A few people asked me this week how I normally deal with flexible working, given our discussion last week about snowed-in staff working from home. Well, I have a confession to make: I know it's not very progressive for me to admit to this, but I really don't like it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that my heart sinks every time someone brings the subject comes up.

It's not that I don't trust people to work hard when they're away from my steely glare. Well, ok - it's precisely that, in some cases. I was only thinking the other day about one person in particular - now very much an ex-employee - who used to develop a sudden obsession with home-working every time England were playing a cricket series (then again, he spent the whole time following it online when he was in the office, so I suppose it's as broad as it's long). When people see flexible working as a synonym for 'working in front of the TV in pyjamas', it’s always going to end in tears.

But it's actually more that I just like having everyone in one place. I know that these days you can email, and phone, and IM, and webcast, and Skype, and Twitter, and so on - indeed, there have never been more ways to keep in touch. I just find everything so much easier when you can see people react in real-time, rather than at 30 frames a minute; where you can have a conversation without that annoying delay I always get in conference calls and web conferences. Basically, I just like speaking to people in person. I suppose Google would probably argue that this makes me a bit of an old-fashioned freak these days.

There's also a team element: I don't care what anyone says, it's a hell of a lot easier to foster a spirit of collaboration when everyone's in the same room – no matter how good a manager you are. It's also much easier to gauge the general mood, to assess what people are good at, and to nip problems in the bud (there's always a chance that flexible working will lead to resentments, which is one headache I can do without just at the moment). And better still, if more people are in the office, I have more people to make me coffee.

That said, I do appreciate the principle behind flexible working. I know that if I don't offer it, I'm effectively discriminating against particular sections of the workforce - not least, women with children. I don't have children (or even any prospect of conceiving them, at the moment), but I can tell you now that there’s no chance of me packing in work to spend my days baking cakes. On the assumption that plenty of other women feel the same, I want to give them the chance to work for me. Besides, it’s a win-win - offering flexible working is popular with staff, and cheap to implement, so I’d be crazy not to.

But even so, I can’t help wishing the Government wasn't forcing us all to expand it this year, of all years...