'Go back to work or risk losing your job': Major drive launched to get people returning to the office

Boris Johnson will launch a major drive to get Britain back to the office as ministers warn working from home will make people more “vulnerable” to being sacked.

A publicity campaign to begin next week will extol the virtues of returning to the workplace, making the “emotional case” for mixing with colleagues and highlighting the benefits to mental health.

It will also provide reassurance that “the workplace is a safe place”, while a new online tool will help people avoid the most crowded trains and buses.

While the media blitz – to be launched at the end of next week once schools in England have reopened – will focus on the positives of returning to the office, ministers are already warning of the negatives of home working as part of a carrot and stick approach.

They have sent out the message that bosses at struggling firms will find it easier to hand out P45s to people they never see than to colleagues who have been at their desks during the pandemic.

The Prime Minister is said to be increasingly concerned about empty offices and eerily quiet city centres as millions stubbornly refuse to heed his calls for them to return.

Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, is also worried about further job losses in businesses that depend on office workers for their trade, such as sandwich shops, gyms and pubs, as well as the financial cost of running near-empty trains and buses.

One Government source said: “People need to understand that working from home is not the benign option it seems. We need workers to be alert to what decisions their bosses may take in the weeks ahead. If they are only seeing workers once a fortnight then that could prove problematic for some employees in the future.

“We want employees to be careful what working arrangements they accept. Suddenly the word ‘restructure’ is bandied about and people who have been working from home find themselves in the most vulnerable position.”

Some of the country’s biggest companies have told employees they do not need to return to their workplaces until next year, with far-reaching consequences for city centre economies.

Civil service bosses have also defied ministers by ignoring their demands to get Whitehall workers back en masse.

One Cabinet minister said: “Clearly people should be going back to work because it is safe to do so. There are already problems with workers’ mental health. It’s not just about hard-nosed economics.

“People need company … especially those living on their own or with a limited support network.

“There will be some economic consequences of shutdown. Companies will realise some people weren’t working as hard as they thought … There is going to be a review of how productive people are.”

Another minister said: “Once the schools go back we will be switching our attention to getting people back to their workplaces. It will be a call to arms to the nation.”

At the start of lockdown, national and regional newspapers were enlisted to publish front page adverts with the Stay At Home message. A similar tactic is expected to be used next month to reverse that message by telling people to leave their homes.

A Government source said: “There will be three main messages: showing people the workplace is a safe place to return to, highlighting the social benefits and the emotional case for going back to the office, and encouraging people to plan how they are going to go back so they feel confident about doing so.”

Adverts are likely to include examples of people who have benefited from going back to their workplace. Discussions about a slogan are ongoing.

A Cabinet rift over the policy appeared to open up on Thursday after Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, told Times Radio: “What I care about is how effectively people work. Obviously people should come back to the office if that is what they need to do their job, obviously employers need to make sure the offices are Covid-secure.”

Among the other measures is an online tool that will give commuters real-time updates on how crowded trains and buses are and send bespoke updates to their phone suggesting less busy routes. Ministers are also discussing the possibility of extending the Eat Out to Help Out scheme in targeted areas.

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, said: “Not everyone has the space or peace and quiet needed to work from home. Many staff would prefer to get back to the office. But the Prime Minister must do more to give people confidence it is safe to return.

“We need to have a fast and reliable test and trace system and we need better enforcement of transport safety and workplace risk assessments.”

Sandwich chain Pret a Manger announced last night it was cutting 2,800 jobs as part of a major restructuring of the business caused by the pandemic.

The number is almost three times the number of jobs Pret had previously suggested would be lost after it was badly hit by customers switching to home working.

The Office for National Statistics said 730,000 people had been taken off payrolls since the beginning of the crisis in March - a number which is likely to worsen when the Government furlough scheme ends in November.

The Director general of the CBI, Dame Carolyn Fairburn, warned yesterday that: "Our offices are at risk of dying. And we would regret that very much if we allowed that to happen."

The British Chambers of Commerce has also warned that almost four in ten firms will run out of cash reserves in three months or less.