Lord Alan Sugar says people need to get ‘bums back into the office’

Lord Alan Sugar has claimed a lot of young people “just want to sit at home” and should get back to the office.

In a BBC interview, he became the latest business veteran to criticise remote working, saying: “They’ve got to get their bums back into the office.”

Lord Sugar, 77, owns a large estate of office buildings across central London through his Amsprop property portfolio.

The adoption of hybrid working in recent years has been bad for office landlords because it makes buildings harder, and sometimes less lucrative, to lease.

Lord Sugar added: “I’m a great advocate of getting them back to work, because the only way an apprentice is going to learn is from his colleagues.”

He said: “It’s small things, like interaction with your more mature colleagues, that will tell you how to do this, how to do that.

“That is lacking in this work-from-home, zoom culture.”

The businessman said he could make an exception for software writers who “get up at three o’clock in the morning with some kind of brainstorm” and for people who are disabled.

Remote working policies were introduced by most companies during Covid-19 lockdowns, with office employees the most affected by them.

The most recent official data showed that 28% of the UK workforce is in hybrid work, meaning spending some days at the office or at home.

Meanwhile 44% of people travel to work every day, while 13% of people are fully remote, according to an October survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In responses to the survey, people said they spend more time on rest, exercise and wellbeing when they are able to spend some days at home.

The Labour Government is changing the law to give workers the right to work more flexibly.

Its upcoming Employment Rights Bill is set to make hybrid working an option for all unless their employer can prove it is unreasonable.

Nonetheless, a growing number of large corporates including Amazon and JP Morgan have called their employees back to the office full-time in recent months.

Bosses claim face-to-face contact is important for collaboration and say having employees in the office means they do more work.

Lord Sugar follows former Asda and Marks & Spencer boss Lord Stuart Rose in criticising remote working policies.

Lord Rose said earlier in January that remote work is not “proper work”.

He claimed: “We have regressed in this country in terms of working practices, productivity and in terms of the country’s wellbeing, I think, by 20 years in the last four.”

A biography of the ex-Asda chief on the supermarket’s website says he “appears to have no hobbies apart from work”.