US billionaire wants an end to work from home ‘excuses’

Writing within the Washington Post, former New York mayor and Bloomberg LP co-founder Michael Bloomberg declared “the pandemic is over” – regardless of hospitalisations for COVID-19 lately trending up within the US – and that there was now not any motive for individuals to keep away from the workplace.

The fundamental focus of his ire was public service staff in Washington DC, a metropolis which he stated had turn into a “shadow of its former self”.

“Excuses for allowing offices to sit empty should end,” he stated.

He criticised US President Joe Biden for failing to get federal workers again to the workplace when, he stated, increasingly non-public firms had been making it a requirement.

“At Bloomberg, for more than a year, we have been asking employees to work in our offices at least three days a week,” he wrote.

“There will always be a need for exceptions, of course, but more than 80 per cent of our people have been meeting the standard.”

He claimed taxpayers had been footing the invoice for presidency places of work that remained largely empty, and that accessibility and high quality of federal providers had been struggling.

“In jobs where productivity is hard to measure, face-to-face supervision and mentoring are especially important,” he stated.

Bloomberg acknowledged that some employment modifications applied through the pandemic, together with versatile work preparations, would doubtless proceed for good motive.

“Yet overall, there’s no good reason why government workers have been so much slower than everyone else to get back to the office at least a few days a week,” he wrote.

In 2020, Bloomberg, who served as mayor of New York from 2002 to 2013, introduced his candidacy for the presidency of the US, as a Democrat.

His self-funded bid, swallowing an estimated US$1 billion ($1.52 billion) set a file for costliest primaries marketing campaign in historical past, although he netted solely 61 delegates earlier than withdrawing from the race.