I'm still annoyed about the BBC Panorama episode on working from home
So let's talk about it.
Two weeks ago the BBC dropped an episode of Panorama with the title: ‘Should We Still Be Working From Home?’. I watched it a day later. Now, many days on, I’m still thinking about it. And talking about it. Sadly, this is not because I’m recommending the episode as a must-watch. Instead, I’m bringing it up as an example of the toxicity of conversations around flexible working, and highlighting to everyone I encounter just how horrendously one-sided Panorama’s approach to the topic was.
To save anyone else from another unsolicited rant on this bit of TV, I figured I’d better get it all out in text in a newsletter dedicated to work, and thus a form being messaged to people who are at least a little bit interested.
Let’s get into it.
I should have known from the title alone that this episode would piss me off. It’s framed as a question, but with a clever little bit of judgment baked in. Look at it. Should we still be working from home? Should we still be working from home? Interestingly, no other Panorama episodes currently available on iPlayer have the word ‘should’ – indicating some form of moral judgment, an idea of ‘correctness’ – in the title. ‘Still’, too, is a curious choice. Like, wow, we’re still doing this? Haven’t we progressed past the need? The answer is implicit, and that’s even without journalists’ knowledge of Betteridge’s law of headlines (any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no). You wouldn’t ask: should we still be kind to other people? Should we still be loving our children and pets?
Then the episode opens not in an office, or even at home, but on a golf course. We’re told that the number of people playing golf during the week is on the up, stats that I don’t dispute, but that seem… oddly selected. I’m not a golfer, but I can imagine many reasons someone might golf during the week rather than at the weekend; their working pattern isn’t Monday to Friday, for example, they’ve booked annual leave and gone on a golfing trip, or they’re in a business that requires the kind of conversation and schmoozing that happens to take place on a green. The implication the show gives, however, is one-note: it’s because more people are working from home, and thus more people are skiving off to hit a few rounds (is this the right terminology for golf? Don’t tell me if not).
They then talk to a recruitment consultant as an example of someone who does hybrid working; two to three days a week in the office, the remaining days in the golf clubhouse. He talks about using golf as a ‘carrot’ to get him through arduous tasks. I’m sure Stuart is a nice bloke who is good at his job. There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with what he’s doing – he doesn’t admit to clocking off early to hit balls into holes, so it may be the case that he still works the same hours and only golfs when his day is done. The problem is that Stuart is only one of two case studies in the episode of someone who works remotely. And he doesn’t even work remotely all the time. The decision to make him the face of working from home, at least for this episode, seems… dodgy? Biased? I highly, highly doubt he’s the norm. In my many years in the working world and talking to hundreds of people about how they work, I’ve actually never spoken to someone who regularly works from a golf clubhouse. Weird, huh? It seems odd to have selected Stuart as the representation of the reality of hybrid and remote working… unless, of course, you want to subtly link the concept of WFH with leisure time, to further a narrative that working outside of the office isn’t ‘proper’ working and is more akin to playing golf. Hmm.
On the anti-working-from-home side, case studies selected for the show include the co-founder of an independent music label who justifies a return to office order with a ‘nagging feeling’ that remote working has affected the company’s bottom line (any hard data there to back this up? No?), conservative peer and ex-Asda-chairman Stuart Rose, who dismisses an entire generation as being unprepared to do ‘proper work’, a dry cleaner who laments losing business because people don’t need to dry clean their suits as often, and the owner of a cafe who has pressure to make the bulk of their money on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The cafe owner is asked the incredibly leading question/statement: ‘it does sound like you think [working from home] is a bit selfish?’. He explains that he might have to soon close the cafe’s doors.
All these people are worth hearing from, but I question how much more time this side is given (the dry cleaner says he can’t see any satisfaction in sitting in front of a computer in your pyjamas, which seems… less than relevant) and the absence of counterpoints. The evidence presented is that working from home and hybrid working is bad for businesses. But that isn’t the case for everyone. Why not balance out the cafe owner’s story with that of another cafe that has seen an increase of people working from their cosy sofas during working hours, a time which was traditionally dead between morning and lunchtime rushes? Or one of the many other businesses that have pivoted to answer consumers’ new needs and seen a rise in profits as a result? I’m not going to pretend to know how to fix this particular cafe owner’s business problems, but surely there’s potential in leaning into the new ways of working and tweaking the way you run accordingly, whether that’s offering tables specifically for working-from-cafe, offering discounts on less-busy days, or creating a third space in the evenings that’s for the social connection so many of us are craving.
Towards the end of the episode we finally hear from parents. Parents, as we know, are a huge beneficiary of more flexible working, and it’s maddening to watch the story of Harleen, a mum who’s been unable to find a job that will accommodate her need to work either part-time or entirely from home. I was glad to hear from Pregnant Then Screwed, an organisation doing vitally important work in the flexible working space. But there still felt like a lack of proper consideration to this group of people and how flexible working can benefit them. Where was the example of a home-worker who was getting loads done as a result of being able to adapt their hours and location?
Similarly, where was the presentation of research about the rise in productivity, happiness and health among employees able to work hybrid? Where were the case studies of people getting so much more done outside of a busy office full of chatter and distractions? Where were all the people sharing all the ways flexible and remote working has benefitted them? Instead, we were offered only stats on how working three days in the office and two days from home was ‘no more or less productive’ than entirely in-office, and one expert’s view that 100% WFH can make some people get less done. We received a presenter positing that it’s unfair for a civil service worker to get their work done remotely because nurses can’t (do nurses care about where this man completes his task? We don’t know, because the show doesn’t ask them.). We listened to the same presenter asking: ‘Do you think there’s a sense of entitlement when it comes to working from home?’ and ‘Do you think that’s enough, that civil service workers could be working as little as two days a week?’, in reference to the union asking to work from home for three days. Does that equate to ‘working as little as two days a week’? I don’t think so, but it appears very clear what the producers believe from the narrative they’ve sold us through this episode: that remote workers are less productive, selfish, lazy, entitled, incapable of doing ‘proper’ work.
Flexible working has become a battle in the great culture wars, weaponised against gen Z and wokies who dare to question the way things have always been done. With this episode, the BBC has offered nothing new. Just a reheated plate of the same stale talking points parroted by columnists, CEOs, and politicians, all of which, once you start to unpick them, are just fear of a threat to the status quo.
There are genuine downsides to blanket rules of making everyone work remotely all of the time. Issues such as isolation, a lack of training, an inability to properly collaborate. But Panorama did a half-arsed job of exploring any of these more deeply (perhaps because if they did, the pushback would be that few workplaces or workers are enforcing 100% WFH, with hybrid working, when done well, a solution to all three problems). The show also failed to explore companies where hybrid and flexible working has benefitted them, and to provide a remotely balanced view of people working remotely.
The answer to all our work woes isn’t just: work from home. But it’s also not the complete dismissal of this way of working. We need to be genuinely open to exploring different approaches to the way the world functions, to ask questions about how much of our lives ‘should’ be spent dedicated to our careers. What we don’t need is what the BBC has served us with this 28 minutes of TV: biased reporting that encourages anyone asking for change to be quiet and get back to work, unless they want to be selfish layabouts who are destroying the economy.
I’m experimenting with send times for the WOP newsletter. Would love your thoughts…
Work-related reading recs:
Big fan of the idea of a ‘Friday check-out’. It reminds me of something I’ve been seeing on TikTok recently, which is having a ‘closing shift’ at home, so every night you do a quick wipe of surfaces etc and wake up to a clean and tidy space. I’m going to try both hacks for sure.
A very miserable but vital read from someone who can’t get a job
Can Improv Comedians Make a Living? Yes, in Your Office. I’m currently listening to the audiobook of Matt Abrahams’ Think Faster, Talk Smarter, and it’s so interesting how many of the tools come from improv.
Work-related watching recs:
While I’m on the topic of Severance, you should be watching season 2 of Severance. It’s great.
The Traitors may be over but at least on Thursdays we have the dreamy back-to-back of Dragon’s Den followed by The Apprentice.
Also, I only just discovered that you can watch the US version of Dragon’s Den, Shark Tank, on iPlayer. I recommend watching it because the differences between the two shows is so fascinating, from the massive amounts of money the US entrepreneurs ask for to their far cringier pitches.
I love Laura’s channel and this video is a great example of her stuff
I’m enjoying this man’s day in the life videos because they’re just very NORMAL (in a good way).
You know what. I’m going to put Nosferatu here (both the original and the new version). Let’s say it’s work-related because the plot is basically Thomas going on a work trip and it going quite badly.
I agree 100%! Still can’t get over the golf thing 🤦♀️