![](\"http:\/\/squarehr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/alan-sugar-calls-pwc-friday-afternoons-off-a-joke.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nEntrepreneur and celebrity Alan Sugar has dismissed PriceWaterhouseCoopers\u2019 decision to give workers Friday afternoons off throughout summer as a \u2018bloody joke\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n The big four services giant has extended last year\u2019s summer Fridays scheme to June<\/a> this year after a survey of employees showed a large majority in favour on the grounds of wellbeing and productivity.<\/p>\n Sugar, whose most recent series of The Apprentice concluded late in March, tweeted in response to the PwC plan: \u201cThis is a bloody joke. The lazy gits make me sick. Call me old fashioned but all this work from home BS is a total joke. There is no way people work as hard or productive as when they had to turn up at a work location. The pandemic has had long lasting negative effect.\u201d<\/p>\n PwC has not yet responded to Sugar\u2019s comments, which can be seen as a rather ruder rejection of hybrid working policies than Brexit minister Jacob Rees-Mogg\u2019s recent pronouncements<\/a>, but others in the sector have not held back. Matt Monette, UK&I country lead at payroll, onboarding and compliance firm Deel, said: \u201cThe suggestion that people do not work as hard or are not as productive when they work remotely is simply not true.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the UK and across the world we are seeing a fundamental shift in attitudes as workers and employers alike realise that remote and flexible working can in fact boost productivity and commercial performance. Not least because borderless hiring means you really can hire the best people, anywhere. Research we conducted found that 51% of remote workers worldwide believe their productivity has in fact improved.<\/p>\n \u201cRemote working also has demonstrable benefits on wellbeing, work-life balance and salaries. Almost three-fifths of workers told us working remotely has afforded them a higher salary. Mothers also told us that working remotely has been beneficial.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a bloody joke. The lazy gits make me sick. Call me old fashioned but all this work from home BS is a total joke. There is no way people work as hard or productive as when they had to turn up at a work location. The pandemic has had long lasting negative effect. pic.twitter.com\/MvS2cX9K8C<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Lord Sugar (@Lord_Sugar) May 5, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Sugar is not shy when it comes to tweeting controversial remarks. In addition to regularly trading insults with fellow celebrity Piers Morgan, in 2013 he tweeted a picture of Chinese child crying \u201cbecause he was told off for leaving production line of iPhone 5\u201d. The message was investigated by the Merseyside police force\u2019s specialist hate crime investigation team, who decided that it should be classed as a \u201chate incident\u201d although no crime had taken place.<\/p>\n On 20 June 2018, Sugar tweeted a picture of the Senegal national football team edited next to images of fake handbags and sunglasses, claiming that some of the players looked just like hawkers he had encountered in Marbella. He later defended his tweet as a joke before taking it down, after accusations of racism.<\/p>\n\n