Working from home all the time will blight young professionals' careers

Working from home all the time will blight young professionals' careers, the boss of one of the UK's leading accountancy firms warns today.

Kevin Ellis, senior partner and chairman of PwC UK, told the Mail that his generation had reaped enormous advantages from being in the office. And he firmly believes that staff in their 20s and 30s should have the same chances to get ahead. 

The 58-year-old fears youngsters may miss out on the benefits of office working and may not achieve their potential as a result.

He believes staff need to be in the office or at a client's premises around three days a week, 'or you will blight your career'.

Mr Ellis added he was keen to encourage workers back into the office so they did not feel isolated, to create more camaraderie and to help them flourish in their job.

PwC employs 22,000 in the UK with an average age of 31 and the company hired 3,500 new staff during the Covid crisis.

It is one of the country's biggest graduate employers, taking on around 1,500 youngsters every year out of university or school.

The firm put in place new arrangements in the spring so staff can continue to work flexibly after the pandemic.

But Mr Ellis cautioned that if youngsters spent too much of their time home working, it would damage their prospects.

They would sacrifice some major benefits of being in the workplace, such as learning from their seniors, making useful contacts and fraternising with colleagues, he said, adding: 'I have been very open. I am not telling people to come in. But you need to observe, to network and to socialise. That's why the office is so important.

'I don't want people turning around in two or three years' time and saying you never told me about this.

'We are offering the flexibility of home working but with guardrails or you will blight your career.'

And he argued that being physically present with colleagues results in better quality work. 

'When you are making a judgment, it is helpful to get input from other people. It is much easier to get their peripheral vision if they are in the room.'

Mr Ellis (pictured), 58, said he was keen to encourage workers back into the office so they did not feel isolated, to create more camaraderie and to help them flourish in their job

He also said those who remain at home could miss out on informal opportunities such as bumping into the boss.He explained: 'Covid has increased the hierarchy massively. When I am working from home, no junior people ever speak to me but they do at work.'

He added the 'birdsong' of the office – the chatter and chance encounters – 'is really important for developing people's confidence'. Mr Ellis also believes workplaces are important in levelling up and giving the chance to escape a disadvantaged background.

'Offices are great for social mobility,' he said. 'People can reinvent themselves around the office.'

PwC has started new 'hybrid' working arrangements after consulting staff. The plan is aimed at providing flexibility and helping the environment by cutting down on commuting.

Workers will be able to carry on working from home to a limited extent – but will be expected to spend an average of 40 to 60 per cent of their time in PwC offices or with clients. 

They have also been given Friday afternoons off in the summer, provided they have put in their hours.

Working from home has become a flashpoint during the pandemic. Some relish being able to spend more time with their families as well as saving time and money by skipping their commute.

But others feel isolated or are marooned in poor accommodation that is unsuitable for work so they are desperate to return. Many PwC staff are young people who have been cooped up in shared flats in the pandemic.

'A lot of them really value being able to come into the office,' Mr Ellis said.

Around 2,500 people per day came into PwC's offices last week, with 1,000 of them in London. These figures were up by around 25 per cent on the previous week.

He said: 'Some have got into the habit of working from home and that can make them nervous but when they get in they like it.'

The firm has offered mental health support during the pandemic including video sessions with psychiatrist Dr Phil Hopley. One virtual event on personal resilience attracted 14,000 participants.

It also gave out free subscriptions to a mindfulness app.

The firm, which has 20 UK branches including its headquarters near the River Thames in central London, has just opened an office in Belfast.

'I think we will need the space,' Mr Ellis said. 'The office is here to stay. This whole idea the world has changed is premature.'

“It’s just far harder to feel important at home where my wife and kids couldn’t give a shit that I’m a partner, you see? It’s vital we get back into the office so I can get back to enjoying pretty 25 year old women behaving deferentially towards me” 

Absolutely. WFH works for older more senior staff especially those no longer seeking promotion. They have nice houses with space for a home office and a family etc so don't need the social interactions of work as much. 

To be fair to him he's not demanding 10 hour days 5 days a week is he. We're on our third lot of trainees who have had entirely remote seats so far, they're not exactly making an impression 

I have recently heard of junior staff who have moved out of London back home, asking for train expenses to be paid for them to come into London for days in the office! 

‘I have recently heard of junior staff who have moved out of London back home, asking for train expenses to be paid for them to come into London for days in the office!’

Quite right too - young people already getting screwed over for housing, why should they pay our rip-off train fares out of their net pay for the privilege of going somewhere to make their boss feel important

I'm all for work life balance - one of many reasons I never pursued a city career is I didn't want long hours and presenteeism 

but if you accept a city salary you are actually going to have to show up in the city and do the hours at some point 

Yes there was 100% room for more balance, and less hanging around he office for the sake of it and a hybrid model is going to work for most people, more so if you already have established relationships. 

I do think trainees/grads need to be aware WFH is not actually the most beneficial thing for them in the long term, even though it might mean they can go to a spin class at 3pm and work in a coffee shop. How can you think paying the train fare is correct? They signed a contract to work full time in a London office, now because they chose to move away they want that cost covered?

Of course it will. Anyone who denies this is living in some kind of misanthrope dreamworld.

Fortunately, and to the disappointment of such people, the WFH “revolution” will be very short lived.

‘They signed a contract to work full time in a London office, now because they chose to move away they want that cost covered?‘

almost like something has interrupted performance of that contract.

they worked from home when it suited their bosses, entirely reasonable that they should stop paying for a stabby shoebox in zone 3 when they didn’t need to. If PPP is anything to go by they work better from home.

if the firms now want them back in (having reaped the fruits of their labours over the last year) then coughing up the train fare is the least they can do. 

The solution is to substantially increase the pay of experienced staff to make it worth their while to put up with the collapse in their quality of life resulting from incompetent and inexperienced juniors beign unable to do a proper job without supervision.  

"they worked from home when it suited their bosses"

Tbf they worked from home when it was mandated by law. I doubt it suited their bosses that much, otherwise those bosses wouldn't be wanting them back in now 

It's lucky then that he's making people do exactly what he thinks they should do thus having already solved the problem he has identified so it's not actually a problem.

A couple of our trainees have made an impression despite doing their whole seats remotely because they were really good.  The one who made the least good impression in the last couple of years managed that while we were still working in the office by being crap and knocking off a few minutes early most days.

Fook me I agree with Davos. 

They look a job in London. They should expect to work there, not in Doncaster. If they wish to live somewhere else there are law firms in most parts of the country. 

He’s 100 percent correct. There is no reason why people can’t return to the office whatsoever, indeed they need to . Most employers will quite properly insist on it.

how grim must it be working from a dressing or coffee table in an HMO

I reckon phasing in (optional) entitlement to WFH as you get more senior could work.  For lawyers eg. 1 day a week when you’re about 5 years PQE, 2 when you’re 10, 3 when you’re 15.

This feels like a generational thing, I know plenty of people who have been promoted or started new jobs whilst WFH. I am one of those people. If you work for a global org. there may be little point being in the office. The UK has had terrible productivity for years, this may be a way out of it.

There is definite benefit for trainees to be in the office most of the time. There is less benefit for mid-career professionals. The crusties and the trainees can go into the office most of the time (crusties, please don't f**k the trainees) and the rest can go into the office once or twice a week? 

Ebit those people have been able to go into the office nearly the entire time and a few of my colleagues have done that and there's certainly no reason now why they can't all go back in.  Doesn't mean that those of us with professional grade offices at home need to be in though.  

Sorry some firms are doing that and at my shop trainees and under 3PQE will need to be in four days a week and the rest of us only need be in 50% of the time so probably alternating weeks of three days and two days.

Doesn't mean that those of us with professional grade offices at home need to be in though.  

I think that is key. I'm lucky enough to have a properly fitted home office too (the wife uses it) and as a result when I've had to do a few days from home (for example when I had to self-isolate last year) I was fairly productive. That is very different from someone with a laptop on their knee surrounded by the noise of children. Very few junior staff while have proper home offices. Many senior ones (like you) do. 

Linda - true, but nobody knew/knows how long that state of affairs would go on for and staff had to make arrangements accordingly. You can’t just put your life on hold because your employer might call you back at some point in the future. 

No but having moved back home to mum and dad on the same salary they were being paid to compensate them for the expense of living in London, they should have saved quite a lot so have had a windfall if anything; and now it's time to be where they would otherwise have bern all along. In the city doing the city job they are paid for. 
 

‘They look a job in London. They should expect to work there, not in Doncaster. If they wish to live somewhere else there are law firms in most parts of the country.’

which is Doncaster’s premier Fintech firm do you reckon?

‘paid to compensate them for the expense of living in London‘

I think they are paid for the quality & quantity of the work they do rather than where they live and work

Right so if they want to work for a premier fintech firm they have to be based in London 

If they want to be in Doncaster they don't get to work in a premier firm

this isn't hard 

The market is oversupplied with desperate young grads willing to work (badly in most cases) for near minimum wage in the hugely mistaken belief law offers a well paid long term career. These people need to wise-up and move onto something with a real future where their desperation isn’t directly feeding the downward spiral that sabotages their own future wealth. If the “grimness” of not being paid buttons whilst having to do a miserable pointless life-stealing commute encourages them to leave they should count themselves lucky. 

I think they are paid for the quality & quantity of the work they do rather than where they live and work

Are they? I'm sure most legal matters in Doncaster are important to clients and demand high quality work too. 

The point is you can't do everything everywhere. If you want to do something specialist that only some employers do then you need to be with those employers. For example most hospitals don't offer brain surgery so if you want to be a brain surgeon then you have to work somewhere that offers it. 

I'd be interested seeing analysis of how WFH would affect the ability of new parents (mostly women) returning to work. Anecdotally, WFH is a massive boon if you have small kids.

 

Love these articles, I never had any of those supposed benefits as a junior. In a proper global business, it's all remote any way and there's never a problem. The sooner juniors learn to build relationships remotely, the better.

I know I'm in a totally different career but I remember a very senior person saying years ago that you could have location or you could have speciality. For example if you really want to be in London you could be but you might have to be a GP and not a heart surgeon. Or if you really wanted to be an ortho surgeon it is pretty possible but you might have to move to Blackpool to be one. Only a very few can chose both (and they tend to be psychos). 

‘Are they? I'm sure most legal matters in Doncaster are important to clients and demand high quality work too.’

maybe, but with respect to the good people of Doncaster very few of them are global tech firms willing to pay £2,750ph for legal advice. And bearing in mind our duty of care to the client I would hope that Steve in conveyancing wouldn’t have a stab at it either.

The client is paying for the experience and expertise, they couldn’t give a sh1t where the lawyer’s desk is.

‘If you want to do something specialist that only some employers do then you need to be with those employers‘

and no reason why that can’t be done remotely, other than lack of imagination. It’s not like the nq has to be taught how to slice up a brain (which I agree you probably need to witness in person)

 

Went into the office yesterday and all the people from my team that were in were dissing WFH saying it blurs boundaries between work.and home life, leads to longer hours and is more stressful.

Self selecting sample bias of people who have chosen to come into the office notwithstanding. 

They were a sizeable cohort though

There's no one size fits all approach. Some want to always WFO and some want to WFH, and most want somewhere in between the two extremes.

I think any professional services firm that tries to mandate 100% WFO is going to lose good staff. Deloitte has already said they won't force UK staff to come in at all.

All it takes is one firm to do this and the rest need to follow suit or risk losing staff.

 

https://www.cityam.com/deloitte-tells-staff-they-can-work-from-home-for…

In my mid career days I would also have wanted more pay if I wasn’t going to have a chance to fvck the trainees, NQs, and summer students. I mean I didn’t get that much but the faint hope kept me going. 

I have recently been interviewing for new jobs again and have been surprised how many companies are almost totally indifferent to whether or not you want to go into the office, ever. It is maybe a bit different because I'm a programmer but it seems that the tech industry has gone from 'comfortable with WFH' to 'totally not bothered'.

Tbf I actually quite like going in occasionally because I have quite liked some colleagues and it's just nice to chat to them. Also it's good to meet other people in your company not just your direct teammates. One of the best jobs I had was working in a shipyard as a software engineer because I could go and do the server backups, put my steelies and my hardhat on and have a wander around the buildhalls and chat to all the lads. It was brilliant. Definitely the best team atmosphere I've ever known.

Now I'm interviewing for jobs in London and San Fransisco etc and they just don't care to even really see you. It might be because I'm really annoying though.

Asimov did make a good point with the first reply, but I’m not sure there’s actually anything wrong with considering a sense of importance, and the deferential attentiveness of attractive young colleagues, as part of the reward of one’s job.

mugen - aren’t all programmers essentially autistic? none of you want to go into the office and interact with each other in the flesh surely? I mean God invented the internet so that we didn’t have to interact face to face anymore didn’t he?

Same for me in tech Mugen. Everyone saying they do not care where you work and seem to mean it. 

I think they have no choice because the demand for full-time WFH from developers is enormous and they will just quit if you make them come in. 

The best programmer I know is autistic (diagnosed and very obvious) and I know some others who are (but maybe less obviously?) and there are probably lots who are 'on the spectrum' (myself included) but the demand for developers in so many industries is just creating a lot of opportunities and so many 'normies' are flooding in.

Lots of those 'normies' also like to interact in 'meatspace' with their 'fwends' discussing their 'emotions'.

LOL!

The Chair of PWC is being slightly disingenuous.  From the Client side for my current firm, it has been painful having External Auditors working remotely as the statutory audit process has taken longer than it ought. Those trainees are likely to back at client sites sooner than they think.

Sir Woke - I do hope you are correct that the WFH dream will be short-lived. I've reached the end of my tether with it. Yes, the occasional WFH day is good for certain pieces of work but a formal setting gives 'structure' to the day and business mindset. 

I will be back in the office as little as I can get away.  Offices are generally not pleasant environments and the one very noticeable thing is that I'm billing just as much, if not, more but spending rather less time working because I don't spend a chunk of my day waffling to people in passing or losing concentration because I've been sucked into someone else's conversation.  I'm quite capable of a business mindset without a striplit room and an uncomfortable uniform that I'd never normally choose to wear.

Back when our current policy was a proposal I wrote some feedback on our. Proposal was essentially to guarantee a minimum of 2 days wfh per week unless role was unsuitable. That was minimum. I did make the point that this presented some challenges relating to our junior members, their training, supervision and integration into our culture. Cohesion and ethos may be harder to maintain and that some valuable experience would be missed out. For more senior or is easier, but if you want training and supervision for the junior end you need some of the senior end to be present. For the seniors this also presents a leadership challenge which is something we are judged on for promotion. 

There’s now literally no point in me going in unless social.

all my colleagues, clients and touchpoints are international. Not a single interaction for me work wise is in the uk. 
 

I used to go in to make work feel real and get some social feels in. But atm, it just makes the rest of life easier and more balanced to wfh full time.

coffee shops are bursting with same same. Saw the global head of procurement at mega corp at the coffee shop this morning and often see her on the mat at yoga. 

I went into the office yesterday, there was 6 people there and I don't know or work with any of them. Sat in the office and had a bunch of meetings on Zoom. 

Just a waste of an expensive train ticket to have lunch in Chipotle instead of making my own. 

that sounds grim pancake- going to be interesting to see how things shake out - the hybrid model might just be the worst of both worlds - I’ll put a bet on four days in the office being roughly the norm. 

 the demand for developers in so many industries is just creating a lot of opportunities and so many 'normies' are flooding in.

I hope they stay the fuk away. Being a relatively normal person (debatable) in a sea of unwashed autists and Prajeets is the only way I'm going to make it in this field. 

One of the biggest issues I have seen with trainees and newbies is not so much the supervision, but the lack of integration with teams and their peers.

In my day, you'd screw something up, get shouted at, go to the pub with the other trainees and bitch about whoever did the shouting, then everyone would have moved on the next day.

Without the support networks and face to face discussions, I fear juniors are left to stew alone at home and that can have serious consequences on stress levels.

 

 

 

 

Sad to say Tom - a junior would be in the same position if they were in my line of work. 
 

global sales doesn’t hire juniors because of the value / clients, but regional does (still a global bizz) and they have the same experience of lack of uk peers etc. 

Different career with different issues but in my line I think the junior juniors are suffering (technically anyone who isn't a consultant or a GP is a junior but given that I've been doing this for over a decade I don't think I'm a newbee any more). While we haven't had WFH we have suffered from inadequate supervision often by locum "consultants" from overseas who aren't really knowledgeable or able to train people properly. Social events have been stopped which means people can't make good friends or let off steam together. Teams have become disjointed and little things like team coffees/lunches/breakfasts have stopped because of "social distancing" meaning juniors feel unsupported and have nobody to bitch with/ talk things through. 

 

Leaving people in isolation isn't good IMO and the idea that online things can supplant normal social interactions is entirely misconceived IMO. 

Just as a pure anecdote I have several coder friends and the market has just gone insane. Everybody leaving jobs very quickly, multiple job offers, offerers bidding against each other. One friend applied to do X, got an offer, got a higher offer then a higher offer when they said no, they then said, X is slightly too restricted for me, so they offered them “head of X, Y and Z”. Absolutely desperate to get them on the team. They still said no.

Aspiring young professionals and especially young British ones are IME mostly lazy ungrateful entitled little shits. If they're struggling because they now have to do some actual work for themselves instead of being spoon fed all the time, told they're fabulous and having the snot wiped from their noses whilst they endlessly bitch, whine and try to cut corners then fook 'em. Makes no sense paying dozens of useless grads when the same work could be done with less risk by a few experienced people working from home.

I did make the point that this presented some challenges relating to our junior members, their training, supervision and integration into our culture. Cohesion and ethos may be harder to maintain and that some valuable experience would be missed out.

i mean i don’t disagree with this tom but surely it just means the seniors will have to learn to actually train people?

this is the way of the world now

even if we’re saying three days a week in the office is new average - they’ll have to learn how to train remotely the other 40% of the week

its just a bit mad to me that rof has had years of “partners are useless supervisors” chat now translating into “the trainees are useless cause they’re not coming into the office for the supervisors to be useless while they’re physically present”

yes it will create new challenges 

but the truth is going forward the legal profession will need to learn how to train juniors remotely (and properly)

what better impetus is there to make that jump?

drives me mad how many people are sort of just shrugging their shoulders like “well the trainee isn’t in the office - what can i do about it?”

um your job maybe

also those who are saying “yes but in person meetings are so important for networking”

1) clearly does not know a lot of people under 25 in business; and

2) well that’s out the window now - you’ll need to learn some new skills unfortunately 

The reality is that for most seniors training isn’t a priority. They have to do it alongside other commitments be those service delivery, management, whatever. Seniors aren’t going to make an effort and especially not if the trainee isn’t there in front of them. It’s much much easier to ignore someone whom you’ve never met than it is to learn how to supervise them in a new and more challenging way. 

Disagree, I've never met over half my team and this forces me to be more proactive with them and to carve out time for them. But yes you do have to make them feel that they can pester you whenever and I can see that interpersonal side being difficult for a lot of lawyers. They've also all said independently that it's the most inclusive team theyve ever worked in so go figure.

More dinosaurs than Jurassic Park on this thread.

How about giving them some tasks to do, seeing how well and promptly they do said tasks, and judging them accordingly?  It's worrying that you seem to think that progress in professional career should be all about surface impressions.  If that's how you think, just hire extrovert models.  

I think a lot of the defence of WFH is - whether consciously or otherwise - driven by motivated reasoning. Senior associates, and their equivalents in house, enjoy WFH. Everything else flows from that.

I'm not criticising such people: the only person who cares about their life is them. I completely understand why experienced, highly-independent 6+ PQE individuals who have been working hard for almost a decade (since they began their training contracts) are embracing WFH and eschewing the commute. I think that it is inevitable however that it will retard junior associates' development, and for those of us for whom professional development is our top priority (again, without criticism, I respect that other people have other priorities), I'm not sure that the 'new normal' in London is that appealing.

From the perspective of a junior associate, our City office is back open, and yet <10% of our senior associates evince any inclination to return regularly. The pre-Covid norm of:

"Junior associate - senior associate - partner all working together, within 20 metres of each other, with calls to counsel done on speaker phone in someone's office"

Has been replaced by:

"Senior associate speaks directly to partner or counsel, on 1-to-1 phone calls, does much of the work him/herself, and occasionally passes on discrete/dull tasks to junior associate"

For those junior associates who have returned to work, we might as well still be isolated WFH, as we're rattling around in a near-deserted office. Aside from the social impact, it's a dreadful learning experience, and a million miles away from my training contract in a magic circle firm with a managing associate sitting 3 metres behind me, from whom I could (a) get tasks; (b) get answers to questions; and (c) absorb by osmosis much of what he was dealing with even on matters in which I wasn't directly involved.

Market dynamics have changed, so firms are probably unable force senior associates back into the office (because they will leave), but I think it's dishonest to bullsh#t that this won't adversely impact junior associates' professional development: of course it will. 

Personally, the trend in London towards WFH is exponentially increasing the attraction of moving somewhere where I will actually be properly trained, and fully immersed in a firm again. That implies overseas: Hong Kong, BVI, Cayman, Dubai, none of which I can see adopting WFH. As I say, other people whose priorities are elsewhere will quite understandably feel differently, and I respect that.

I think it really depends on the firm and those around you.  At my place I'm talking to some of our juniors much more than I ever spoke to them in the office as they now call me to discuss a problem rather than wandering down the corridor into my room and asking whoever happened to be around when they appeared.  Also still have plenty of interaction with trainees.

Mountain sounds like part of your issue is someone more senior who is being judged on hours and now they're more efficient working from home is struggling to record the hours so keeping work to do themselves which has always been a thing at times.  Reminds me why I'm glad that I effectively work as an autonomous unit and don't have to worry about whether I'm sub-consciously hogging work.

We’re in the fortunate position that there’s no shortage of work; quite the contrary, everyone’s extremely busy, and deadlines are constant. That does however mean that efficiency is at a premium, and objectively it’s far more efficient for a senior associate to eschew their commute and thereafter not go to the hassle of, eg. convening a Zoom call to discuss something on a tripartite basis with counsel, when it’s simpler to phone directly. 
 

As I say, I’m not blaming anyone: these people are up for partnership this year, and this way of working is good for them (and also for the clients). I do think that we have taken for granted however the extent to which the development of junior professionals is a consequence of immersion and osmosis, rather than anything more calculated.

My twins and their friends graduated a year ago. Those of their friends who went straight into graduate office jobs have almost all been 100% online although one did actually go into the real office for a day yesterday. I don't think it feels like starting a real job if you are just working at home. It is of course dead easy for someone my age. I am glad one of the twins has been in an office mostly 5 (but now 4) days a week for the last few months despite the travel hassle.  I would have loved to work from home in the 1980s but I certainly learned a lot more by being in the office.