Simon Arora | Working From Home is Unfair and Unproductive

How can you spot someone, you know, who is a legitimate entrepreneur with useful, valuable things to say, who's got the experience, and someone who's maybe faking it a bit on TikTok and Instagram, because we do need to know the difference if we want to learn how to be successful.

So the traits I look for and someone that I'm either thinking of hiring for the business or perhaps even investing as a passive investor is, first of all, work ethic. Work is worship. You know, it's. Without the hard work, it just doesn't happen. You know, that's the, that's the foundation stone of everything that follows. I think the second thing I look for is realism rather than naivety. So occasionally I meet an entrepreneur that's got an idea and it's half decent and it's something interesting, but they're looking to raise money at such a crazy valuation that you think that's just not, that's just naive. And if, if, if you're displaying that naivety in terms of your fundraising, you're probably going to display that naivety in terms of how you run the business, should it get off the ground. So, so people who are realistic, people who've got their feet on the ground, hard work matters.

Do you think society, maybe since Brexit lockdown, specifically in the uk, do you think the work ethics got a bit softer?

I'm not a fan of working from home and I know that's going to alienate more.

Well, I'm not either. So we'll go down in the same ship.

Yeah. So at B M, very little working from home. Just resisted it, did you? We take the view that, you know, if 40,000 wonderful colleagues are going to stores and serving customers day in, day out, you know, they don't have the luxury of working from home. So why should, you know, a few hundred people in the support centre be able to do so? That's not what we're about. It's not fair, it's not internally fair within the organization.

This recent budget should warn you that your pension is not safe and secure and they're coming for your inheritance. Do you even know how much is in your pension or where your pension is invested? Add to this the recent inheritance tax grab on your pensions and, and the risk of a market crash. You probably didn't know this and I didn't until recently, but physical gold can be added to your pension. Pot gold is inheritance tax free and has grown 700% in the last 20 years. You probably know from my content, I'm Investing heavily in silver and gold. And that's why I've partnered with Direct Bullion. Myself and Nigel Farage are brand ambassadors and direct bullion can help you with gold to protect and grow your pension. I buy my gold and silver from Direct Bullion and I don't earn any money on any purchases of gold or silver if you buy direct from Direct Bullion. So if you go to robmore.directbullion.com you can get a great price on your silver and gold and you can get the Pension Gold Investing guide completely for free. As you know, I don't do many strategic partnerships and when I do, I do them with people who are credible, who've been doing it a long time, who invest in things that I invest in too. And gold and silver's going wild. I'm investing heavily in gold and silver and I recommend you check out robmore.directbullion.com.

And you know, as I think about my career, those first three jobs where I learned so much and I learned things that then allowed me to apply them in my own business career that wouldn't. Those learnings just would not have happened.

You need to be on the shop floor, don't you?

Or in my case, I need to be watching how a partner at a strategy consulting firm is approaching a problem. I need to be brainstorming with an associate. I need to be going out. You can't do it at home. And frankly, listen, I know that when I, for short periods have been working from home, unfortunately, every now and then the TV's on in the background, I'm distracted by the Amazon delivery or something turning up people turning up for podcasts. Absolutely. And you know, on a more lighthearted note, every time I walk through the kitchen, I'd open the fridge door and see what's going on. So. So, yeah, it just doesn't work for me. And you know.

This recent budget should warn you that your pension is not safe and secure and they're coming for your inheritance. Do you even know how much is in your pension or where your pension is invested? Add to this the recent inheritance tax grab on your pensions and the risk of a market crash. You probably didn't know this and I didn't until recently, but physical gold can be added to your pension pot. Gold is inheritance tax free and has grown 700% in the last 20 years. You probably know from my content I'm investing heavily in silver and gold and that's why I've partnered with Direct Bullion myself and Nigel Farage are Brand ambassadors and direct bullion can help you with gold to protect and grow your pension. I buy my gold and silver from direct bullion and I don't earn any money on any purchases of gold or silver in if you buy direct from direct bullion. So if you go to robmore.directbullion.com you can get a great price on your silver and gold and you can get the pension Gold investing guide completely for free. As you know, I don't do many strategic partnerships and when I do, I do them with people who are credible, who've been doing it a long time, who invest in things that I invest into and gold and silver's going wild. I'm investing heavily in gold and silver. I, I recommend you check out robmore directbullion.com I'm, I say this with a.

Smile on my face. Being hungry at work, it helps if you're physically hungry as well, right? Yes. If you're going to the fridge door three times a day, you're not physically hungry.

So you're like not eating the day.

I know it's a cliche, I know it sounds naff.

It's not.

Breakfast is for wimps. I don't, I'm not, I'm not that I don't. For me, a coffee in the morning, practically nothing for lunch, maybe a cup of soup. Just when you're working, when you're, when you're, when you're in chi, when you're in, on, in the flow, you don't want to eat, you're working. Yeah.

Wow. And what would you say to people who's just gonna think you're a bit old fashioned? Because some of my staff do push back. We don't do work from home. Million reasons. How are you going to get a promotion if you're not seen? Those conversations that naturally occur can just change something instead of getting an out of office. The culture, the energy, you know, if you're going to fight against a big competitor, you need energy and I've not been able to see that recreated from home. But people do say, Rob, you're a bit old fashioned. You know, some jobs do need to work from home and it's a noisy office. I can concentrate better at home. So what do you say to someone who says you're being a bit old fashioned?

What I'm saying is that of course it works for certain types of organizations, but for organizations where you're talking about large numbers of people, hundreds if not a thousand plus people, the reality is it's very hard for the senior leadership, or indeed your line manager to really know how hard you're working. Because, you know, people are different. There is always going to be 10% of your workforce that frankly are just going to do the bare minimum and are frankly going to be walking the dog for a couple of hours when actually they should be grafting away. And if people are in the office, you know, frankly, how many hours are being put in and, you know, these alternatives like, oh, well, you can have software on the laptop to see whether they're working or not. That's big brother. That's 1984. Sort of weird stuff. I'd just rather you come to work, enjoy being at work, learn from people around you, feel part of a winning team rather than being stuck at home. This episode was brought to you by Disruptive Media, helping bold entrepreneurs stand out through podcasting, video and social content. Visit disruptivemedia.co.uk to learn more. This episode was brought to you by Disruptive Media, helping bold entrepreneurs stand out through podcasting, video and social content. Visit disruptivemedia.co uk to learn more.