Lord Stuart Rose, former chief executive of London-headquartered Marks & Spencer and ASDA, has blamed working from home for the "general decline" of the British economy, saying that the practice has hit productivity.
"We are creating a whole generation and probably a generation beyond that of people who are used to actually not doing what I call proper work," he told BBC One's Panorama.
Why It Matters
Remote work, which boomed during the pandemic out of the necessity of keeping people safe from COVID-19, has become a contentious issue in Europe and North America since the end of the health emergency.
Employers have increasingly tried to get their staff back into the office, but employees have been reluctant to return to the traditional pattern of working full-time in the office, demanding more flexibility for a better work-life balance.
What To Know
Rose was chief executive of Marks & Spencer between 2004 and 2010. He was chairman of grocery chain ASDA until last year and remains a company board member. He's also a Conservative life peer in the House of Lords.
According to the 75-year-old businessman, the United Kingdom's economy has "regressed" by 20 years because of the country's rise in remote work.
"This country is in a perilous place. We have regressed in this country in terms of working practices, productivity and in terms of the country's well-being, I think, by 20 years in the last four," he said on Panorama.
"I believe that productivity is less good if you work from home. I believe that your personal development suffers, that you're not going to develop as well as you might if you've been in the workplace as long as I have."
According to Britain's Office for National Statistics (ONS), more than a quarter of working adults in the U.K. are hybrid workers. Britain's economy has been struggling in recent months: the country's GDP flatlined between July and September, shrank between September and October, and grew by a moderate 0.1 percent in November—less than expected.
That Rose looks at remote work with less than a sympathetic eye was made clear in November when one of his last moves at ASDA was to order staff back in the office three days a week.
But he's not alone in this sentiment. Several major companies have asked their employees to return to the office since 2022, including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Dell, Google, IBM, Meta, Snap, X, and Zoom in the tech sector alone.
Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, in the finance sector, have asked their employees to return to the office five days per week.
Is Working From Home Really That Bad?
There are conflicting opinions over the impact of working from home on productivity. A study conducted by Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom found that hybrid schedules—with an employee working part of the week in the office and part from home—benefit both workers and employers.
In the 2024 study published in the journal Nature, Bloom found that Trip.com employees working from home for two days a week were just as productive and as likely to be promoted as their fully office-based colleagues—and they were less likely to quit.
However, a 2023 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) seemed to suggest that employees working from home were, in fact, less productive than their peers in the office.
In the face of conflicting evidence, one thing is sure: many workers, including in the United States, don't want to completely abandon the flexibility they discovered during the pandemic. Some are even willing to accept lower wages in order to work remotely.
What People Are Saying
Toni Frana, lead career expert at FlexJobs, in a statement last year: "Return-to-office mandates are largely responsible for the growing divide between employers and their workforces. But as we've seen on FlexJobs, many companies are adopting work-from-anywhere arrangements and creating more opportunities than ever before for workers to find a career that has the location flexibility they want."
A recent report from the Economic Innovation Group on the impact of remote and hybrid working stated: "A labor market that includes a greater number of full-remote jobs will open the door for far more otherwise qualified workers."
What Happens Next
In 2023, the latest comprehensive data available, 12.2 percent of U.S. workers were fully remote (down from 14.3 percent the year before), while 4.7 million were remote at least half the time. In the same year, 65 percent of U.S. workers wanted to work remotely all the time.
Offering workers the possibility of working remotely and in a hybrid fashion, according to HR consulting firm Robert Half, will be key to hiring the best talent.
"While some employers are requiring workers to come back to the office full- or part-time, flexibility remains a leading factor influencing workers' decisions to stay in their current roles or seek new opportunities," Michelle Reisdorf, district president at Robert Half, previously told Newsweek.
"We continue to see new remote and hybrid roles emerge, offering more options for those prioritizing flexibility," Reisdorf said.
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