A husband has become a convicted criminal and his wife fired from her high flying job after he overhead information during a business call made while she was working from home. Tyler Loudon and his wife worked from home, as an increasing number of people have done since the pandemic. However, his wife was a mergers and acquisitions executive for oil company, BP, and her confidential work calls were not private. His actions became the target of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation that caused severe damage to the company’s reputation.
Loudon used information gleaned from the calls to make $US 1.76 million from insider trading when he learned of a $1.3 billion takeover. His wife has filed for divorce.
There are few companies that do not deal in some way with confidential client data. Any business, official body or company – whether an accountant, family solicitor, utility company, doctor, MP, builder or plumber – will hold confidential information about its clients. This might include personal information, addresses, financials and more.
In the average family home, this information will be held on home PCs, mobile phones or print and not in the secure environments in which company business should be carried out.
Data security, whether it be customers’ confidential information or business confidential information, is only one of the reasons that working from home is a liability for businesses.
Productivity is questionable when the distractions of a family home can lure home workers away from their desk. Switching on the baby sitter (or TV as you may know it) does not keep the children quiet for long. Walking the dog, mowing the lawn or making yet another cuppa are all things we do to distract ourselves when we know we should be working.
Yet waiting for customer services of just about any company working from home leads to endless waits and unanswered calls, poor communications, forgotten appointments and post that doesn’t reach us. In just the last year, I have spoken to customer services with background distractions of chickens clucking, children screaming for attention, and the TV on in the background.
The government estimates that it alone now has almost six million workers working from home. It has never taken longer to receive a new passport (ten weeks) or book a driving test (six months) or make changes to Land Registry. Unfortunately, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s attempt to get his department’s staff back in the office by leaving a note that read: “I look forward to seeing you in the office very soon” fell flat.
Health and safety rules also fly out the window when we work at home. Have you actually done, or been required to do, a risk assessment on your desk set up and working environment? Are you sitting with the recommended 90-degree angles of knees, elbows and keyboard? Are your chair and screen the correct height and sufficiently comfortable and suitable for working over long periods? And what of social skills, loneliness and mental health?
The evidence is incontrovertible. Declining output, health and safety issues, data security – what more do we need to see before we accept that working from home simply doesn’t … work, that is.