Remote work is here — get used to it

Right wing media commentator and former politician Jeff Kennett (those with long memories will remember he was Premier of Victoria for a few years in the last century) surfaced recently with the suggestion that public sector staff who continued to work from home in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic should take a pay cut. 

His rationale is that the home workers saved money on transport costs and had less stress from long commutes, which was unfair on those who had to attend their places of work, such as public healthcare workers and school support staff.

I don’t want to join the storm of ridicule that Kennett (pictured) has provoked by his statements — rightly dismissed as ludicrous by one critic — but I do point out that like so many ex-politicians desperately seeking to retain a public profile, he is espousing views that are simply out of time.

As an example, in his back-to-the-office call he is in sync with another political figure from across the world, United Kingdom Conservative MP and former Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has repeatedly demanded that all UK Civil Servants return to their offices just as if the pandemic had never taken place.

Rees-Mogg, with his Latin quotations, love of the Tridentine Mass and rather quaint way of dressing has been labelled the Minister for the 17^th Century by UK commentators, and it does seems that a revulsion towards anything that is new or innovative is in the DNA of many figures on the right of the political spectrum. 

The advance of technology has long enabled some industries to thrive with workers in place in different parts of the world. Public sectors were making hesitant steps towards remote work before the pandemic and were forced to embrace it when the virus struck.

Despite what many figures on the right claim, productivity did not suffer – in fact there are reputable surveys that suggest it might actually have increased. Staff who found they were easily able to conduct their work from home for two, three or five days a week, will not be easily to be persuaded that they must automatically return to the old ways.

Every major industrial or societal change brings its casualties – the hand weavers of the early 19^th century, often violently opposed the introduction of cotton-spinning technology, or in my own industry when computerisation brought an end to the hot-metal production of newspapers in the last decades of the 20^th.

In the United States whole shopping centres lie abandoned and derelict, victims of the movement towards online purchasing. Sadly the same fate awaits many city centre small business — coffee and sandwich shops — as their office-worker cliental shrinks.

With every change there are opportunities. There are still supermarkets, just fewer and selling more specialised items; the coffee and sandwich bars in the suburbs will enjoy new custom from home workers who still want to spend time away from their computers enjoying their daily brew or quick lunch.

Change happens, and will continue to happen, however much the Kennetts and Rees-Moggs of this world rail against it. The trick is to ride its waves, rather than being left floundering in its shallows.