NOT PROPER WORK

Yesterday was ‘Blue Monday’ the name given to the most depressing day of the year but clearly it was also low news day as media’s most entertaining article featured a comment by some posho named Lord Rose who stated that working from home was not deemed ‘proper’ work. Hilarious!

For the benefit of us WFH wasters, pray tell Lord Rose what do you consider to be ‘proper’ work? Wiping geriatric bottoms? Wasting precious minutes sitting in pointless meetings listening to your boss prattle on about how there’s too much dust in the stationery cupboard? Scraping bird shit off park benches?

Or maybe you consider ‘proper’ work to be lording around in a silk smoking jacket, quaffing champagne in your 36-bedroom mansion whilst you dream of applying thumbscrews to your employees in ways that would make the Spanish Inquisition wince. Perhaps that would explain why all those Asda Aces always looked like they’d swallowed a hacksaw blade every time they had a spillage to deal with in Aisle 6.

‘Proper’ work can be done anywhere and everywhere there’s a desire to perform. You may well be employing me but I am working for you and that’s the difference. Should you not be providing the right kind of conditions that empower me to want to perform then all you’ll be doing is just that - employing me.

I’m guessing ‘proper’ work was the motivation behind the introduction of self-service checkouts in supermarkets as staff clearly could not be trusted to turn up for a stint on the tills or be relied upon to correctly scan items on the conveyor belt.

Now I would class ‘proper’ work as not bringing in even more automation or AI technologies to further eliminate job opportunities for those working from home or anyone working in industries in which people would love to engage in proper work but who have been replaced by robots.

‘Proper’ work is not sitting back generating wealth from stock market portfolios whilst everyone else is sat on a gridlocked motorway, jostled on an overcrowded train or stressing over lack of parking spaces on the way into the workplace leaving you feeling frazzled before you’ve had a chance to log on.

In case you hadn’t noticed, working life no longer revolves around the 9 to 5. Employees are now expected to provide services outside this timeframe and often 7 days per week so exactly when would they squeeze in their other life commitments such as taking kids to school, looking after Grandma or walking the dog?

Working from home whilst not for everyone, should not be completely ruled out for some.

Presenteeism is not ‘proper’ work. An effective manager is one who can get the best out of staff to achieve all targets regardless of where they are. And in the same way that workers have had to adapt to new or different patterns of working, managers need to change their management style to accommodate the new normal. Whilst ‘happiness’ cannot be quantified in a monetary sense on a balance sheet, there is a lot to be said for the old mantra that a happy worker is a more productive worker.