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BARONESS WHEATCROFT, A FORMER EDITOR OF THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH AND THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE, ALSO CALLED FOR A 'MINIMUM PRESENCE' IN THE OFFICE FOR EMPLOYEES 11:37, 10 Jan 2025

Too many people head to the office to socialise, says ex-newspaper editor Baroness Wheatcroft who is backing working from home. The peer, who formerly edited The Sunday Telegraph and The

Wall Street Journal Europe, said that many people spark up romantic entanglements with colleagues when they meet at work. Lady Wheatcroft told the House of Lords: “Just being present is no

indication of effectiveness. Too many people seem to go to work to have a social life." She added: "A poll by YouGov with the TUC found that one in three people had had a

relationship with a colleague, 22% were married to or in a civil partnership with someone they met at work." She queried, "Were they doing everything effective for their job when

they were there or were they not? It begs the question. If employers, including the Government, share my belief that a strong team culture is important in building success, then I think they

should insist on a minimum presence in the office. But does it need to be more than 20% of the working week?. "If that was, as far as possible, the same day for every member of a

specific team, a degree of bonding and shared culture could be achieved." Her comments came as peers debated the merits of home, office and hybrid working, particularly in the civil

service. Article continues below The row over civil servants' working patterns has intensified, with Government mandating a return to the office for at least three days a week, putting

them at loggerheads with HM Land Registry and prompting protests from the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). In protest at the 60% office working mandate, PCS members are set to

pursue industrial action short of a strike from January 21: doing their own work and not covering for colleagues or taking on extra work outside their own job description and grade. This

industrial unrest comes as discussions in Westminster rally around the merits of office-based work; some peers advocate full-time office returns to enhance productivity within the civil

service. The former Conservative Party treasurer, Lord Farmer, argues that remote work complicates performance evaluation and hampers the development of inexperienced employees through peer

learning. Meanwhile, Lord Maude of Horsham insists on prioritising business needs and champions an all-in office work approach, highlighting the manageability of hybrid working from an

office-centric start. He said: "The truth is, it is much easier to manage hybrid working, working from home, if you start from a baseline of people working in the office. "And of

course that’s the reverse of the position – we start from a baseline of people expecting, during the pandemic, to work from home. So there is a really strong case, I would urge the

Government to not just say we are expecting people – but with lots of exceptions – to work in the office 60% of the time, three days a week." "There is a really strong case for

saying: to reset this and to reset the baseline, you should have a requirement for no working from home at all. And once that’s been put in place, then to allow some hybrid working to begin

again, could be much more easily and more effectively done." Article continues below "But it does have to be done in a very controlled way, in a very disciplined way, and that

discipline does not currently exist."