Jury still out on impacts of working from home

I'M writing this on the Friday after Beaujolais day.

- BETHAN DARWIN

> Beaujolais Day 2025 in Swansea

Beaujoais Nouveau is a red wine fermented for just a few weeks before it is released for sale on the third Thursday of November, known as Beaujolais Day.

However, Beaujolais Nouveau wine has very little to do with Beaujolais Day in South Wales, or as I heard it described yesterday "Beauj".

Over the years, Beaujolais Day has become the date that the business community here 'mitches off' work for the afternoon to go for a long boozy lunch with clients and friends.

I estimate that my email traffic on a Friday is at least 50% lower than on Monday to Thursday, but today it is even quieter than usual.

There must be a lot of post Beaujolais Day working from home going on.

Earlier this month, after a call for evidence in March and an inquiry, the House of Lords Committee on Home-Based Working released a report called Is Working from Home Working?

The 144-page report notes that the UK has some of the highest levels of home working in the world and recommends that the UK Government monitors the economic and social consequences of this over the long term, as well as funding further research and data gathering into the impact of home working on mental and physical health, productivity and employee relations.

Interestingly the report highlighted that the evidence base available to the Committee was limited by the unwillingness of some employers to give evidence, including several major employers who had reportedly introduced full-time return-to-office mandates and were invited to give evidence for that reason.

Evidence that was given was often mixed and based on perceptions rather than data and includes the following: