Academy of Ideas

#EconomyForum: Work after the pandemic - what can office workers expect?

Para Mullan and Hilary Salt introduce a discussion at the Academy of Ideas Economy Forum on what the post-pandemic office means for employers, employees and the wider economy.
Apart from a brief and ill-starred campaign early last autumn to get staff back to the office, for over a year workers have been told that they should work at home if they can. Yet with Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths now back down to the level we saw at the end of last summer, it seems workers are not exactly rushing to get back to the office.
For some, there may still be the fear of commute or the fear of catching the virus whilst working in the office. For others, there may still be difficulties in getting childcare. But it is also becoming obvious that for some, the comforts of home working are much more attractive than office life. What does this say about the quality of work to date – perhaps just that it is not as great as it is made out to be and that many jobs are not ‘real’ jobs?
Employers like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have summoned all US staff back to the office. Others, like HSBC, have adopted a hybrid form of working. Yet other big firms, like Twitter, are allowing their staff to work from home forever if they so wish. For employers, there are multiple different factors at play in encouraging staff to carry on working on the kitchen table or in the spare room: the risk of lawsuits if employees catch the virus; the potential savings on office rents; extracting longer working hours from those who no longer have to commute.
On the other hand, all that extra distance between workers may undermine the idea of pursuing collective goals, workers bouncing ideas off each other or simply picking up on office conservations – finding out things they didn’t know they needed to know. It may also be harder for managers to manage staff at a distance.
For employees, working at home may have its comforts and conveniences, but there is much to be said for a properly thought-out office environment. If the reluctance to get back to the office is driven by disenchantment with the kind of work on offer – something that seems particularly clear with the slow return of those on furlough – will employers use this as an opportunity to reassess the kind of jobs they offer?
Yet for many employees, working from home isn’t working. For all the new buzz about ‘hybrid working’ and a ‘flexible approach’, a survey conducted by the CIPD found that 47 per cent of respondents cited mental well-being as the main challenge of working from home.
In this digital era, can employers ensure that employees do not feel burnt out by work? Is it appropriate to expect employers to adopt a paternalistic approach towards their employees, taking more responsibility for people’s health and well-being? What do these new ways of working mean for the dividing line between work and home?
More broadly, does the focus on returning to work miss the real challenges for UK businesses evident before the pandemic, particularly when it comes to low productivity: a failure to automate processes or make the most of AI, the prevalence of ‘bullshit jobs’ and a stifling aversion to taking risk?
SPEAKERS
Para Mullan fellow, Chartered Institute of Personnel Development
Hilary Salt actuary; founder, First Actuarial

#SportscastOfIdeas: Ronaldo and Coke, quarantine-dodging dignitaries and rainbow stadiums

For our latest Sportscast of Ideas, Geoff Kidder is joined by Academy of Ideas colleagues Alastair Donald and Rob Lyons, and special guest Adam Rawcliffe.
They chew the fat on Scotland's departure and wonder if England will ever play exciting football. They also look at UEFA's ban on lighting up the Allianz Arena for Pride, the row over Ronaldo and Pogba moving drinks bottles and the hypocrisy of allowing 2,500 UEFA hangers-on into the UK while we all struggle to travel abroad at all.

#SportscastOfIdeas: Booing, kilts and small nations

SPORTSCAST OF IDEAS: On this second 2021 Sportscast of Ideas, Geoff Kidder, Alastair Donald and Rob Lyons from the Academy of Ideas are joined by sociologist, author and Tottenham fan Frank Furedi to discuss all that's new in the world of sports, politics and upcoming tournaments.
 
 
 
 

#SportscastOfIdeas: Kneeling, bagpipe bans and Euro 2020

On this Sportscast of Ideas, Geoff Kidder, Alastair Donald and Rob Lyons from the Academy of Ideas are joined by author and Norwich City fan George Harrison to discuss all that's new in the world of sports, politics and upcoming tournaments.

#LockdownDebates: Who needs human rights?

LOCKDOWN DEBATE: Given the extension of state power during lockdowns, have worldwide lockdowns revealed the need for stronger, more hard-wired human rights legislation, like the Bill of Rights in the United States? Or has the whole framework of human rights been revealed as little more than symbolic? Putting the progressive case against human rights, Gittos asks whether it is time to do away with human rights in favour of a new way of thinking about our personal and political freedoms. Join Luke Gittos and Academy of Ideas’ director Claire Fox to discuss whether it’s time to call time on human rights.

#EconomyForum: Special relationships: the UK, the US and the EU

Discussion at the Academy of Ideas Economy Forum on Tuesday 4 May 2021.
INTRODUCTIONLove it or loathe it, the UK’s Special Relationship with the USA has been around since Churchill coined the phrase in 1946. And as the first nation to leave the European Union, the UK’s ongoing relationship with the EU is, at the very least, ‘special’ by definition.
In his presentation, Jonathan Grant will offer a perspective on these two unquestionably special relationships: one with the EU that has only recently been formed, and that with the USA, particularly how that might change under the new Biden-Harris administration.
SPEAKERJonathan Grant is a London-based chartered accountant specialising in serving global clients with operations in the UK. He deals extensively with people and businesses across both the USA and the EU; away from the office, he is an independent arts critic.

#BookClub: The human heart in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara And The Sun

BOOK CLUB: Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love? Ella Whelan, journalist and author of What Women Want, gives the introduction.

#SportscastOfIdeas: the rise and fall of the European Super League

Welcome to this special sports edition of Podcast of Ideas. Alastair Donald is joined by Academy of Ideas colleagues, Geoff Kidder and Rob Lyons, along with Hilary Salt and Simon McKeon, two regular speakers and session producers at the annual Battle of Ideas festival. Over the past week, football has hogged the headlines on the front as well as the back pages as the plan for a new European Super League emerged and then collapsed, almost in the blink of an eye.
The headlines claimed this has been the 'biggest fiasco in football history', the 'defeat of greed' and that elites sports has suffered its 'most astounding humiliation.
• Why did the European Super League has suddenly emerge now? • What were the main problems with this initiative?• Why did pushing through the ESL run up against the buffers? • Can we read anything deeper into this, culturally or even politically?• What are the ramifications of the ESL's collapse and what about the future – for fans, football, football governance and politics?