Virgin holds 'horrible' Corporate Day at work

Sir Richard Branson is a well-known advocate of flexible hours and remote working. So when Virgin Group recently held a "Corporate Day", tongues undoubtedly started to wag.

Employees were asked to go against the grain and wear traditional office attire, behave in a conventional way and arrive at 9am. Staff also had to use the titles Mr and Mrs, they were not allowed to look at social media and were prohibited from making personal phone calls.

In an interview with the BBC, Branson explained the method behind the madness. He said that the purpose of the exercise was to give his employees “a taste of what a lot of the world is still run like. It was a horrible experience for everybody.”

An integral part of Branson’s business mantra is flexibility, a benefit he revoked during the “Corporate Day” experience. In a blog style post Virgin Australia’s Travel webpage last year, Branson explained his own mantra for achieving a perfect work-life balance. He wrote: “As technology advances at a rapid rate, the world is becoming more and more connected, making many people available by phone or email, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.