EDITOR’S VOICE EDITOR’S VOICE
Hello and welcome to the September issue of Tomorrow’s FM.
Editorial Editor Ryan Lloyd
ryan@opusbm.co.uk
Advertising Sales Executive Megan Nourse
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Account Director Clare Gapp
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Production Production Director Hannah Wilkinson
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Designer Nigel Rice
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Designer Daniel Etheridge
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CEO Mark Hanson
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At the end of August, press briefings from senior cabinet members saw daily newspapers highlighting the Government’s campaign to get people back into offices. In a bid to kick-start inner-city economies once more, the message’s core focus would centre on the risk of staff losing their jobs should they not go to back to work.
It would be fair to say, some key industry figures were not impressed by this untactful emphasis: “The Government’s strategy perpetuates the myth ‘if you are not in the office, you are not working’,” began Andrew Mawsons’ comment on the campaign.
The Advanced Workplace Associates’ Managing Director continued: “Boris Johnson’s threat to home workers that if they don’t return to the office they run the risk of being fired, flies right in the face of the modernisation of UK working practices and is an insult to all those dedicated workers that have been working long and hard at home to keep this country moving over the last five months.”
Indeed, research over the past few months has shown a desire for greater flexibility in how and where we work. UK white-collar workers have discovered that the combination of lower commuting costs and a greater work/life balance is a rational argument for continuing to work from home. As one Twitter user put it: “I work an office job in the centre of Manchester on a £22,000 a year wage. The Government wants me to spend what very little money I have remaining in my account after bills each month on overpriced public transport and Pret-A-Manger.”
Mawsons points out that even before the pandemic hit, the high street was falling foul of changes in the way society operated, and the virus has simply accelerated its demise. Perhaps more imperatively, a greater number of people are now spending money in their local economies which feeds directly into the Government’s ‘levelling up strategy’.
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Alas, a balance along the Coronavirus tightrope will prove essential for businesses as we move to the next phase in this crisis. The UK had one of the most severe COVID-19-induced economic impacts amongst the world’s leading nations, with a 20.4% contraction between April and June. It is therefore a matter of urgency that common ground between Government and business is found. Working from home will become a long-term trend, so the unwritten mantra in the coming months is likely to be ‘adapt or die’. With this said, additional incentives to encourage some workers back to the office, whilst maintaining the level of flexibility in how, where and when we work catalysed by the pandemic, would be a welcome boost for the economy and those small businesses already on their knees.
Ryan Lloyd, Editor
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