[Misc] Working from Home - Have we seen a sea change ?

[nail-Z]

Our main office has been closed since March for all but essential visits. All electronic passes were deactivated and you need director approval just to get in. The 1900 desks it houses are mostly empty and they’ve assessed that, if social distancing were to remain, only 500 could be used.

No return before 1st January - probably later as they seem to be risk averse. However most people are coping with WFH - now they’ve invested a bit more in the IT infrastructure.

We have offices in other areas of the UK which are closing and many employees being offered WFH contracts.

It makes little difference to be personally. I do very little work when WFH but this is no different to when I was in the office. At least now I don’t have to pretend.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

People will spend the money saved on other things?

More a case of if less companies need insurance, the insurance company needs less people to sell etc.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

I've loved it. Woke up, chilled out. Took the 2yr old to nursery, came home and logged on by 8.30am.....then off to the gym as my 'lunch'. Will finish at 5 if i want and sit with the family for dinner. Its bliss. I log on earlier, tend to work later....and still have gained so much valuable time. 3 hours a day less in a car, less outgoings, i'm healthier for not going to a shop at lunch and eating rubbish.

Completely converted.

 

[Weststander]

With all the time / money saved working from home will we be able to attain - nationally - the holy grail of a universal 3-day weekend?

As an accountant with my own practice it is rare to find staff who want to come to an office and work full-time Monday to Friday, however the problem with getting two member of staff to cover the working week is that it is hard to find people who want to work in an office on Fridays.

It would appear from this thread most people are looking for a 50/50 split between office and WFH, but running an office is a cost and I can't see many employers willing to run a half-empty office on a long-term basis. I think smaller office hubs in small towns and villages have a bright future, and how many empty bank / building society buildings could be repurposed for this need? Almost every high street round here seems to have at least one such building.

I believe you, but wow that’s changed dramatically.

I’ve been in the same profession for over 30 years. When last in practice just 7 years ago and in all the decades leading up to then, every job advert for a full time trainee, part qual or qualified was met by 50 applicants. Eager to make it in a well paid profession. Often from A’levellers, graduates or EU visitors. Falling over themselves to leave unemployment, low skilled stop gap jobs or unhappy at another practice.

Part time applicants such as mum’s were frowned upon due to bad experiences of them being bare minimalists on output eg beginning the old packing process not long after their lunch.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

The ticketing system is ridiculous. Pre-lockdown I did three days a week in the office and two at home, yet it was cheaper to buy a seven day weekly ticket and not travel for four of those seven days!

Monthly is even more stupid. A monthly season from Btn to Victoria is £440. So using next month as an example, there are 14 days I would (normally) be in the office, which if I bought daily tickets would cost me £770 - that's a massive £330 MORE than if I bought a ticket that would allow me to travel for all 30 days of September, and didn't use it for 16 days.

We are on the same wave beam, munching on the same muffin and drinking the same latte, bro.

Apologies for that. I've just been listening to Gil Scott Heron.

 

[maffew]

Part time applicants such as mum’s were frowned upon due to bad experiences of them being bare minimalists on output eg beginning the old packing process not long after their lunch.

Almost all mums I have ever worked with have been exemplary, skilled to prioritise tasks, time management, hardly every sick and ability to do loads of stuff at once, multi tasking. If packing up a bit early to do a school run or something was a trade off, as an employer Id snap it up

 

[LlcoolJ]

I think we need to see a mix of workplaces.

I have an office in London and have no desire whatsoever to get back on the train to go there. It is a waste of my time.

However, working at home can feel isolating, and so I will probably go to the office once a week.

That alone will be good for staying in contact with colleagues in my company, however it still leaves me alone at home for 4-days. That's why I have invested in a coworking space in Brighton. This way I can work alongside other people from other firms or freelancers and benefit from their company.

Studies have shown that we are more productive on tasks when we are working in the same vicinity as other people. We benefit from social settings. However, we also waste time at water coolers chatting.

I think firms need to get smarter at allowing their employees to mix and match their workspaces. CFOs will certainly be interested in cost savings, although the market will be flooded with cheap commercial property as business tenants seek to reduce their space.

Boris's hamfisted attempt at getting people back to the office is misguided and based on landlords in fear of seeing their market disappear; retailers not selling enough croissants in their Pret shops (while offering £7.70 an hour on zero-hour contracts) and fat cats concerned that their desk slaves are revolting.

I think we have seen a sea change - what's more important is whether we're prepared to seize the opportunity.

I did a survey of our workplace (50 people) and 78% said they had no desire to return to the office. Only 1 person said they wanted to return full-time. Our revenue has gone down, but gross profit has not so productivity is unaffected.

Great post.

 

[Weststander]

Almost all mums I have ever worked with have been exemplary, skilled to prioritise tasks, time management, hardly every sick and ability to do loads of stuff at once, multi tasking. If packing up a bit early to do a school run or something was a trade off, as an employer Id snap it up

My Dickensian old employer hated it with a passion.

“Commitment” to the cause was seen as stayism well beyond contractual hours. The mum shuffling pens at 2.30 loathed .

 

[LlcoolJ]

I don't think people are being dismissive. Anyone losing their job is sad news. but for people who are able to work from home balancing time and money spent travelling to an environment that in almost all cases is less nice than your home along with increased risk to C19 versus a cafe/deli near your work is a no brainer. At lot of those places will close anyway even if people return to offices because people will be less likely to visit them

And if I fancy a really decent bacon sandwich, I nip down the road to my local sandwich shop, run by a mate of mine, who has been thriving since lockdown. Way better/cheaper than anything from the big chains. It's swings and roundabouts. He employs as many people as your average Pret kiosk and pays them correctly with no zero hours shit.

I realise this will be a big problem for many companies, and more importantly their employees, but these changes were long overdue and Covid has just quickened the change.

Maybe we can scrap HS2 now and spend the hundreds of billions on supporting local small businesses so that they can expand and fill the gap left where the big service companies are less necessary.

No? Thought not.

 

[maffew]

My Dickensian old employer hated it with a passion.

“Commitment” to the cause was seen as stayism well beyond contractual hours. The mum shuffling pens at 2.30 loathed .

So old school and probably not so many about like that now. Reminds me some how of my classics teacher who in the 90s still smoked his pipe whilst teaching us. Legend

 

[LlcoolJ]

It annoys me that the likes of the CBI and the government are pushing for people to stop WFH. I've worked from home on and off for years - it's very common in the IT industry. Even before Covid I was only in the office a maximum of two times a week. A lot of my time is spent in virtual meetings with people from Canada and the US and so where I am makes little difference. I suspect my team have suffered slightly from WFH but they now have the option of working in one of our datacentres and that seems to have improved things. Equally many of them have enjoyed the flexibility. I know the ones that have taken the piss and they are under improvement plans with a view to getting rid of them.

Thankfully I have a very forward looking employer but I have worked for companies that the senior managers / directors hated WFH. I'd suggest those companies aren't worth working for. Some of them even advertise on their website that they can help customers with the technology to allow their staff to work from home !!!! I read a report last week that said one of the most sought after options from job candidates is the option to work from home. Hopefully this situation has dragged UK business into the 21st Century. Those that don't are likely to see the best candidates go elsewhere ..... and rightly so.

I wonder how many of the middle/senior managers in many different types of companies are absolutely SHITTING themselves as they see the main point of their jobs evaporating before their eyes.

Slimming down the evil that is the majority of HR departments wouldn't be a bad thing either as most productivity can be assessed online, and a reduction in office politics will cause less grief for them to deal with.

My wife works at Sheffield College and the inefficiencies there are ridiculous. The MASSIVE HR Department mostly toss it off all the time and when they're not, they're hassling people who have been genuinely ill, while ignoring the multi year/decade pisstakers who produce nothing.

I know for a fact that I could put together a team of 4 people who could deal with the whole thing. And I haven't a bloody clue about HR. Just know really clever people who are great at that stuff. And they could do it from home, with a few meetings on site.

It's a massive opportunity to reset the way many businesses work. Plus create huge numbers of jobs locally, rather than centrally.

Will this shambles of a government take the opportunity, or will they back the status quo and protect those at the top with lots to lose (despite already having enough to let go.....)?

I'll not be holding my breath.

 

[LlcoolJ]

With countries like Barbados offering a new 1 year work from home visa, anyone think their employer might buy into that? Work from anywhere is the next step. I could have been in Barbados since March and my company would be no better or worse off

What is this you say?!

 

[maffew]

What is this you say?!

Here you go!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.in...oming-remote-workers-live-and-work-2020-7?amp

Bermuda looks alright too to wfh

 

[brighton terra]

I hated working from home when I was employed. I even preferred to commute, 2.5 hours door to door, rather than work in my living room.

However, since being self-employed I absolutely love working from home! I can’t see myself being office-based ever again.

 

[LlcoolJ]

Here you go!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.in...oming-remote-workers-live-and-work-2020-7?amp

Bermuda looks alright too to wfh

Cricket, sun, cost of living. This has got to be worth investigating. I wonder if the Mrs can get a year off (tbf she can do some work from home as well)? Ha ha. I will certainly have a look......

 

[MJsGhost]

Our sickness ratio in terms of how it spread across the week is 60% Monday, 10% on each of the other days. The mgt team wanted to avoid making it worse. My observation was that another fact is that our hours lost due to sickness is 0.6% - so aren’t we trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist?

I lost that particular argument (outvoted 5:1). I could have forced it through, but there’s no point canvassing opinion if you don’t listen to it.

I reserved the ability to have another look at which day we ask everyone to be in after 3 months.

I totally agree with the bit I've highlighted, but it does seem crazy when it's only losing 0.6% of working hours.

How does that stack up with the potential saving by reducing the number of desks?

If everyone's in on a Monday I'm assuming you'll have to provide just as much office space as you do now? As soon as our current office lease is up, we'll be looking for something smaller and running the same sized team with 60-70% of the office space...

 

[Springal]

I've worked from home most of my career. I'm in IT sales so the expectation is see customers etc not be in the office, it has varied - some have mandated office days 1-2 days a week (did London for 4 years, Berkshire for a couple) but current place I might go in couple of times a quarter that's it. I don't think I could ever work in an office all day every day, I'm much more productive at home and like the flexibility it affords. Will be interesting to see how it pans out, I know some bars in central London around the big office locations are reporting 75% drop YoY in revenues so of course the impact is the economy directly around these big offices.

Good timing with such a big investment in broadband services to residentials, in Worthing CityFibre are making a big mess at the moment but they're delivering 1Gb Fibre To the Premises (not that BT copper rubbish) at the moment. So given that people can ditch their phone lines and pick up very high speed broadband for £30/a month will be a game changer.

I do quite a lot of work with Japanese companies who have a very strong office culture and even some of the big boys there are allowing home working and shutting down very expensive real estate.

 

[Springal]

What is this you say?!

Barbados offering - https://www.barbadoswelcomestamp.bb/

 

[Goldstone1976]

I totally agree with the bit I've highlighted, but it does seem crazy when it's only losing 0.6% of working hours. I agree

How does that stack up with the potential saving by reducing the number of desks?

If everyone's in on a Monday I'm assuming you'll have to provide just as much office space as you do now? As soon as our current office lease is up, we'll be looking for something smaller and running the same sized team with 60-70% of the office space... Our lease has 2.5 years to run before the next break. I'll definitely be looking to (quite possibly radically) downsize our office space when we get there, at which point 'everyone in on Monday' wouldn't be able to work, even if the mgt team still want to keep it in place - which I hope they won't. In the meantime, there is little fixed cost we can save; some variable cost (electricity, coffee, fruit etc) comes off the P&L, but in the grand scheme of things not a huge amount.

See above...

 

[LlcoolJ]

Here you go!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.in...oming-remote-workers-live-and-work-2020-7?amp

Bermuda looks alright too to wfh

Barbados offering - https://www.barbadoswelcomestamp.bb/

I forgot about the pesky "destruction of child's social life and education at an important age" thing. Don't think I'm going to win this one. Yet.