Working from home has made it “very difficult” for young people to develop interpersonal skills, the Irish SME Assocation (ISME) has said. 

CEO Neil McDonnell made the claim after businessman Denis O’Brien condemned the practice in a speech at Dublin's Mansion House last week. 

Mr O’Brien reportedly called working from home ‘nonsense’ and said he only hires people who come into the office. 

On Lunchtime Live,  Mr McDonnell said ISME has a number of clients who feel WFH has been harmful. 

“It’s extremely hard to track the productivity of people,” he said. 

“And also, bear in mind, a lot of the people we would represent in ISME are in the services sector. 

“Work from home for all bar the back offices is impossible; I’m talking about things like retail, hospitality, nursing homes, childcare.” 

Mr McDonnell argued people need to be in the office working together in order to collaborate effectively. 

“In design, in engineering, architecture… people actually work far better within the one room on the one task,” he said. 

Young man working at home. Picture by: Alamy.com.

Mr McDonnell added this was particularly the case for young people. 

“I was at a very interesting presentation last year in Limerick where a financial services house set about hiring new recruits - we’re talking about school or college leavers,” he said. 

“Irrespective of qualifications, the employer went straight to the bottom of the CV and if they didn’t see a pub, restaurant or hotel as part of work experience for that person, they wouldn’t hire them - purely on the basis of interpersonal experience. 

“Your ability to converse and deal with another human being is absolutely core to the work relationship.

“Work from home - especially if someone has started that at a young age - it is very difficult to develop those interpersonal skills on a professional basis.” 

A woman is working in her apartment. Picture by: Uwe Anspach/dpa.

Also on the programme, Laura Bambrick, a spokeserson for trade union ICTU, said there is no evidence that WFH is harming the economy. 

“If we look at the numbers of jobs created, the numbers of people in the workforce, we’ve never had so many people working,” she said. 

“If we look at our income tax receipts and our VAT receipts, we’ve never had so many people earning and so many people spending. 

“That’s not to say there isn’t some legitimacy to the arguments that were made because we have to face facts that change can be scary for people.” 

She added that it is a positive thing that so many people are able to work from home. 

“The reason why Ireland is a leader in Europe on the number of people working remotely some of the week, [it] is an indication of how well our economy is working,” she said. 

“We have high-end, high value jobs… If we were still working in the fields or the factory floor, we couldn’t do those jobs.

“So, it’s a real indication of our competitiveness.”

Main image: A young businesswoman working from home. Picture by: Alamy.com