The four day week, did Jeremy Corbyn have a point?
Welcome to the 12 new subscribers since our last edition. If you are new here, my name is Jimmy McLoughlin, a former Downing Street adviser turned podcaster. I write this notebook on the most interesting things I have seen on the future of work, jobs, technology and somewhat occasionally politics.
🎉 Live event announcement - Freddie Fforde, Patch
🏫 Interview with Justine Greening
🐏 🌏 No Longer Wayne’s World …
📅 The four day week, did Jeremy Corbyn have a point?
Once upon a time - or, just before the 2019 election to be precise - I was asked what Jeremy Corbyn policy I would adopt if I had to pick one.
I have to admit, it was a tough one. Business and politics is all about knowing your opponent, or the competition. But here I was, just a few months out of Downing Street, being asked to back something proposed by somebody with whom I fundamentally disagreed with on almost everything.
After a bit of head-scratching and attempting to wriggle out of giving an answer, I gave it some proper thought and settled on something: the four day working week.
This was before the pandemic, but it was already clear where the corporate world was heading. At Number 10, I used to spend Fridays meeting entrepreneurs and business leaders in their offices - partly just to fuel my slightly geeky personal obsession with corporate HQs (as I talked about on Ed Vaizey’s podcast last year).
I remember being surprised at first at how empty some of these offices were even then. But my main takeaway was how unbothered the CEOs I was meeting were by their half-filled offices, it just didn’t seem like an issue
Of course the hybrid working debate has kicked on massively since then, and is now top of the jobs agenda. It’s still a controversial one for sure. As Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey told me - he’s not a huge fan of fully-remote working, and as the argument of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s letters to civil servants shows, it’s still a touchy one.
But competition for talent right now is hot - there are now more job vacancies in the UK than the total number of people unemployed, the first time that’s ever happened. It’s a workers’ market, and hybrid options, or extra holidays and time off are already a huge part of attracting and retaining the best staff.
Back then Corbyn’s idea of a four-day week was radical, two years of pandemic later and it seems a whole lot less controversial.
It is why it was such a pleasure to have Lucy Minton, the founder of Kitt on who recently designed the Oatly offices. The future of the office is undoubtedly a topic that we shall return too.
🎉 Live event announcement - - Freddie Fforde, Patch
I am really excited that we have secured Freddie Fforde to be our first live event on Wednesday 3rd August hosted in Tooting, South London.
Freddie’s company Patch is one of the most interesting companies in the future of work space, as he focuses on ‘decentralised workspace’.
He has raised some money from some serious A-players like Robin Klein (co-founder of LocalGlobe), Matt Clifford (co-founder of Entrepreneur First), Charlie Songhurst, Camilla Dolan (founding partner of sustainable investor Eka Ventures), Zoe Jervier (talent director for U.S. investment firm Sequoia).
You can read the piece on the fundraise in Techcrunch
It is a trial before I expect to sell out the O2 / Nou Camp next year 😂 😂
We’ll be releasing tickets at Sunday 10th July at 8pm, we will send the link through this notebook, so make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss it. 👇👇
🏫 Interview with Justine Greening
I will also be appearing at the ConservativeHome ‘jobs of the future’ conference on Tuesday 5th July at the RSA near Embankment tube station, where the headline speaker will be JJ Alum, Nadhim Zahawi.
I will be interviewing one of his predecessors, Rt Hon. Justine Greening talking to her about her initiative of the social mobility pledge, She also held other Cabinet posts as International Development Secretary and Transport Secretary, so we will have a lot to talk about when it comes to jobs.
Tickets are available for that here
🐏 🌏 No Longer Wayne’s World …
Wayne Rooney has left Derby County, and I am still gutted, already the caravan of news has moved on as it does so quickly in the modern world and the whole memory still feels rather numb.
Having idolised Rooney as a player, it felt surreal that he was ever at Derby, first as a player and then as a manager. It was even more so that he took not only a club, but a city to his heart. With a shell of a club remaining, he became a de facto spokesperson for so many people.
Frankly it was a surprising he stayed as long as he did, but being one of the ultimate fighters, he couldn’t resist the challenge.
The irony of course is it was ridiculous signings like Wayne Rooney that got us into such a financial mess and saw us deducted 21 points.
He took on an impossible task, and whilst he didn’t achieve it, he came remarkably close to avoiding relegation, getting at one stage to within 5 points of getting Derby out of the relegation zone.
He gave a club and a city, hope in its darkest hour, once a Ram, always a Ram.
Hopefully, a new owner is going to be sorted imminently and then I can start getting excited about how many more London and South West games there are in League One than in the Championship.
After all, 2022/23 could well be our season.
End of the Notebook …
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