Commuting To Nowhere

News that the daily commute – by car at least – is costing some people the equivalent of 31 days a year – and wasting each one £1,168 in petrol and working time – really is shocking.

Now some people have to be physically present at work to do their jobs. It’s not really possible for a doctor or a nurse to ‘work from home’ – but for many others it is an option. So why can’t more businesses let their workers do just that for more of their time? They’ll be less stressed and better off – emotionally and financially.

But more importantly, why don’t we just abolish the nine to five day? The idea that everybody working in an office has to be there at nine on the dot and leave at five or five thirty is really ludicrous. Work may well expand to fit the time available, but productivity isn’t synonymous with working a nine to five day, five days a week. I’d like to bet that most people would be just as productive if they sat behind a desk for fewer hours – and even lost a working day a week.

Now maybe this is just what I think – not based on hard facts or extensive research – but sat in enough offices to know that a fair amount of office time is spent looking at piano playing cats and making tea and coffee runs. Most work – most office work – is task driven – spent both planning and executing those tasks – then feeding back the results. Some tasks can be done quite quickly, others take days, even weeks to complete. They have to be fitted into a nine to five, and that results, quite naturally, in hours of the day which are not dedicated to the tasks in hand, as you wait for people to get back to you or for another person to complete their part of the task before you can continue. You can do all of this just as easily at home.

So is it time to abolish the nine to five and accept that work is flexible – and so should the time we spend working. Rather than rushing down to the car with coffee mug one hand and cold slice of toast in the other, shouldn’t we be using our time far more effectively?

Of course companies have invested billions in building offices – and others in buying or renting those spaces – be they in town centres or out of town developments. There is a massive vested interest in the status quo that the office provides. And there is much to be said for the right kind of collaborative space – a place where people can be creative together – and that matters. Nobody wants to work in isolation – all those little booths with their family photos pinned on the partition walls alongside the to-do lists and excel spreadsheet printouts.

But do we really need to head out to those lovely office car parks at exactly the same time, on exactly the same days of the week? You could do a lot with those 31 days – and to see over a thousand pounds of money – and exhaust fumes – burn up into the atmosphere as we queue to get off the motorway is equally wasteful. There has to be a better way. There is a better way. We have the technology to make mobile and flexible working a reality for everyone. So why don’t we do that. Right now.

Nigel Lawrence