UAE weather live: Emirates hit by severe storms
When the UAE was hit by record rainfall this week, many employees were told to stay at home rather than face potentially dangerous conditions travelling to work on flooded roads.
Remote work for federal employees has been extended to the end of the week and the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation has urged private sector companies to adopt flexible work patterns in light of the hazardous travel conditions.
While in recent days some UAE staff remained at home out of necessity, for many remote working is standard practice come rain or shine, with employees permitted to stay away from the office for some or all of the week.
This has especially been the case since the Covid-19 pandemic, when working from home became the new normal and many employers chose not to require staff to return to the office full time.
The return-to-office mandates signal mistrust or lack of trust
Dr Mark Shuai Ma,
associate professor of business administration at Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh
That a significant proportion of employees now work from home regularly – or can switch to doing so easily, as was the case in the UAE recently – reflects improvements in technology.
"The technology for remote working is much more mature and people know how to do it and most people have experience with remote or with flexible working, so people’s productivity will be much higher," said Dr Mark Shuai Ma, an associate professor of business administration in the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh.
As well as file sharing and online meetings, such as through Zoom, there are myriad services for companies whose staff work from home, including instant messaging and project management tools.
According to survey figures from the US, in 2023 about 28 per cent of full-time employees had a hybrid work pattern, spending some days in the office and others at home, while nearly 13 per cent worked solely at home.
Back to office drive
The option to work from home may be offered to a greater proportion of staff in Europe and North America, because business services jobs account for a larger share of the economy here than in some other parts of the world.
Numerous organisations are bringing staff back to the office and some high-profile business leaders have criticised working from home, with Elon Musk, who runs Tesla and X, even branding it "morally wrong".
There have been reports that more companies plan to introduce what are sometimes termed return-to-office (RTO) mandates, although staff often are not required to spend as many days in the office as they did before the pandemic.
The computer company IBM recently said that managers must spend at least three days a week in the office, while Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer, is among those to have mandated five-days-a-week attendance.
As reported in The National, two thirds of companies surveyed last year by the financial services company KPMG said that by 2026 there would probably be a return to office-based work.
However, according to a recent paper by Dr Ma and Yuye Ding, also of the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business, there could be dangers for companies that enforce RTO mandates.
In their study, which analysed US companies, they found "significant declines" in satisfaction among employees who had been compelled to return to the office.
This decline in morale, the researchers found, came without any clear benefits to their companies’ financial performance from having staff back in the office more often.
Why ditching remote work may not be the smart move
Indeed Dr Ma said that lower job satisfaction associated with having to come into the office "could translate into lower motivation and productivity", so forcing staff back into the workplace may not be "a smart move".
"The return-to-office mandates signal mistrust or lack of trust," he said.
"The employees are performing really well, but the manager is saying, ‘You’re not being productive, you’re being lazy'."
Allowing employees to decide whether or how much they work from home is a benefit that can be offered without any outlay by the employer, unlike with cash bonuses or stock options, Dr Ma said.
There seems to be greater demand from job applicants for the chance to work from home. According to ResumeOK, a careers website, the demand for remote jobs increased 10-fold between 2019 and 2022.
However, the extent to which staff want to, or should, work from home may vary with age.
Some observers think that more youthful employees are best advised to go in to the office, with Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing in New York University’s Stern School of Business, saying at a summit last year that they "need to be out of the house".
"You should never be at home. That’s what I tell young people. Home is for seven hours of sleep and that’s it. The amount of time you spend at home is inversely correlated to your success professionally and romantically," he reportedly said.
Call for hybrid working model
Stephen Wood, professor of management at the University of Leicester in the UK, said that young people mostly want "at least a hybrid" work pattern with some attendance in the office.
"They know … that having interactions is the best way of inducting into a job and getting used to the norms of a job cannot be done working from home. Most youngsters want a bit of interaction," he said.
For middle-aged employees, there may be stronger reasons why they want – and perhaps need – to work from home, for example, if they have to look after children or elderly relatives.
"They have much more pressure on their daily lives," Dr Ma said. "Adding another hour or two hours of commute is too much."
Sometimes, though, going in to the office can tie in well with the lifestyles of people who have children, Prof Wood said.
"For some women, it’s easier to organise their life when they don’t work from home," he said.
"They drop off their children, go to work, then pick them up.
"The desire to separate work and home life [can be] quite strong. There are plenty of people who want to segment their work from their home and some may get fed up working from home."
Dr Ma said that many older staff were heads of "empty-nest families" after children left home, and could feel isolated if they worked remotely all the time.
An additional reason for such staff members to go to the office is that they may be ideally placed to mentor younger employees.
The ideal situation, according to Dr Ma, may be to allow employees the choice of how many days a week they go into the office, with most likely to decide to spend two or three days at home.
"Some research suggests people need to be in a quiet environment for at last 45 minutes in order to have some deep thinking. That’s easier to do at home or in a quiet place rather than in an office where there are people chatting," he said.
"You could allow teams or individuals to decide where they want to work each day, but the teams could go to the office together to exchange opinions, which facilitates higher creativity and productivity."
A version of this article was first published in February 2024
Walls
Louis Tomlinson
3 out of 5 stars
(Syco Music/Arista Records)
Five expert hiking tips
Always check the weather forecast before setting off
Make sure you have plenty of water
Set off early to avoid sudden weather changes in the afternoon
Wear appropriate clothing and footwear
Take your litter home with you
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
The biog
Name: Marie Byrne
Nationality: Irish
Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption
Book: Seagull by Jonathan Livingston
Life lesson: A person is not old until regret takes the place of their dreams
Coffee: black death or elixir of life?
It is among the greatest health debates of our time; splashed across newspapers with contradicting headlines - is coffee good for you or not?
Depending on what you read, it is either a cancer-causing, sleep-depriving, stomach ulcer-inducing black death or the secret to long life, cutting the chance of stroke, diabetes and cancer.
The latest research - a study of 8,412 people across the UK who each underwent an MRI heart scan - is intended to put to bed (caffeine allowing) conflicting reports of the pros and cons of consumption.
The study, funded by the British Heart Foundation, contradicted previous findings that it stiffens arteries, putting pressure on the heart and increasing the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke, leading to warnings to cut down.
Numerous studies have recognised the benefits of coffee in cutting oral and esophageal cancer, the risk of a stroke and cirrhosis of the liver.
The benefits are often linked to biologically active compounds including caffeine, flavonoids, lignans, and other polyphenols, which benefit the body. These and othetr coffee compounds regulate genes involved in DNA repair, have anti-inflammatory properties and are associated with lower risk of insulin resistance, which is linked to type-2 diabetes.
But as doctors warn, too much of anything is inadvisable. The British Heart Foundation found the heaviest coffee drinkers in the study were most likely to be men who smoked and drank alcohol regularly.
Excessive amounts of coffee also unsettle the stomach causing or contributing to stomach ulcers. It also stains the teeth over time, hampers absorption of minerals and vitamins like zinc and iron.
It also raises blood pressure, which is largely problematic for people with existing conditions.
So the heaviest drinkers of the black stuff - some in the study had up to 25 cups per day - may want to rein it in.
Rory Reynolds
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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BRIEF SCORES:
Toss: Nepal, chose to field
UAE 153-6: Shaiman (59), Usman (30); Regmi 2-23
Nepal 132-7: Jora 53 not out; Zahoor 2-17
Result: UAE won by 21 runs
Series: UAE lead 1-0
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
La Mer lowdown
La Mer beach is open from 10am until midnight, daily, and is located in Jumeirah 1, well after Kite Beach. Some restaurants, like Cupagahwa, are open from 8am for breakfast; most others start at noon. At the time of writing, we noticed that signs for Vicolo, an Italian eatery, and Kaftan, a Turkish restaurant, indicated that these two restaurants will be open soon, most likely this month. Parking is available, as well as a Dh100 all-day valet option or a Dh50 valet service if you’re just stopping by for a few hours.
Blonde
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The chef's advice
Troy Payne, head chef at Abu Dhabi’s newest healthy eatery Sanderson’s in Al Seef Resort & Spa, says singles need to change their mindset about how they approach the supermarket.
“They feel like they can’t buy one cucumber,” he says. “But I can walk into a shop – I feed two people at home – and I’ll walk into a shop and I buy one cucumber, I’ll buy one onion.”
Mr Payne asks for the sticker to be placed directly on each item, rather than face the temptation of filling one of the two-kilogram capacity plastic bags on offer.
The chef also advises singletons not get too hung up on “organic”, particularly high-priced varieties that have been flown in from far-flung locales. Local produce is often grown sustainably, and far cheaper, he says.
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
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It’ll be summer in the city as car show tries to move with the times
If 2008 was the year that rocked Detroit, 2019 will be when Motor City gives its annual car extravaganza a revamp that aims to move with the times.
A major change is that this week's North American International Auto Show will be the last to be held in January, after which the event will switch to June.
The new date, organisers said, will allow exhibitors to move vehicles and activities outside the Cobo Center's halls and into other city venues, unencumbered by cold January weather, exemplified this week by snow and ice.
In a market in which trends can easily be outpaced beyond one event, the need to do so was probably exacerbated by the decision of Germany's big three carmakers – BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi – to skip the auto show this year.
The show has long allowed car enthusiasts to sit behind the wheel of the latest models at the start of the calendar year but a more fluid car market in an online world has made sales less seasonal.
Similarly, everyday technology seems to be catching up on those whose job it is to get behind microphones and try and tempt the visiting public into making a purchase.
Although sparkly announcers clasp iPads and outline the technical gadgetry hidden beneath bonnets, people's obsession with their own smartphones often appeared to offer a more tempting distraction.
“It's maddening,” said one such worker at Nissan's stand.
The absence of some pizzazz, as well as top marques, was also noted by patrons.
“It looks like there are a few less cars this year,” one annual attendee said of this year's exhibitors.
“I can't help but think it's easier to stay at home than to brave the snow and come here.”
ABU DHABI ORDER OF PLAY
Starting at 10am:
Daria Kasatkina v Qiang Wang
Veronika Kudermetova v Annet Kontaveit (10)
Maria Sakkari (9) v Anastasia Potapova
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Donna Vekic (16) v Bernarda Pera
Ekaterina Alexandrova v Zarina Diyas
How%20to%20avoid%20getting%20scammed
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ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
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The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
SPECS
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Naga
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Spider-Man: No Way Home
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Al Jazira 3 Persepolis 2
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Persepolis: Alipour (42'), Mensha (84')
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
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Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
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