Let’s ditch obsessive health and safety and get back to the office

So, I turn up at the headquarters of a major company in central London. The “staff” entrance is the same as normal, but on the other side of the door marked “visitors” there is an empty chair.

I tap on the glass and eventually the security guard sees me, wanders over to the door and climbs on the chair to free a bolt at the top. He opens the door but does not let me cross the threshold. Instead, he asks me what I want?

When I tell him I have an appointment with one of the most senior people in the organisation he asks me to repeat their name because he’d not heard properly due to my voice being muffled by the face mask I’m required to wear. Then I am allowed to approach the reception desk, behind which sit two women. They seem to be busy but doing what, heaven knows, as I appear to be the only visitor.

One of them asks me to fill out a Covid form, saying I’ve not had it, I’ve not travelled, etc. Then she walks around the desk and takes my temperature. Finally, I’m permitted to venture to the lift, where I must wait for someone to come down and meet me.

Except she arrives from the stairs and we both go up the stairs – the lifts are not stopping at the floor we’re going to, “because of Covid”. Oh, and I’ve been asked to sanitise and there are screens displaying Covid dos and don’ts.

When we reach our floor, I’m taken through a sea of mostly empty desks and Perspex screens. About 20 per cent of them are occupied. At last, I get to meet my host. We shake hands and I ditch my mask.

For an hour or so, it seems like normal. Then I must do the whole thing in reverse, including the guard climbing on the chair to unbolt the door.

This, let me tell you, is a company that prides itself on its sophistication and connection with the zeitgeist. As I walk along the street it’s apparent that something similar is occurring in other buildings.

My visit was this week. In theory, on 21 June, rigmaroles like the one I endured should be consigned to blessed memory. Or will they, if the Indian variant takes hold?

Even if they are scrapped, will employees return in the same numbers? Certainly, it is difficult to see the obstacle course I had to endure disappearing completely. They’re loving WFH (how familiar those initials have become, another tell-tale sign). Even when Covid is passed, will health and safety – having got the upper hand in a manner unimagined previously and at many places been taken seriously possibly for the first time ever – continue to subjugate us to submitting declarations and taking precautionary measures against unspecified threats?

That’s the worry, that it’s assumed people will flock back or split their weeks between home and office, when in fact there really has been a change. Talking to one boss this week, they said they could not persuade staff to leave their homes. First, HR advised them that they couldn’t order anyone to return to their desks – it would be held as unreasonable to do so.

When they asked how long this state of affairs would last, at what point would it be unreasonable of the employee to stay away, as opposed to the other way round, they were met with a blank stare. Indeterminate was the answer.

Second, they’d not realised how many of their colleagues had contracted Covid. Loads, apparently, judging by the numbers citing “suffering from the symptoms of long Covid” as a reason for not returning.

They could ask them to produce sick notes but again, HR was not in favour, suggesting it would appear they were not being believed and besides, proving someone has had Covid is not an exact science and the effects of long Covid can come and go, and may include just feeling tired or not 100 per cent – not something doctors normally certify.

So, they said the company is stuck. Their fear is that this will last a long time, possibly permanently. What they would like is for the government to devote much energy and resource, as it did to telling people to WFH, to getting them to abandon their spare rooms and garden sheds, and to begin commuting again.

In London, this is easier said than done, when the capital has re-elected a mayor who, even in better times, was actively encouraging travellers not to use public transport but to walk or go by bike. There can be no more surreal spectacle than the London Underground network covered in advertisements suggesting you cycle instead.

They’ve produced a video showing someone riding through quiet side streets, merrily pedalling the daily journey to and from work. Even the passers-by look happy, giving the whole film the ersatz flavour of London as portrayed by Richard Curtis. It’s not chucking it down, blowing a gale, there are no swearing taxi drivers, no aggressive white van men, no pedestrians stepping off the curb while listening to their AirPods and not the urgent dinging of the cycle bell. There aren’t any youths hanging around, waiting for the chance to nick your bike.

The government has to get a grip on this and do everything, anything, to motivate people to return to work. It’s not only employers; the pubs, restaurants, city and town centre shops, theatres and cinemas – they all depend on the trade from office workers.

Claims that Zoom or Teams are substitutes for face to face are nonsense. There’s no chemistry, no creative spark, it’s going through the motions. Long term, if employees are confined to interacting with each other via electronic screens much will be lost. Businesses will suffer and go under.

As importantly, Zoom and Teams do not produce revenue for all those enterprises that so rely on full offices. They too will shut.

HR needs telling, and the government must step up. WFH may be great for now, but if we’re not careful it could quickly translate into no work at all for an awful lot of people.