Tomorrow's Business Today
Charm for the flaks, menace for the hacks
The “back to the office” drumbeat has begun.
People are sick of working from home, says the bloke who runs Canary Wharf, Britain’s biggest office.
Working from home is a mere “aberration” says the CEO of Goldman Sachs.
Forget all that stuff about a fresh breed of enlightened employers with concern for our mental health and a new respect for how much it can just trust us to do our jobs out of their sight.
Boss types want us where they can see us, poke us, irritate us. It’s what they live for.
I predict the hack and flak trades will go about the business of luring us back to the office in markedly different ways. One will use charm and gentle persuasion; the other coded threats and bullying.
Can you guess which is which?
One City firm I know has already told staff that the entertainment budget for the year has been doubled.
There will be office parties and long lunches. Take your clients out on us, is the nod, remake old friends and find new ones. Live a bit!
They want staff to remember the good bits about office life so they are more willing to put up with the bad bits.
Newspapers will take a more blunt approach, is my guess.
For old timers who like newspapers and don’t really want to work anywhere else that stuff, while increasingly wearisome, sort of works.
For the younger folk papers need to attract and retain, it just doesn’t and they need a new tactic.
Press release of the day
What are the dividends from Brexit for businesses? Looking thin on the ground so far, I’d say, but this from Blick Rothenberg says the Chancellor should show us what they are in tomorrow’s budget.
Alex Altmann says: “After nine weeks into Britain’s new trading relationship with the EU there is an opportunity to explain what we can do with our new trading freedoms.”