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Friday, August 25, 2023

Bob Jones: "Working from home"


David Seymour makes no bones about his desire to clean up the grossly excessive bureaucracy.

Some of his expressed goals, such as wiping out the farcical Women’s Affairs Department, an agency set up in the 1980s by the then Labour Government as a sop to Labour’s left, angry at Rogernomics, is easily disposed of.

Who can forget the TV News interview with its then boss showing off their new offices. When she was asked what they will be doing, replied they’d written to various people asking for ideas.

I wrote on this Blog not long ago how the office building they occupy was on the market. My Wellington office chaps had looked at it and reported the Women’s Affairs office was empty as its staff were all allegedly “working from home”.

This “working from home” racket is what Seymour must end. It’s why some Departments are notorious for their inefficiency, such as Immigration. I could list many more I’m familiar with in my company’s buildings.

Another on Seymour’s hit list is the ludicrous Human Rights and Race Relations Office, both housed in one of my company’s Auckland buildings. They constitute a massive waste of public money.

But most of all Seymour should put an end to the farcical working from home racket, a flow-on from the Covid lockdowns.

A couple of weeks back a Los Angeles university published their findings from an extensive study of this WFH nonsense.

They found an overall loss of 18% in productivity. Co-incidentally, that same week’s Guardian made working from home their principal cover story. The best they could say about it were that those indulging in it liked it, which is stating the obvious.

It’s been sustained solely by labour shortages, mainly with entities employing large numbers of people. But increasingly these firms are striking back and demanding a return to the office.

Musk, a huge employer, had the right idea when a year back he said you either work in the office or you’re out. They returned to work.

Seymour will not be able to properly address the public service issues until everyone’s back at work. Ending this WFH racket should be the first step.

Sir Bob Jones is a renowned author, columnist , property investor, and former politician, who blogs at No Punches Pulled HERE where this article was sourced.

1 comment:

Doug Longmire said...

Musk had it summed up in One !!