Thing I've observed about pretending to work most of the time: no one notices that you're pretending to work. I still get raises, no one has a long chat with me about my future with the company, nothing.
This strongly suggests that the company just really doesn't expect much out of me for what they're paying, so why should I give them anything more? It's bad enough I have to give them 40 hours (plus commute) of my week when I can apparently get done what they want done in a fraction of that.
Is this laziness, if the alternative is essentially doing extra work for free?
People in the UK working the average job generally commute into the city, the wages that are generally paid mean that folks couldn't afford to live in the city.
I’m more concerned about the inverse. Employees OVER working at home because they are unable or unwilling to stop.