading the article it is peppered with words such as face, poised and pushed meaning clearly that this is on a wish list somewhere, not necessarily that of the government and more likely to be from the Daily Mail itself.
Why this old chestnut? It has been proven time and time again that working from home, or working flexibly can enhance productivity rather than reduce it and there is no evidence I can see that productivity has dropped in the civil service on the back of more modern ways of working. Indeed the article goes on to refer to Whitehall yet this represents only a fraction of those employed by the Civil Service.
I am intrigued to know how they measure productivity anyway. I can understand in the more transactional departments of the service how such things can be measured. The number of applications processed for example, or time taken to complete a process, yet much of the Civil service is involved in policy which is very difficult to measure. The number of policies per month, or the number of people to create a policy is nonsensical as not all policies are the same, or as easy to draught. You certainly cannot use the effectiveness of a policy as a measure of productivity.
The article gave itself away, however, by trying to conflate attendance with productivity. Offices, it is claimed can be half empty. I’m an office half full person myself. A source told The Daily Telegraph, another bastion of journalism that ‘The taxpayer forks out for government buildings and rightly expects them to be used.’
Therein lies the nub. This has nothing to do with productivity but rather property usage. The Daily Mail is worried that the lack of people in Whitehall will lead to a reduction in the demand for office space in Central London, leading to a reduction in rental and property values. Nothing flames the passions of a Daily Mail reader more than a potential fall in the value of their bricks and mortar.
Not that you are, but don’t be conned by this article. Productivity is about working where you do your best work. Sometimes this is at home, sometimes it is in the office and sometimes it is somewhere completely different. It has nothing to do with office occupancy rates.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 