7th July 2020

Dear CEO

Firstly, just look at the picture. Southend on Sea, my hometown last month.

It’s now acceptable to go to the beach, we do call it that in Southend although some may differ. This is what social distancing in practice means to ‘Southenders’ and beach visitors from London and millions more around the UK. It also is what beachgoers call staying alert and not overdoing it.

You now can hit the roads to the West country, do a rollercoaster ride, hit the beaches, go to the pub, fly to Spain (other countries are available in BBC speak) ingest as much nitrous oxide as you can but it is just not safe enough for big business bosses to get their staff back into the offices.

After the crowd scenes like this, and with many city workers coming from the Southend area, I would hope bosses are thinking that some in that picture I am actually paying to work at home.

If it is safe in the eyes of the beachgoer, it is safe for you, Mr CEO, to get them back to work. This picture is in fact a ‘workers risk assement’ and it has been declared as ‘very low’!

Can I make a plea to big business CEO’s to return their staff, and of course themselves, to the big cities and provide some much needed fiscal ventilation to the thousands of SME support business in the service sector that will simply die without their return to normality.

Covid19 has seen, as at 6^th July some 286,000 were confirmed cases and tragically nearly 44,500 deaths. Many with underlying health conditions, and, all sooner that would normally have been expected. 

The count for dead businesses and job losses as result of the shutdown will be many more.

This virus has presented challenges for businesses to overcome. But the big worry for many is only just starting to manifest itself.

The Office for National Statistics  method to calculate unemployment, the claimant count, showed a rise of 856,000 to 2.1 million in April, the biggest monthly rise since modern records began in 1971. 

When the virus first started, so many businesses both large and small, very quickly started making plans for staff to work from home. 

I did say when this practice started that this will result in the death of far more businesses and therefore livelihoods than that caused by Covid 19. And those numbers are bad enough.

The post lockdown landscape looks grim. Trains are almost empty, airports are the same, the commercial property giant, Land Securities, reports that 90 per cent of its offices lie empty and Pret is laying off thousands.

Town and City streets have now lost the footfall from those who worked in the offices above the now empty shops below. 

As Robert Hardman noted last week, “It boils down to an intolerable contradiction. Here we have an administrative class who are very happy to let others pack the food, stack the shelves, sit at the tills, toil in the factories and keep the lights on. 

They are very happy to go shopping, or queue at an airport, or cram the beach when the weather is nice, or to even to attend a non-socially distanced demonstration.

For those whose jobs are not threatened by furlough or bankruptcy, including much of the public payroll, it's a very happy new 'work/life balance', the thought of going back to their desks is just not a priority

Many companies are not laying off staff……. yet, because the Treasury is picking up the tab for 80% of monthly pay up to a limit of £2,500. 

This will change dramatically in the Autumn unless a sector type of furlough is extended to those most affected by current social distancing constraints – hospitality, leisure, entertainment, the arts, sporting events where the workforce is mostly self employed.

Although the safety of a workforce is paramount for any business, bigger business needs to look at a way back to normal office life. After all, many businesses have kept going with their key workers being very busy. Some school teachers, by no means all, did work tirelessly proving workplace, employment and the classroom was not too risky after all. 

But most disturbingly, only this week so many firms are telling me they do not expect to be back in their offices until the New Year 

There must be a way to conquer the corporate reluctance of the big brands, including those in the financial services world, to make some serious inroads into dispelling the fear that is keeping so many CEO’s from getting their workers back to the offices.

Somebody has got to do it and I would ask those CEO’s to be brave and start filling those offices. 

They have a social responsibility at the very least. Their workforce does not need protection any longer, but those that provide support services to them absolutely do. And I do not mean PPE

If they do not, thousands of ‘remora’ businesses in big commercial city centres like London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow (sorry if I have left some out- not deliberate, more word count) will just die and along with them the livelihoods of their staff and owners.

If the ‘bigger boy’ firms leave this much longer, when they get back to work there will be nobody to service their everyday workplace and lifestyle needs. No latte’s, no sticky buns, sarnies, bento boxes, haircuts, travel agents, doctors, dentists, gyms and a myriad of other support services that big business staff have come to rely on- all gone.  

May I draw on a great quote from Steve Jobs that just may inspire: “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

So Dear CEO, too many days have passed since lockdown, please please, please think about other businesses too while protecting your own. 

What you do will survive, for the tens of thousands of support workers and their families who rely on your firms presence in the cities for their livliehoods, life will never be the same if you do not get back to the office! 

Or for your staff!

Panacea Comment