[News] Return to the Office ... what's your company doing ?

[clapham_gull]

Hopefully after June 21st things will gradually get back to how they were.Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I very much doubt it.

There have already been huge changes in the city. See HSBC for a start.

The world has changed and I can't see it going back.

 

[maffew]

Hopefully after June 21st things will gradually get back to how they were.


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Hopefully not, I think many have found a far better life work balance with needless travel and the time/costs associated with it reduced.

 

[rippleman]

Is there not a danger that once some employers realise that a job can be done 100% from home, they will be attracted by someone doing the job from home, somewhere else in the world, for a tenth of the salary?

 

[The Rattler]

Hoping to split my time - 2 days in the office and the rest WFH.

...the 2 days being Summer drinks and Christmas drinks


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[schmunk]

b. David Solomon is clearly a complete prick but given he runs a company that expects interns to work in excess of 70 hours a week it's not much of a surprise

It's worth noting that those interns are paid the equivalent of £50k p.a. salary for their travails, aged 20 or so...

 

[Pondicherry]

Good question. I work for a FTSE 250 company and we were almost entirely office based pre Covid (multi sites in the UK). During Covid we have switched to 90% entirely home based and 10% mostly office based (I am talking UK here - we have large offices in India where things are very bad).

Personally I continued to work in the office apart from a couple of weeks. I think most of the 90% who have been working from home largely want to continue to do that. We have already permanently closed our central London office in Broadgate.

However, we have a new CEO and he did his first presentation to staff today (via Teams). They are proposing a 'flexible' working policy with individuals working from home and in the office . However they have not defined an exact split leaving this up to 'local management'. In other words a free for all. I thought the most interesting thing said by the new CEO was that productivity had suffered whilst people worked from home. Now I know there are people who can work productively from home but my instinct and common sense tell me that there are large numbers of people who do not work productively from home. Lets face it, for those who work in offices, we all know that there were lots of individuals who did very little when we were all in the same building with someone actively managing them. Why would those people be doing more now when they are a t home with all the distractions?

I suspect that for many office based companies, they will initially will be lead by the lure of saving rents and giving employees what they see as a better work/home life balance. As time goes on we may see that productivity issues force companies to move staff back into offices more permanently. Anyway its a good question.

 

[Starry]

i own my company and employ 176 people, we just surveyed a couple of weeks ago and 42% want to stay wfh, 24% want to do a mix of wfh/office and the rest want to be in the office full time. I am happy to let folk do what works for them.

i have been in the office pretty much the entire time. wfh is just not for me, i like a distinction between work/home.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

We have been remote fully since March 20 with a few volunteers attending for post etc.

As it stands nobody is being asked to return to the office until November 2021.

As a plus we have shown the firm can be run effectively fully remotely without a loss of productivity.

Lease on current sites hasn’t been renewed and we are taking a smaller footprint in London and extended regional hubs and have recruited in these areas.

The core London site works out on headcount as 1.25 days per person per week so teams will be having a day each in the office with the Rest working remotely.

Thursdays seem to be preferred day that everyone wants in! Suspect it will be on rotation.

It’s been a success, am working some of my 3 hour daily commute but I don’t mind based on the work life balance, the £5k commute saving and actually getting precious time that I wouldn’t have with my youngest.

You can’t put a price on not being interrupted and the ability to screen calls but I do miss the social side, returning 1 day a week max is ideal for me


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[WATFORD zero]

This story pricked my interest .... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56993886

So I was a wondering what everyone's employers were doing moving forwards ?

For me I've just changed company - old company planned to have everyone back in the office 1st September but my new company is changing most peoples' contracts to WFH permanently.

So what's your company doing ?

Two points :

a. Yes, I appreciate fully that all the honourable tradesmen on here have been, and will continue, to carry on working in other peoples homes

b. David Solomon is clearly a complete prick but given he runs a company that expects interns to work in excess of 70 hours a week it's not much of a surprise

To be fair, if you wanted to earn shit loads of money, with no skills, experience or knowledge, and try to survive on being young, willing and a 'bit bright relatively' people were always going to bully you and nothing much has changed in that environment.

In the rest of the world, I suspect the change has been enormous and permanent

 

[Baker lite]

Hopefully not, I think many have found a far better life work balance with needless travel and the time/costs associated with it reduced.

That’s the spirit [emoji1303]


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[giveusfalmerplease]

Our firm last month told people who couldn't work from home due to job type or lack of suitable equipment must come in but over 90% can still WFH till September. Asked if I would come back (yes asked not told!) I said if I had to come back I'd like to be made redundant if the option comes up! I just got my wish!! 25 years + so will be okay for a few years.

One of the biggest eye openers with this whole covid thing is the realisation that I can't think of one person in the office I would call a real friend and once left probably won't see any of them again.. all the ones I got on with have left to retire in previous "restructures".oh well life moves on

 

[Weststander]

It's worth noting that those interns are paid the equivalent of £50k p.a. salary for their travails, aged 20 or so...

In 2018 100,000 folk applied for their 500 UK trainee positions. GS eventually pay very well, with huge bonuses, but like most US companies demand their pound of flesh and some.

Plenty of other careers/employers for clever people who quite understandably lose their motivation for the brutal GS hours.

 

[dwayne]

To be fair, if you wanted to earn shit loads of money, with no skills, experience or knowledge, and try to survive on being young, willing and a 'bit bright relatively' people were always going to bully you and nothing much has changed in that environment.

In the rest of the world, I suspect the change has been enormous and permanent [emoji106]

Top of the class at Harvard, Insead or Cambridge/Oxford etc maybe not just a bit bright !

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[Lethargic]

I work for a rare company where employee wellbeing is genuinely their number 1 priority, so currently we are only allowed in the office/ work locations (out and about) if it is necessary. They are reintroducing office work with the emphasis on home working where possible for the near future.

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[Hampster Gull]

Wfh until we are asked back, not clear when that is. I’ve lost my office as have all peers, and even the CEO. They are now reworking the whole building for hot desking and freer work spaces. The intention is come in only when you have to for a meeting or some such, otherwise stay at home

 

[Postman Pat]

We had a survey a month or so ago it came back something like
40% - WFH full time
45% - split time 2/3 - 1/4
15% - back in office full time

We have just ended the lease on the hot desk space we were renting. Company were looking for bigger premises but that has been delayed, even though office space is currently dirt cheap (unsurprisingly).

Situation to be reviewed in September, but expectation is that staff will be able to work however they would prefer. Mine would be 1 day in office for team meetings / 1:2:1 etc.. rest of the time at home.

 

[HalfaSeatOn]

It will be interesting how this pans out. This hybrid working is just an attempt to get a balance of differing needs that will fizzle out. It should be about value not turning up on a Wednesday cause it’s your turn on the rota. For a four hour round commute, I won’t be going in to sit at my laptop doing Teams or meetings that don’t deliver the value. I’m updating my cv.

 

[Henfield One]

Blended working.....

From 1st October, staff expected to work a minimum 2 days a week in the office. New 'blended' working policy......

 

[NODC]

We are going through consultation as our two main UK offices are closing. The North office everyones contract is moving to Home worker and the South office is closing moving to a smaller hub with contract changing to hybrid 3/2 split.

Main concern of the team is there travel daily cost will increase when going to the office as they won't have an annual season ticket. But most seem happy

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[loz]

I wonder in factories that have 100% shop floor working as normal but office staff working at home. I can see that creating a big divide in the us and them causing a lot of resentment.