Lazy Britons most likely to do hybrid work particularly to extend the weekend!

The Times tells us that the UK is the hybrid work capital of Europe. This is despite efforts by business owners to get employees back into the office because they believe that it is more productive when employees work from the office perhaps because they are able to communicate more fluidly with other employees and improve efficiencies.

I am not suggesting that this particular man is lazy!!

And the Times also reports that Mondays and Fridays remain the quietest days in offices. Surprise, surprise. 😃🙄

Being somewhat cynical, I take that to mean that hybrid workers simply see an opportunity to extend the weekend from 2 days to 4 and in effect have a three day working week which might explain why productivity in the UK is in a dire state and perhaps the lowest in Europe.

The UK has a productivity problem and although many experts have suggested various reasons for this such as a lack of investment (which is, by the way, also a major problem in the UK because businesses are under investing) I would like to suggest that the country has become lazy and flabby. There is a distinct lack of work ethic in my view.

I believe that the Covid pandemic in effect turned people off from the work ethic. In the UK they were given 80% of their salary for 18 months. To stay at home. Go to the park and do nothing while raking in 80% of their salary.

I think this has engendered a lazy attitude to work. It has reset the minds of many employees into believing that they needn't work to obtain a salary. And if they have to work as they do they will do as little as possible.

It is politically incorrect to state that hybrid working fosters laziness. But I think it's common sense that it does. Sitting at home with the kids trying to work on the computer when you're bound to be distracted if you have children, for example. 

Or if you haven't got children then you might be working alone and it takes a lot of self-discipline to work productively at home alone. The employers know, as mentioned, that it is better to have employees working from the office. Employees resist this now (and employers simply can't get them back into the office) and insist on hybrid working from day one.

And because in the UK there appears to be a skills shortage or a lack of really good high quality employees, employees tend to bend over backwards provide extra facilities in order to capture the employee.

Employers are giving employees the option to work in the hybrid style. I sense that there is a laziness in this country not only because of the extended weekend MO as mentioned, but because there is very large number of young men and women who're quite capable of working but refuse to work and have signed off sick with anxiety

It is also politically incorrect to say that these people are gaming the system. But it is true that they are. Obviously not all of them are gaming the system but hundreds of thousands are and this woke government simply will not address that sensitive point.

They're loathe to accuse these young people who should be working of being lazy and workshy. They want to try and encourage them back to work but personally, without seeming to be too right wing, I would kick their backsides to drive them back to work because that's what they need.

Their benefits need to be stopped and they need then to be forced back to work but perhaps they have generally lost their confidence and therefore the government will have to boost their confidence before they can participate in mainstream employed life.

P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also, sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. And, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable. Finally, (!) I often express an OPINION on the news. Please share yours in a comment.

Hybrid working is great for pet caregiving but not so good for productivity

I'm not sure about other countries but in the UK hybrid working has become somewhat of the norm. Hybrid working means working from home and working from the office. It's a shared working environment as opposed to the default situation in the past of always working from the office.

Flexible hours have pretty well killed off the 9-to-5 working style. It's no longer the way to make a living for the vast majority of office staff in the UK.

Hybrid working allows people to tailor their working hours to fit much better around their nonworking activities. These include cat and dog caregiving.

Improved cat caregiving. Less anxiety.

I can imagine the joy of millions of cats and dogs perhaps particularly cats because they are perceived as being independent and mistakenly believed to accept being alone. I am afraid not.

Now they can have their human companion around far more often. There's been no study on it but I suspect that domestic cat anxiety brought on by separation anxiety has diminished tremendously since Covid-19 and the commencement of hybrid working. 

Also, looking at it from the human perspective, cat caregivers will be more relaxed and less anxious about their companion animals because they can be around far more often. There must be a lot of people who are unhappy about leaving their cats alone all day. That problem is now resolved for office workers.

Survey supports hybrid working

A study of more than 2,000 Britons who used to work in an office five days a week before the pandemic but who now split their working hours between office and home said that they had far more freedom to tailor their schedules and start their workday either later or earlier to suit themselves.

Most (43%) said that they begin their day at 8 AM or before which is earlier than when attending the office. Ten percent chose to logon at work after 9:30 PM. Extraordinary. I have just realised that that is in the evening rather than the morning. They prefer to do nightshift by the look of it.

Although companion dogs and cats are benefited tremendously, I would argue through hybrid working, I think you will find a consensus among managers and business owners that productivity has diminished as a result. 

There are problems with it such as not being able to interact on a direct, person-to-person basis and far more freely with work colleagues in order to exchange ideas. I think this is one way employees are more productive.

In Britain 44% of the workforce now spend at least some of their working week at home according to the Office for National Statistics. The method has become very popular and jobseekers are now demanding hybrid working from their future employers and as employers are having difficulty hiring staff they give way to this demand.

Employee demands

Seventy-one percent of hybrid workers say that they would not take a new role involving a long commute. That's another point about hybrid working; it's avoids commuting costs and time. This puts money in the pockets of employees and can make working more efficient.

But this article is about the benefits to companion animals which for people like me is very welcome. 

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Image: MikeB