Mods Are Asleep. Well, the political equivalent: Parliament is in recess. To fill the void, here’s something I’ve been turning over in my mind for a while.

During the pandemic, we published a report by Matt Clancy making the case for remote work. Crucially, it didn’t suggest government should overtly incentivise working from home – but it did explain (and correctly predict) the economics of what factors might mean the forced changes would become permanent.

This was published at a time when many business leaders and their representative organisations were making the case – vehemently behind closed doors – that government should force businesses to open up their offices, despite Covid cases being on the rise.

Post-pandemic, many business leaders and politicians can’t seem to make up their minds about what the future of work should look like, with some now wanting to make ‘working from home’ an inalienable right, and others seeming to think returning to the office should be mandatory. They should get more comfortable living with the uncertainty most of us have about the pros and cons.

On an individual basis, everyone reading this will be familiar with the advantages of working from home. Equally, everyone will be familiar with the disadvantages. How we weigh them will depend on a multitude of factors, which is why it’s best that employers and employees continue to work this out for themselves.

As reported in The Times this week, the amount of vacant office space across the UK has increased by 65% over the past three years. It’s not hard to understand why – ONS data reveals we have gone from a country where working from home was a rarity, to one where 16% of working adults reported working only from home in the last seven days, and 28% reported they were hybrid working.

The insights of Friedrich Hayek are important here. Knowledge about what’s best for individuals and companies is so widely dispersed that it cannot be planned for centrally. We should let the employers and employees coordinate this, which means letting entrepreneurs decide what’s best for their business, and employees decide the offer that’s best for them.

It’s not to say there is no role for government. But that should be in ensuring that infrastructure and regulation in areas like internet, transport, energy, domestic and commercial property, education and so on isn’t leaving people with no choice.

There is no better alternative.

Talking of Work
Today is the last day to apply to join The Entrepreneurs Network as a Researcher. We’ve had plenty of applications, but if our growing pipeline of projects is anything to go by it won’t be too long before we will be going out to the job market again.

Find out more about the role here. (We won’t be checking the email until Monday so you won’t be marked down if you send it through a little late.)

Talking of Tight Deadlines
The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and Equal Innovation have got in touch to invite us to nominate startups that may qualify for CGI Greenhouse, "a unique showcase for path-breaking entrepreneurs at CGI in the areas of inclusive economy, climate resilience and global health."

The company/NGO should fall within CGI pillars of inclusive economic growth, climate resilience, health equity or refugee/humanitarian support. Secondly, the company/NGO should have raised some capital – Seed/Series A, major government grant or major philanthropic partnership.

The deadline is Sunday, so if this is of interest, drop us an email with the name of your startup/NGO, contact information, and a brief sentence about what you do, and we’ll pass on this information over the weekend.