BrewDog’s co-founder James Watt said that the UK was ‘one the least work-oriented nations in the world’. He made this statement to defend his criticisms of people’s obsession over work-life-balance.
Watt, who stepped down as Chief Executive for the Punk IPA Brewer in May 2024 said in a social media video that he believes “the entire concept of work-life integration was invented by those who hate their work”. If you enjoy what you do, then you don’t require work-life-balance, but rather work-life integration.
He appeared with his fiancee Georgia Toffolo. She is a social media influencer and appeared on Made in Chelsea.
Toffolo runs a company that produces raw dog food. He said the couple was aligned in “a lack work-life balance but in a beautiful way”.
She continued: “We love what we do and our other half is supportive. They are also obsessed with it.”
Watt claimed that this week people have said they would “like to murder him with the hammer”.
The video was well received on LinkedIn, with nearly 2 million views. He also said that the overwhelming majority of responses were positive. On other platforms, such as Instagram, where the video went viral, the abuse was “off-the-charts”.
In a posting on LinkedIn, yesterday, he stated that he did not find the video to be controversial. He asked, “What does this say about our society if a post extolling hard work is met with such a furious response?”
“As a country, we like to make jokes about the French, but in reality, our output per hour falls 13% below theirs.
“I’ve heard many international leaders state that the UK work ethic is not up to par with other nations, particularly the US.”
He cited 2023 research by King’s College London’s Policy Institute, which found that Britain was one of the least work-oriented nations in the world out of the 24 nations included in the study.
He also referred to a <a href=”https://ifs.org.uk/articles/why-isnt-britain-getting-richer-anymore-0#:~:text=The%20Productivity%20Puzzle,work%20done%20in%20the%20country. The Institute for Fiscal Studies published a paper in 2024 entitled “Why isn’t Britain becoming richer?”. This analysed Britain’s declining productivity.
Watt continued: “Now this is not to say that nobody works hard in the UK–I am aware of millions of you who work tirelessly every day. It’s not necessary for people to adopt my philosophy of work-life balance.
Since when has it become acceptable to call someone a liar for their work ethic? How can we compete in the global market if we cannot have a civil discussion about work ethics without devolving into personal attacks?
BrewDog was criticized a year ago after it announced that it would no longer pay its employees the voluntary “real Living Wage and only pay the national minimum wage. The company was accused in 2021 of having a “toxic” culture.
