Voices: A message to Charlie Mullins – from everyone who’s worked through the heatwave

What a positively Dickensian figure Charlie Mullins cuts, as he calls in from his lavish air-conditioned Spanish apartment to bemoan advice to Brits, sweltering in poorly insulated and overheating homes and workplaces, to work from home during this unprecedented heatwave.

A caricature of unreconstructed capitalism, the former Pimlico Plumbers boss called the advice to work from home during the peak of high temperatures at the beginning of this week “another excuse to stop people from going to work, so they can go in the sun”.

He must have missed the full Met Office guidance on the matter, because that also clearly stated people shouldn’t be going out in the sun at all, and should avoid travelling unless absolutely necessary. Ironically, he actually seems to be the one riding out the heatwave as if on holiday – as well he might, after selling his business to an American buyer last year in a multimillion pound deal.

I don’t remind you of that fact out of envy, spite or a somewhat feeble attempt at class warriorship; I merely want to point out that he might not have the hands-on knowledge of the workforce that he once had, even a couple of years ago before the pandemic.

Mullins is the archetype of a hard-driving business leader who keeps hanging on to the idea that presenteeism boosts productivity, long after the economy has moved on. He might be excused a little for indulging in mythology over workplace facetime because his successes were built around an organisation that requires people to be available to perform a job, in person, at short notice.

In the midst of the pandemic, he was ardently pro-vaccination, refusing jobs to workers who declined to protect themselves against the virus because of the impact that widespread absences could have on his bottom line.

Even before the pandemic, in a not-too-distant past, employees being required to do their jobs in person was arguably the case across many (if not most) sectors. But no longer. Things are changing. Things have already changed.

Mullins’ diatribe against “WFH” culture goes against what is already happening in most organisations that employ what were once known as “white collar” staff. However reluctant or sceptical management may have been, a very large percentage of the country’s employers have been forced to create flexible and remote opportunities because of circumstances unseen, and then elbowed into hybrid working by the evolution of a virus out of their control.

It is now becoming a basic expectation of employment for workers; the oldest Gen Z graduates who are very sensibly coming into the workforce aren’t the only ones having to put up immediate limits around work-life balance, and older workers who have had a taste of what it means to have more than the office in your life for five out of seven days want their say too.

One of the biggest drivers behind the “great resignation” – which is still underway – is that employees now feel more confident to make demands upon employers. Paradoxically, even though they are in high demand, wages are stagnating and falling as we enter a period of stagflation powering the cost of living crisis.

Where financial comfort is but a daydream, employers must compete with one another over something other than remuneration. Working from home as an expectation, contracts based on delivered results rather than specific hours worked, flexible holiday policies, a day off for your birthday – these are all just as important as pay when recruiting.

And this is only the start. There is a huge interest in the pilot of a four-day working week underway in the UK, with 70 companies trialling the idea with their combined workforce of around 3,300 staff members. In the biggest experiment of its type so far in the world, each of those employees will work 80 per cent of their previous hours for 100 per cent of pay, promising to achieve the same results as they had over five days.

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The trial began in June, and although an academic assessment of the programme will take a long time, early anecdotal feedback suggests there has been no dip in productivity at all and a huge boost to the happiness and morale of staff.

To put it in Gen Z words, there has been a vibe shift. What was at first a creeping culture change, a response to exceptional circumstances, has now become the dominant expectation of what work is. Perhaps this may have passed Mullins by; perhaps he did notice and ignored it, because it seems to terrify anyone whose management style depends on presenteeism.

Pandemics, climate change, rising rates of mental ill health – these are all good reasons for any business to embrace flexibility. Those who are prepared will thrive when faced with the unexpected, and the rest will wither. But another reason, and just as valid, is because being flexible, offering some choice and autonomy around work, just makes everyone happier. And happy, balanced staff make for a functional, productive workplace. If businesses want to survive the vibe shift, it’s their own culture they should be examining.