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Go back to office if you want to get on, says Rishi Sunak

Chancellor tells young that working from home could harm their career
Rishi Sunak said that he owed some of his own early successes to relationships he developed in the office
Rishi Sunak said that he owed some of his own early successes to relationships he developed in the office
KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH/AP

Rishi Sunak has told young people that going into the office can be “really beneficial” to their careers and warned that video conferencing was no substitute.

The chancellor said that working from home would not have enabled him to build strong relationships that had stood the test of time and he cautioned against allowing remote working to become the norm.

Ministers have dropped formal advice to work from home and instead “expect and recommend a gradual return over the summer”.

Businesses are taking a cautious approach, with millions of workers expected to spend more days at home than in the office after the pandemic triggered a revolution in working patterns. Some ministers believe that the shift may be permanent.

In an interview with LinkedIn News, Sunak highlighted his experiences and a recent visit to Scotland, where he met young workers starting their careers in financial services. He said: “I was telling them that the mentors I found when I first started my job I still talk to and they have been helpful to me even after we have gone in different ways. I doubt I would have had those strong relationships if I was doing my internship or my first bit of my career over [Microsoft] Teams and Zoom.

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“That’s why I think for young people in particular being able to physically be in an office is valuable.”

Last summer the government ran a campaign urging people to return to their place of work as the nation emerged from the first wave of the pandemic. This was abandoned as the second wave took hold.

Sunak said: “We’ve kind of stopped saying that people should actively work from home and have now left it up to businesses to figure out the right approach. In terms of a return to work ... in keeping with everything else that we are doing it’s been gradual, it’s cautious, it’s careful, so there will be a gradual return back to the offices.”

Ministers are increasingly concerned that city and town centres could be damaged by the shift away from offices. Boris Johnson has raised the issue repeatedly with Conservative MPs.

This morning Gillian Keegan, the skills minister, said that civil servants were sick of Zoom and “excited” to get back to the office, with about a quarter presently at their desks.

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She said the government had “led by example” by getting staff back to Whitehall gradually over the summer.

Ministers had been working in their offices four days a week throughout the winter, she told Times Radio, adding: “Many civil servants are also back now. And quite frankly, they’re all excited to come back. I think they’ve probably had enough Zoom screens for the last year and a half.”

She said that “probably 20 to 25” per cent of staff in the Department for Education were in the office on any one day. “We’ve led by example, I think more and more people will [return soon] but we have said, use the summer to get people coming back and get people comfortable with coming back.”

Despite Sunak’s endorsement of office life, Keegan said that “flexible working will be part of our future,” but added: “As the chancellor said, for young people that is actually quite important — to build that social capital and to learn from others, to be part of that working environment in the flesh as opposed to from your bedroom.”

In other developments:

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• Johnson scrapped plans for a new watchlist for international travel after a backlash from ministers and Tory MPs.

• Ministers bowed to pressure from business over the “pingdemic” by moving to reduce the number of people asked to self-isolate by the NHS Covid-19 app.

• The number of coronavirus cases continued to fall despite the easing of lockdown restrictions. The latest figure was 21,952, the lowest for nearly five weeks, according to government data.

American companies have taken a more hardline approach than those in Britain as they try to get workers back into the office, particularly in the financial sector. James Gorman, chief executive of the investment bank Morgan Stanley, told employees: “If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York.”

David Solomon, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said in February of the work-from-home culture: “It’s an aberration that we’re going to correct as soon as possible.”

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Figures from the Office for National Statistics show a significant shift in working patterns from the height of the pandemic in the UK. In February, 37 per cent of employees said they were solely working from home compared with 34 per cent who were travelling for work. At the end of last month, 20 per cent of people were home working and 50 per cent were working fully in the office. Home working was highest among those aged 30 to 49 years, at 45 per cent, falling to 34 per cent for those aged 16 to 29.

Data from the Business Insights and Conditions Survey suggested that 24 per cent of businesses intended to use increased home working as a permanent model, while 28 per cent were considering the merits of such a move. Thirty-six per cent of employees believed they would spend the majority or all their time home working in future.

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