Apprentice winner Joseph Valente has claimed that the work from home culture means that it is 'almost impossible' to hire staff willing to work in an office
Joseph Valente said it should not be regarded as a ‘human right’ and is damaging businesses
Apprentice winner Joseph Valente has claimed that the work from home culture means that it is “almost impossible” to hire staff willing to work in an office.
The 2015 series winner was commenting on reports that Zoom has asked its staff to stop working from home and return to the office.
He told GB News: “It's taken them the time to realise that you can't manage a workforce or run an operation with people spread across the country or the globe and having to manage them through a system or a Zoom setup.
“It's very, very difficult for managers and people within the organisation to get the best out of people.
"And naturally, most people that work from home, I personally believe, just aren't going to deliver the same value that they would working from an office.
“The argument for working from home only really applies to the very big businesses out there in the UK and across the country, because 95 per cent of businesses in the UK are below a million pound in turnover.
"And they just don't have the infrastructure, the systems, the teams to be able to manage people anyway.”
It comes after Zoom told workers who live within a "commutable distance" of the company's offices, including in the UK, to make the journey on designated team days.
Falling net profits saw Zoom join other tech firms like Meta and Amazon in cutting jobs - laying off 1,300 employees earlier this year.
In a discussion with Patrick Christys, Valente added: “Having people working from home is not a human right and I think that’s, with all respect, a crazy thing to say because businesses are providing opportunities for people to work.
"And so people should be focused on doing what the business needs to make the business work.
“Because ultimately that is the provider of the income for the household and if that business suffers or doesn't succeed, then they're ultimately going to be left without a job.”
He added: “The recruitment challenge that now small businesses face because they need to be flexible because people have a belief that businesses just work when they're sitting at home on Zoom is just ridiculous.
“And if you try and recruit in this market now in this current climate as a business owner, I don't know if you are or you aren't but I am.
“It's almost impossible for a business to be able to find people that are willing to come into the office.”
