Mark Dixon, the billionaire founding father of IWG and architect of the Regus empire, has dismissed calls to ban working from house as “idiotic”, arguing that the way forward for productiveness lies in higher administration, not obligatory workplace attendance.
Chatting with The Times, Dixon responded to remarks by Reform UK chief Nigel Farage, who just lately declared that individuals are no more productive at house and pledged to scrap the follow if his celebration ever got here to energy. For Dixon, such considering belongs to a different period. “The concept the one place you may work is in an workplace is idiotic,” he stated. Advocates of 5 days per week within the workplace, he added, are “naive” and “Luddites”.
As chief govt and largest shareholder of IWG, the £2.2bn group behind the Regus and Areas manufacturers, Dixon is hardly impartial. The corporate promotes hybrid working as a core proposition and operates greater than 4,400 areas throughout 122 international locations. But his view is knowledgeable by scale and information as a lot as ideology. “Work might be achieved completely wherever at the moment,” he stated. “The entire notion of places of work has fully modified.”
The interview passed off at Areas Liverpool Avenue within the Metropolis, a just lately refurbished location the place company fits and start-up hoodies share communal tables. Dixon, 66, is softly spoken moderately than bombastic, however unequivocal in his beliefs. “The important thing downside with work and productiveness is the way you handle folks,” he stated. “It’s not whether or not they’re at house or in an workplace.”
His strategy is to handle outputs moderately than presence. For his roughly 1,000 head-office workers, a part of a world workforce of round 9,000, the emphasis is on supply moderately than surveillance. As for the oft-cited “water cooler moments” supposedly misplaced in distant working, Dixon believes they should be intentionally curated moderately than left to probability. “You’ve received to schedule inventive durations,” he stated. “You’ll be able to’t simply depend on random encounters.”
Dixon’s personal profession has been something however standard. Born in Essex to a automotive mechanic, he started his entrepreneurial life promoting topsoil to neighbours on the age of 12. After leaving college at 16 and travelling the world, he launched a sandwich supply enterprise within the Eighties earlier than promoting his bakery enterprise for £800,000. That capital financed his transfer to Brussels in 1989, the place he noticed businesspeople conducting conferences in cafés, and recognized a marketplace for versatile workplace area. The primary Regus centre opened later that yr.
Enlargement adopted quickly by way of Latin America, China and the US. Regus listed in London in 2000 however narrowly prevented collapse throughout the dotcom crash. Extra just lately, IWG has outlasted high-profile rival WeWork, which filed for chapter safety in 2023 after a spectacular fall from a $47bn valuation.
Regardless of persistent hypothesis about shifting its itemizing to the US, Dixon stated such a transfer isn’t imminent. Whereas about half of IWG’s enterprise is American, he cautioned that scale is crucial earlier than any transatlantic swap. “It’s essential to be huge there; you don’t wish to be a minnow,” he stated, suggesting annual earnings would wish to exceed £1bn earlier than the corporate might justify the hassle.
On UK politics, Dixon was much less restrained. He questioned whether or not successive governments have actually prioritised enterprise competitiveness, arguing that long-term financial success will depend on fostering sturdy firms and industries.
Now based mostly in Monaco, Dixon retains a 27 per cent stake in IWG. Requested about succession, he acknowledged the inevitability of change. “The problem for any chief executive-founder is succession,” he stated. “This can be a younger man’s enterprise.” He insisted he has no ego-driven attachment to the position, solely to the corporate’s success.
In the intervening time, nevertheless, he stays centered on development, and on demonstrating that hybrid working can ship outcomes. The day earlier than our dialog, he had taken his workforce to a close-by pub after an extended assembly. “We received rather a lot achieved in two pints,” he stated with a smile. “It was very productive.”
