Sir, – Pilita Clarke ("Think that working from home is here to stay? Think again", Business Opinion, February 15th) reports that working at home is a risk to career progress, as workers develop more "managerial capital" by interacting with their bosses in person in the office, while those working at home are forgotten.
This assumes, of course, that the other workers and their bosses are actually in the office at the same time, which will no longer always be the case. In the future of part-time or rotational attendance at offices, access to the attendance roster will become valuable for workers keen to “brown-nose”, so that they can make sure they are attending on the same day as their managers.
Organisations will need to arrange rosters carefully, so that people coming in are not in attendance on their own, without any of their immediate colleagues or managers being also physically present. Arranging rotas for attendance by teams or departments seems sensible, but getting consensus across teams on which days of the week are best suited will be a challenge.
Meanwhile, for workers whose managers, customers and immediate colleagues are in other buildings, towns or countries – or who are “on the road” much of the time – coming into the office will be an exercise with few redeeming features. – Yours, etc,
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JOHN THOMPSON,
Phibsboro,
Dublin 7.