THE founder and former boss of BrewDog has said he believes the UK is one of the “least work-oriented countries in the world” as he suggested that people don’t need a “work-life balance”.
James Watt, who co-founded the Scottish craft beer giant in 2007, said in a social media post that the concept of a work-life balance was invented by those unhappy with their own careers.
The millionaire went on to suggest that people should instead aim to achieve “work-life integration”.
Watt stepped down from running BrewDog last year as he said at the time that he wanted to “take a bit of time off, to travel, to spend more time with my family and friends”.
Prior to Watt leaving his role a number of former staff members had signed a letter denouncing “toxic attitudes” in the workplace and said they had experienced a “residual feeling of fear” during their time at Brewdog.
At the time Watt admitted the “mistakes” were “100%” his fault and pledged to learn from the matter, although was later criticised for backtracking on other commitments like paying staff a real living wage.
“I think the whole concept of work-life balance was invented by people who hate the work that they do. If you love what you do, you don’t need work-life balance, you need work-life integration,” Watt said in a now-deleted Instagram post alongside his fiancée Georgia Toffolo.
“It’s so true, when I met James I was quite taken aback at how aligned we are in the important stuff and one of those things was a lack of work-life balance in a really beautiful way,” Toffolo added.
“Work knows no bounds. Constantly in our home, we are working but we do things we find incredibly fulfilling and we also have a supportive other half that loves that high-octane obsession with what we do,” she continued.
In the social media post Watt referenced research from the Policy Institute at King’s College London which stated that Britons are among the least likely of 24 surveyed nations to say work is central to their life.
He also cited statistics from the Office for National Statistics indicating UK output per hour is 13% lower than France’s.
“As a nation, we love to joke about the French being lazy,” Watt said. “But the reality is that our output per hour is lower than theirs.”
After deleting the original post Watt reposted his message on Instagram along with clarification that he had removed the first video as a result of offensive and abusive messages.
“I’m always up for respectful discussion but there is, after all, only so many times you can be called a gay Scottish egg-headed c*** in one day,” he wrote.
