The Office Mandate: 2025's Working Landscape

It is time to confront what working from home versus coming into the office is really about. 

I spent decades commuting in and out of various parts of town five days a week, 40-plus weeks of the year. Come rain, come snow, come babies, come kittens, come hangovers, come sleep deprivation, come childminders, come leaves-on-the-line, come late nights, come early mornings, come mean bosses, come hilarity.

I have remarked that I have been on the Northern line more often than I have had sex. Apologies if this is disparaging to my long-suffering husband, but twice a day every weekday and sometimes at weekends for over 30 years, come on. 

Broken leg – get a taxi.

Tube strikes – find a car share or walk. 

Come out in a rash – wear a fetching scarf and style it out. 

For respite, if you were full of virus you weren’t welcome at your desk, and because there was nothing but a landline to aid communication, you were pretty much left alone under your duvet to sniffle and snuffle. Unlike now when all you get is camera-off time. But this also meant you were likely to return too soon, thus super spreading your germs. Which eventually created covid, kind of.

The best thing about the immediate lockdown aftermath was that you suddenly weren’t compelled to shake hands, kiss on both cheeks and or hug everyone you encountered. I actually thought that legacy would last. No such thing. Cuddling clients is de rigueur again. Elbow bumps were laughable at the time, so at least they are out. 

The other thing of course was remote working. 

At the turn of the century, when open-plan offices became the norm, there was a lot to be unhappy about. What about privacy, delicate phone calls, inspirational creative banter? We were assured that no one would be chained to their desks. In fact, better they weren’t. Because although many individual offices and cubby holes had been destroyed to make room for rows of communal desks, there oddly weren’t enough seats for bums. So, it was mildly encouraged to brainstorm in coffee shops, visit galleries, absorb culture, and meet outside your organisation. 

This was aided by breakthrough technology:

Turn your camera on your phone! 

You don’t need to stand by a fax machine, you can view that enticing presentation on your personal computer!

Just DM me or buzz me on Skype!

Except this never worked. If you weren’t at your hot desk (which took a while to find) you were somehow in trouble. There were always meetings to attend and chats to have and please be aware that these are working days and not for swanning about. 

The trick was always to carry a U-matic (one for the youngsters) or an official looking file or at least a harried expression at all times so people knew you were importantly occupied. 

Then along came the pandemic. 

It is said that all machinery was in place at the turn of the 20th century, but the Industrial Revolution didn’t kick off until the catalyst that was World War One.

Same for the Digital Revolution. It was all at our keyboard fingertips, but it took a man allegedly eating a bat to finally get to grips with it. 

The return to work though…

In retrospect, it seems remarkable that in a time of fear, inconvenience, grief and economic gloom, an awful lot of people were able to make enormous life changes. How quickly it was decided that a move to the country was imperative, assuming for no good reason (other than a bumbling fool of a government) that we would never be needed in the city again.

You long for a dog but you don’t want to leave them alone? Get a puppy and don’t worry, it will never have abandonment issues as you’ll probably never leave the house again. 

But then we could. 

Attendance was staggered to keep social distance. 

There were all-in days where the word ‘all’ was interpreted as ‘a handful’.

People remarked “are you at the office?!” on every Zoom, as if you were in an asylum. 

How self-effacing were the mandates?  

Sorry to impose, but could you just turn up sometime? Pretty please. We might provide breakfast? 

By the time we removed the arrows that pointed which way to walk, and took down the notices denoting how 6-foot apart measured, it should have been that the remote game was over. Logically, why were we still fannying about?

It was all:

Sure, get off this important call to pick up your kid now, we will all hang about till after bedtime, cos we know that works better for you.”

“Obviously your big commute from your new gaff outside the M25 is long and expensive, and annoying that you never checked the train timetable before you moved out, so why would you not keep working from your garden chair?”

“Oh you have got super speedy wifi in your bedroom, don’t even think about trying it here.”

“You are so right, no one can feed the guinea pigs other than you, and they do need three meals a day, so don’t move.”

And oh my God I am all for work-life balance, and it is amazing and brilliant that we have progressed to a place where you don’t have to physically clock in to do your white-collar jobs, and where wellness is on the virtual table, but there has to be some hardship, doesn’t there?

We have swung to a place where it is the default to bleat about the inconvenience of WFO. (Actually, working from office oddly does not have an acronym, maybe WFW – working from work?)

I was a secretary when I whinged to a business director about something trivial and he replied, “That’s why they call it work.”

I was much more grown up when all we had was Blackberries and I had a nursery drama, so when I asked my ECD if I could come in late and leave early for a few weeks he said, “You’re a clever girl, you’ll work it out.”

I am, and I did. 

It should not be about mandates and policing, but more what works best for the job and for the people. 

Times have changed. We can do more stuff remotely. But we are human beings craving company, real-life conversation is enriching and elevating and educational (the three Es?). So much knowledge can be absorbed and problems solved just by hanging out. 

Nearly four years of Teams calls, and they are still soul destroying and inadequate. Silos just waiting to get their piece said, often just repeating what was pointed out before. And I miss having someone to roll eyes with ‘discreetly’ across a table. 

Hybrid meetings really suck. Especially internal ones. Half a dozen intrepid folk around a table, but all looking towards a screen of someone in their front room. 

Of course, you can attend a lot more back-to-back meetings if you do them on-screen, yes you get to say “got to jump off now” eight times a day, but are they all necessary? Smaller gatherings are more likely to get on with things, the correct personnel involved in the relevant conversations. Focus on what needs to be done, as it comes, in real time. 

It is undeniable that a lot more work can get done at home in the quiet. Plus you get to empty your dishwasher, smile for the delivery guy and listen to the radio station of your choice. But that is all the dull admin bits, and if that is how you define your role, maybe this ‘people business’ is not for you. This may be unfair, as there is more paperwork than ever (but without the paper), but maybe this is something else to consider, who does what when and why, as well as where (a whole other article I fear). 

And it does cost to get the tube/bus/train. So twice the days-in costs twice as much. But that was par for the course back in the day, you commuted to earn a salary. The net wage was not enough then, and worse now. So time to review London weighting?

To get anyone to embrace another round of new ways of working, we can’t just say that this culture is better than the other culture (but it is not exactly the same as the culture before, but we are going to refer to the best old one anyway, even though the landscape has changed beyond recognition). At least without putting in some effort. Admitting this is a tad out of touch and not in sync with the modern world. 

You can’t expect everyone crammed into inadequate space to gung-ho celebrate a more inconvenient way of working. 

The infrastructure needs to be upgraded. Starting with the physical (lack of) space. Even with sparse attendance we are beyond capacity, so really how is it going to work?

Don’t ask people to book their desks. It's degrading and stupid and impractical and mostly ignored anyway. And counter conducive to a happy atmosphere. 

Currently the default is that all meetings are remote. Not anyone’s fault, the literal booking system automatically issues a link and freaks out if you put as location an actual location. 

It feels kind of passive aggressive to check if all the attendees are in the building, and then there is a dance as to who books a meeting room. Which of course is impossible. Even at half capacity.

Already internal connectivity is stretched, and IT hidden. The computer heroes may well be forced to come in four days, but as they are likely offshore, where is the help with that? 

There is no functioning mail room, or at least not for the employees, so what is going to happen when online shoppers are forced to put the workplace address for deliveries, as they are not home to answer the door and grimace as their picture is taken as they bring in their parcels? How will packages be distributed when we don’t know where anyone is, and anyway that seems a waste of resources. That said, the post room was one of these stepping stones for those without fancy degrees to start a career path, so maybe it is time it came back? 

Being a dog-friendly space is cute, but actually is it? Anyone above the second floor shlapping their four legged friends up endless stairs, posing for doggie passports, eternally chained together. This needs upgrading.

Not being funny but when the office culture was at its peak it was all work hard play hard. Right now, with an alcohol ban in many buildings, Nosecco is as much fun as can be had at birthdays and leaving parties (of which there will be many). Incentive? Jolly-ness? 

Water cooler moments will be less about Netflix and armchair politics, more about where you are sitting, the hunt for a desk/room/horrid booth, the ‘I can’t hear myself think’. 

And that is a waste of human contact and potential friend making. 

To be honest, I am not sure what is in it for the big corporations to expand beyond three days. 

I totally buy the culture angle, but it is going to be a lot of construction and reconstruction, IT issues to the max, a lot of HR time, and I hate to say it, but there will be a lot of very legitimate MH days.

All sympathy for those who started their career in the last few years, four days a week for them is uncharted territory and stressful. They will need proper support.

It’s been a rough old ride, for everyone. Year on year there is always flux and change and heartbreak and advancement and growth and excitement and horror.

But what the hell is working in a communications business for,  if not for people (and salaries!)?