How can the railway cut operational expenditure?

[squizzler]

My experience is quite the opposite. From the outside it seems like motorists are effortlessly whizzing everywhere as they please, but once you have a licence and have all the responsibilities that come with looking after one of those contraptions, not to mention keeping it legal, it does not seem so convenient after all.

 

[Bletchleyite]

but once you have a licence and have all the responsibilities that come with looking after one of those contraptions, not to mention keeping it legal, it does not seem so convenient after all.

I beg to differ. Unless you're driving a knackered old banger, "keeping it legal" mostly involves taking actions once a year (with the occasional interim look at the tyres and filling up the washer bottle), and the other responsibilties just involve not breaking the law and not hitting other things with it, neither of which are unduly difficult.

 

[Meerkat]

My experience is quite the opposite. From the outside it seems like motorists are effortlessly whizzing everywhere as they please, but once you have a licence and have all the responsibilities that come with looking after one of those contraptions, not to mention keeping it legal, it does not seem so convenient after all.

What’s inconvenient? If Someone as lazy and disorganised as me can manage it.......the only real stress is deciding on an insurance deal -do you take the £100 cheaper one from someone you have never heard of over the current people who have been excellent in all dealings??

PS for all the grief the CS and their IT development competence gets their stuff for drivers is excellent.
Car tax online is a doddle, and the sites for checking tax and MOT are as smooth as it gets.

 

[Starmill]

I beg to differ. Unless you're driving a knackered old banger, "keeping it legal" mostly involves taking actions once a year (with the occasional interim look at the tyres and filling up the washer bottle), and the other responsibilties just involve not breaking the law and not hitting other things with it, neither of which are unduly difficult.

Indeed. And lot of such infractions on the road are undetected or unpunished anyway.

Those driving modern cars will be doing basically no maintenance at all because they'll just be having it serviced annually by the manufacturer...

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I’m sorry I gave up reading half way, as the leaps in logic left me lost.

"You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din." I gave up earlier than that.

This is too optimistic. The pandemic will have demonstrated the clear value of car ownership to even the most uncertain of owners, namely that you could still travel during the period of several months where government asked people not to travel by public transport... And almost everyone who owns a car wasn't uncertain about their need for it anyway.

Also, before the pandemic, I was convinced I would be able to put off learning to drive for an indefinite period of time. Now, I regret that I didn't make it a greater priority, and if I can I will probably investigate learning next year, or when things have improved after the virus if not by then.

Two years before retiring I gave up car ownership and rented a car instead. On retiring, I went without a car for six months deliberately to test whether or not I could function comfortably while relying on public transport. I then bought a new car and I will continue driving until my relevant faculties are no longer good enough.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I too am in favour of owning a car, but that doesn't mean I don't want to travel by train (though with masks I will limit it because wearing one for a long period is unpleasant). The railway needs to give up on any idea that people will stop driving - they won't - and start trying to appeal to people as to why it would be better to go by train than car. Obviously traffic features in big cities, but this also needs to include a quality environment on board (cough Fainsa), a good price and being punctual/reliable.

 

[Bald Rick]

The railway needs to give up on any idea that people will stop driving - they won't

The railway doesn’t have that idea, in general, with a handful of exceptions for specific projects where mode share is specifically targeted. Some people on this thread do have that idea, and occasionally some of the more idealistic (and usually less informed) public commentators stray into this area.

 

[The Ham]

I'm sorry, but I'm a numbers person.

I'll try to explain without numbers.

Whilst WFH will have an impact on rail use, not all rail use is business related, which will reduce the overall impact.

Even then not all those who could WFH will do so and of those who do they are unlikely to do so all the time further reducing the impact.

Chances are the impact on rail use would roll the clock back to 2014 milage in 2021. It's unlikely to get anywhere close to 2004 mileage and would be significantly higher than 1994 milage and no where near the dark times of 1984 or 1974 where routes were still at risk of being cut post Beeching.

Whilst some may give up their cars entirely (although more likely to be young people not starting to own a car) it's now likely that households with 2+ cars would reduce their need so that they could still have one (so retain the vast majority of the benefits of car ownership) but would require some additional rail travel to facilitate doing so.

In this regard they may reduce their travel expenses from £6,000 to £3,500 (i.e. one car plus £500 of rail travel rather than two cars).

 

[mmh]

PS for all the grief the CS and their IT development competence gets their stuff for drivers is excellent.
Car tax online is a doddle, and the sites for checking tax and MOT are as smooth as it gets.

A caveat there is that moving tax online and abolishing the tax disc cost more than planned and, at least in the first year, resulted in lower compliance and therefore revenue. Long term probably a good idea but such big changes are rarely problem free.

 

[Starmill]

one car plus £500 of rail travel rather than two car

What do you think people are doing on £500 / year? Short hops into town is about it. £500 does not even buy three flexible singles between Manchester and London, or nine weekends away from Liverpool in York.

 

[The Ham]

Another way of looking at it is that my last annual season ticket to London before retirement was well north of £6,000. I ran a car but generally cycled to and from the station.

If I was still working I would have to confess that mine was the sort of job that could be done from home. As a result I would 'save' £6,000 straight away and also save four hours per day by not commuting. An ideal chance to engage in local activities in the evening that I had missed out on and do a lot more driving, which was previously largely confined to the weekend.

This probably needs to go on a separate thread as it is nothing directly to do with cutting operational expenditure. Reduced peak demand and hence in due course services will see to that though.

Indeed, which is why I believe that London and the South East is where cuts are likely to impact the railways the most. This would most likely impact the metro services much more than longer distance services.

As such the sorts of cuts are likely to be reduced frequency and/or slower services by stopping at a few more stations for the faster services.

However, even if you do get to WFH there will still be a need for some travel to an office from time to time.

For instance I know someone who works in the UK for an American company and they go to the States a few times a year. Even at 5% of the days that's likely to mean 12 days a year.

Given the level of discount given on annual season tickets is likely that it'll cost £400 to £500 rather than £300 (5% of £6,000).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Aug 2020 ==

What do you think people are doing on £500 / year? Short hops into town is about it. £500 does not even buy three flexible singles between Manchester and London, or nine weekends away from Liverpool in York.

I was assuming that the majority of travel between 2 adults could have been catered for by the use of the remaining car with rail was being used for limited use, as identified in your post.

However, assuming an average personal driving travel of around 7,000 miles/year for a couple to achieve a 6.25% shift from road to rail would be 875 miles, this compares with 1,800 miles of travel between Liverpool and York for 9 weekends.

Whilst Manchester London on 3 flexible singles would only get you 600 miles, however it's unlikely that would be the only option available to those wishing to make that trip and so people would make a judgment as to how they would travel.

 

[The Ham]

Hmm. I don’t have grey hair, my preferred my radio station is Radio 1, I never use cash, and it’s back to Ibiza next year or the year after. If that makes me a silver surfer, then guilty as charged!


Indeed so, partly linked to increased city living, which in itself is partly due to being close to the jobs located in those cities. But if the jobs are now mostly ‘working from home...

And conversely, old people shifting to car ownership is also a long term trend prior to the pandemic.



Correct. Just over half is commuting, and another 10% is business travel.


Some may...




I don’t see how this follows logically from anything you have said. Now I’ll use some numbers.

It is a *possibility* that some households that have 2+ cars (about 60% of car owning households) may decide to give up one of them and use rail more:

*if* one or more of the household works from home more frequently than previously (say 50% of the group)
*and* continues to do so (50%)
*and* doesn’t want to keep a car for non-work purposes, regardless of cost (optimistically, 50%)
*and* one or more of the other cars isn’t usually available when they do need it for their less frequent trips to work (optimistically, 50%)
*and* a reasonable rail alternative is available for the journey (10%)
*and* rail is better than other available transport options (50%)

...then they would use rail more frequently, perhaps as much as 2-3 times a week, or perhaps once or twice a month.

Factoring all those probabilities leaves you with approximately 0.3% of multiple car owning households making on average, perhaps 1 return trip a week. I would hardly describe that as ‘likely’.

The 0.3% x 1 return rail trip a week would mean an extra 4 million rail trips a year, which you can compare to the 300 million trips a year the railway will lose if 50% of all existing rail commuters and business travellers reduce their rail trips by, on average, 50%.

And that’s why the railway will need to reduce costs.

There's a clear difference which needs to be highlighted. I don't disagree that the number of trips will fall. The point I was making was that the fall in total miles traveled wouldn't be that big.

As an example, if you only need to go to the central London office 12 or 24 times a year why would you continue to live 40 minutes from the office? Would you not consider living further out nearer to where you may have leisure options (say hill walking, beaches, etc) but have a 90 minute to 2 hour trip.

Whilst that may only be double the time it's likely that it would be significantly more than double the distance as the longer distance services tend to stop at fewer stops and be on faster lines.

This is again why the metro services in London are likely to be hit the hardest.

As an example someone living in Twickenham could sell up and live in Truro with enough left over to buy a boat and moor it at Falmouth and then travel to London for a few days at a time staying in a hotel overnight between the days there.

Yes you may well only be in for half a day on the first day, but if you started work early on the last day, so you could leave at 16:30 then you could be home in time for bed.

However, given the limited number of days which that would be the case I'd be inclined to make it a weekend to London combined with it as the extra cost would just be a few days of stay.

Of course other options would be open to you.

However such a trip would rack up (say) two weeks of your past commuting distances. If that's the case rather than reducing miles traveled by rail by 95% it would be a fall of ~75% or rather than 90% it would be about 50%. That's before you consider that they or their family may well use rail for other purposes.

Even in a smaller scale moving to an hour or from London rather than 40 minutes would put you at Guildford rather than Twickenham and get you a much larger property for the same cost but wouldn't make much of a difference of you are even needing to go to the office 3 days a week. Especially if you started work at the same time as you'd leave the house on other days on the days you need to be in the office, as by doing so you could have a shorter day in the office as you'll have reached up some extra hours when WFH.

One point on the fall in passenger numbers is that there's likely to be a reasonable percentage of people (possibly ~25%) who would still opt to or be required to go into an office to work rather WFH. For instance if you are living in a home where there's not space for an office, where people live alone and work provides their key social interactions, where staff have shown that they couldn't be trusted to work remotely, or even where staff need to learn from others how to do their job (this could include the experienced staff being required to be in as well).

Of course the above all assumes that the companies which are able to do WFH are willing to allow it to happen. Now whilst it's likely that our would enable them to attract more people to be able to work for them, chances are there would be less company loyality as if you don't really know those you work with and for then you're less likely to care if you go and work for someone else.

However the assumption that 50% of business travel (50% of the total) will cease due to WFH is incorrect, as such it's unlikely that the total fall in rail travel would be 25%. This would be in part due to all WFH workers will likely need to be in the office for some of the time, be that 12 times a year (5%) or up to 60% of the time. It would also be in part that up to 25% of people may well opt not to WFH or be told that they weren't eligible to do so, this may include those for whom work is their key social interactions during the working week as well as those for whome their home is unsuitable to work from. It's why the gross fall is much likely to be closer to 10-15% rather than 20%.

If you then add in some of the other reasons why people may opt to use rail more, whilst that may result in a gross fall of between 5-15% between what was seen in 2019 and what's seen in 2021 it may well be back to 2019 figures by 2025.

Anyway, for some companies where they tend to have fairly local staff then the cost savings from WFH aren't as big as if you are going from (say) Guildford to Waterloo. Those is true of a lot of smaller companies who aren't based in London. Again this is why I'd suggest that London and the South East is likely to be hit the hardest. However a lot of that would likely result in a more comfortable journey (i.e. everyone having a seat rather than lots standing).

If traveling by rail becomes more comfortable then there's likely to be some who would have used rail before but didn't before who would now do so for their travel.

Yes 2020 passenger numbers are going to be dire, but before we start to look at how much of the network we are going to close down we perhaps need to see what rail use is in October (assuming no second wave & the guidance on traveling by rail isn't so much DO NOT TRAVEL AT ANY COST to rail is generally safe but just take sensible precautions like wearing face masks and good personal hygiene). If rail use starts to look more positive then we needn't to look at too drastic cuts.

If however it's still dire early 2021 (and there's no spike in cases at that time) then look at where this is the case and make the required cuts rather than just wielding an axe to any bit which is in the firing line, even if it's not seen a fall in use (or may have even seen an increase).

Even then there could be ways in which we could refocus recourses to provide different services which aren't possible currently due to the congested nature of the network.

 

[Clayton]

Not buying people getting rid of cars. It’s a huge leap once you have got used to the convenience and if you are financially compelled to do it that‘s probably be because you don’t have a job so won’t be commuting by train either.
Look at how difficult it is to get old folk to give up their cars despite free bus passes and dial a ride etc!

People won’t get rid of their cars and most households have one, but not all household members have their own. There’s a lot of discretionary travel to be encouraged and competed for.

 

[squizzler]

An article in a major national broadsheet's Sunday edition supports @The Ham's view that commuters will be making longer distances but less frequently. The general tone extolls the benefits of railway travel which suggests that the savvy house buyer has put any phobia of trains behind them. Note that this is a grab from "Apple News" on my machine without web link - presumably the original is behind a paywall. Hence my pasting the article in full rather than a more respectful (especially to content creators!) quote with link to the original article:

The best villages with train stations for part-time commuters

Here are the top places to live in if you’re looking for a house in the country and an easy journey into work

August 23 2020, The Sunday Times

Kimberley and David Hopkins and their two-year-old twin boys, Jesse and Sebastian, live in the Kent hamlet of Sole Street. Life is happily rural: The Little Shop sells local produce and daily essentials, there’s an active WI and everyone raises money for the church roof.

“We’re ten minutes’ walk from Cobham village through the orchards. Being able to take the train from Sole Street station direct to London was a dealbreaker for us,” says Kimberley, 37, an associate director at a communications agency; David, 42, is the managing director of a mystery shopping firm.

The couple bought a four-bedroom semi for £410,000 in 2014 and didn’t appreciate just how handy a village station is. There’s no need to drive, catch a cab, pay for parking or argue about who gets the car. Living in a village contributes to good feelings all round; a thriving population supports local shops and pubs, and breathes new life into schools and community activities.

So if you want the best of both worlds — part-time in the office and full-time in proper countryside, and an eco-friendly commute — why not buy in a village with a train station? Here’s our handy list:

● Commute to London
From hidden villages in Kent to the well-connected Cotswolds, rural Norfolk and Constable country on the Essex/Suffolk border, if you can handle a longer commute into the capital, strike out beyond suburbia to all points north, south, east and west.


Kent is blessed with a bevy of village stations that escaped the Beeching axe in the 1960s. Villages around Sevenoaks with direct trains to London include Hildenborough, Bearsted and Hollingbourne. At the north end of this pretty village in a fold of hills is an ancient track where the North Downs Way and the Pilgrim’s Way combine, to the south the M20, A20, and the Channel tunnel rail link.


Hunt for hidden gems along the Greater Anglia/Liverpool Street lines through Constable country towards Cambridge and Ipswich. Great Chesterford in Essex, near the bustling market town of Saffron Walden, has some pretty period properties in the centre of the village around Manor Lane. It’s the stop before Audley End, for the village of Wendens Ambo, and easier to bag a seat here.


On the Ipswich line, Marks Tey is one of a group of villages called the Teys.


Only 40 minutes from the north Norfolk coast at Hunstanton, Watlington is the stop after busy King’s Lynn but before Downham Market, for trains to King’s Cross. The station has a generous 30 cycle spaces, but no car park.


It’s down-to-earth farming country around King’s Sutton, in Northamptonshire, which has direct trains to Marylebone; stone houses in the village centre are especially prized. Aspirational commuters might look to the leafiest and loveliest village with a station, Kingham, in Oxfordshire, once chosen as “England’s favourite village” by Country Life, yet it has a mainline train service to London — only 93 minutes. Further up the line you’ll find the Worcestershire village of Honeybourne (113 min).


From Wiltshire across the South Downs there are a number of thriving villages with direct trains to London. At Grateley, Hampshire, between Andover and Salisbury, the London train stops every half-hour. Lots of commuters already use this station, travelling in to park in one of the two car parks. Also look at Micheldever in Hampshire, sandwiched neatly between Winchester and Basingtoke, and Pulborough in West Sussex, where you’ll need £1 million for a roomy family home.


● Commute to Manchester
Plenty of well-connected urban villages and small towns ring the city centre. However, there’s now time to cast the net wider, towards the solid Pennine villages to the east, the gentle slopes of the Ribble Valley and the picturesque villages of deepest Cheshire.


The Hope Valley line wends its way from Sheffield to Manchester Piccadilly (the train takes one hour and 17 minutes) calling at a series of village stations along the way. The first serves affluent Dore & Totley on the southwest edge of Sheffield, where there are 120 free car-parking spaces and six bike racks. Then there’s the hardy — and stunningly picturesque — Peak District villages of Grindleford, Hathersage, Bamford and Hope. At busy times, the chances of getting a seat decrease the further towards Manchester you go.


Also on the east-west trajectory is Slaithwaite, in the Colne Valley near Huddersfield. Popular with families attracted by the sustainable lifestyle, terraced homes can be found for £165,000.


The Ribble Valley is a regular favourite in The Sunday Times’s Best Places to Live. Until now, it’s always been considered a little too far out for a daily commute, but that’s changing. The village of Whalley, first stop after Clitheroe and its top class grammar school, is known for its strong community spirit.


The Chester-Manchester Piccadilly train calls at Delamere, on the edge of the Delamere Forest in Cheshire, near Northwich. A new Earlsbrook development is less than a quarter of a mile’s walk to the station, with three-bedroom houses for £346,995.


One stop after Chester, on the Chester to Piccadilly line is Helsby, near the buzzy market town of Frodsham.


For that total get-away-from-it-all vibe, there’s also Oxenholme. Known as the “gateway to the Lakes”, it also has direct trains to London (average journey time, three hours, 31 minutes), Glasgow and Edinburgh. There are 129 car-parking spaces, but you’ll pay £12 on a weekday.


● Commute to Birmingham
It’s been a city devoted to the car since Spaghetti Junction arrived in 1968, but with the arrival of HS2, Birmingham is reassessing its relationship with rail. Look to the surrounding shires for villages with direct links to Birmingham New Street.


Villages along the Redditch to Lichfield Trent Valley line include Alvechurch, the first stop after Redditch, where there’s a mix of period and new-build homes, for an average of £314,430, and then upmarket Barnt Green, where detached residences on prestige roads cost upwards of £2 million. Trains are pretty regular, about every 20 minutes. The line also stops at Selly Oak, Bournville and the university, so it’s a convenient traffic-beater.


Trains leave for Birmingham Snow Hill and London Marylebone (one and a half hours on the Chiltern Line) from Hatton in Warwickshire, famous for Hatton Locks on the Grand Union Canal and the Hatton country estate, which includes a shopping village and children’s attractions.


And what’s not to like about Albrighton in Shropshire? The station has two car parks; one is free. For sheer escapism, there’s also Colwall on the western side of the Malvern Hills. The village has a CoE primary, two independent preparatory schools, and trains to Birmingham New Street leave hourly.


● Commute to Leeds
Leeds is the third-busiest railway station in the UK outside London, after Birmingham New Street and Glasgow Central. The departures board lists a mind-boggling choice of destinations; decide whether you want convenience (for which you’ll probably pay a premium) or rural remoteness.


For villages within easy reach of both Leeds and York, look along the Harrogate line. Pannal station, near Harrogate, serves the villages of Pannal and Spacey Houses. In normal times, it’s busy before 9am, so set off early to bag one of the 40 parking spaces. Poppleton station is handy for both cities. The carpark is free, but there are only 12 spaces. It has an outstanding primary school, but you’ll pay for the privilege.


For more house for your money, head west on the Airedale line. Next stop before Skipton is Cononley, a well-established commuter village. Venture up into the Yorkshire Dales and you’ll find a string of villages along the Leeds to Carlisle line, including Hellifield, Gargrave, the stop before busy Skipton, and breathtakingly rural Horton in Ribblesdale.


● Commute to Newcastle
As the North East’s major city continues to expand, so do the traffic jams. Canny commuters take the train instead. Parking is a priority in Corbridge — there are only eight spaces at the station — so central period properties between £300,000 and £600,000, are popular. Further west, look to Bardon Mill and Wetheral, the stop before Carlisle in Cumbria, where properties overlooking the village green are highly sought-after.


Alnmouth, a coastal village, has direct trains to both Newcastle and London (average journey time around four hours). It’s a 20-minute walk to the station from the centre of the village where detached Victorian and Edwardian villas are upwards of £500,000.


Arriva trains departing from the picture-perfect Victorian station at Chathill also call at Alnmouth, and then the villages of Acklington (free car park, 20 spaces) and Widdrington, before heading towards Morpeth and then Newcastle.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I love the talk of the Chathill Flyer as a viable commuting option...doesn't quite mention the infrequency!

 

[geordieblue]

I love the talk of the Chathill Flyer as a viable commuting option...doesn't quite mention the infrequency!

The picture-perfect station... With two trains a day!

 

[yorksrob]

Kent is blessed with a bevy of village stations that escaped the Beeching axe in the 1960s. Villages around Sevenoaks with direct trains to London include Hildenborough, Bearsted and Hollingbourne.

All thanks to the excellently planned and executed Kent Electrification scheme, 1958-62 (they could have added).

 

[Ken H]

here is my 2 pennyworth

1. working from home is going to be the new normal. not every day, but 1 or 2 days a week. Bug savings for the employee and employer, who can have a smaller building. But seasons are priced for a 5 day working week. Take a day off commuting a week and they become poor value. So they need to get a multi-journey ticket. Buy 5 days travel but not necessarily consecutive days, at a discount.

2. Enhancements have to be more a can do type of thing rather than all bells and whistles thing. Dome in-house if possible.

3. turn stuff off to save energy.

 

[Meerkat]

1. working from home is going to be the new normal. not every day, but 1 or 2 days a week. Bug savings for the employee and employer, who can have a smaller building.

Is there much of a saving for the employer if only WFH 1 or 2 days a week, especially if they can’t force a rota to stop most people wanting Monday and/or Friday at home?
Cutting desks for that little WFH also creates much friction - “I know it’s hotdesking but that’s MY hot desk!”
Hotdesking really needs lockers

 

[Bletchleyite]

Cutting desks for that little WFH also creates much friction - “I know it’s hotdesking but that’s MY hot desk!”

I've come across that, and it just requires management to be firm in telling people (a) not to leave their personal stuff on them or it will be removed and disposed of on the assumption that it is litter, and (b) that they are out of order in attempting to state that a specific one is theirs and that that will not be tolerated.

The issue of getting there and there not being one available can be solved by allowing booking of hotdesks. The issue of people booking and not showing up is resolved by requiring you to do something to "log into" the desk, typically entering a passcode on a reservation display.

Hotdesking really needs lockers

Yes, it does, and in most good implementations of it I've seen they indeed do. Another way I've seen it done is that you have your own set of wheely mini-filing-cabinet drawers, and you wheel them to the desk you have booked each day, though that's less common (and to be honest if people are there often enough to justify that they should probably have a permanent desk - there is no point in hotdesking for people who do need to attend the office 5 days a week, though they should enter their holiday dates into any booking system so their desk can be released for booking when they are not there).

 

[yorksrob]

I've come across that, and it just requires management to be firm in telling people (a) not to leave their personal stuff on them or it will be removed and disposed of on the assumption that it is litter, and (b) that they are out of order in attempting to state that a specific one is theirs and that that will not be tolerated.

The issue of getting there and there not being one available can be solved by allowing booking of hotdesks. The issue of people booking and not showing up is resolved by requiring you to do something to "log into" the desk, typically entering a passcode on a reservation display.



Yes, it does, and in most good implementations of it I've seen they indeed do. Another way I've seen it done is that you have your own set of wheely mini-filing-cabinet drawers, and you wheel them to the desk you have booked each day, though that's less common (and to be honest if people are there often enough to justify that they should probably have a permanent desk - there is no point in hotdesking for people who do need to attend the office 5 days a week, though they should enter their holiday dates into any booking system so their desk can be released for booking when they are not there).

All very modern and twenty-first century (I type while grimacing).

 

[Meerkat]

I've come across that, and it just requires management to be firm in telling people (a) not to leave their personal stuff on them or it will be removed and disposed of on the assumption that it is litter, and (b) that they are out of order in attempting to state that a specific one is theirs and that that will not be tolerated.

In the case I experienced it was the managers leading the way with their own hot desk!
I would hate doing the transition - the grief I had whenever I made my team change desks......
i can just imagine the huffing every morning whilst they had to adjust the chair and screens and then the complaining about a filthy keyboard/mouse.....
And don’t even start about Christmas decs!!
One problem with hotdesks is that you can lose the proximity generated gain from being in the office in the first place.

 

[Bletchleyite]

One problem with hotdesks is that you can lose the proximity generated gain from being in the office in the first place.

Yes, true, though good booking systems would allow a team leader to be able to book a group of desks for their team to do some co-working.

 

[43096]

In the case I experienced it was the managers leading the way with their own hot desk!
I would hate doing the transition - the grief I had whenever I made my team change desks......
i can just imagine the huffing every morning whilst they had to adjust the chair and screens and then the complaining about a filthy keyboard/mouse.....
And don’t even start about Christmas decs!!
One problem with hotdesks is that you can lose the proximity generated gain from being in the office in the first place.

Having gone from "fixed desk" to everyone hot-desking in the last few years, it's not really been a problem where I work. In fairness it's been done well with areas allocated to teams and lockers, so people can still leave stuff at the office and sit near people if they're working on a project. I've not heard any grumbling, really.

Now, I've gone from being "office 5 days a week" with a dislike for working from home to "home 5 days a week" due to necessity. Having got a decent setup at home now with proper desk, monitor, chair etc (and I realise many people don't have this), I'm liking the benefits of it - get up an hour or more later, "home" 90mins earlier and a big saving from not having to pay SWR several £k per year. Would I go back to 5 days per week in the office - probably not. But Zoom meetings are not a good way of collaborating on some projects, so some office time is good for that and keeping face-to-face contact. Multiply that over plenty of other people and the railway has a serious problem.

 

[yorksrob]

We're starting days back in the office next month.

Looking forward to it - I hate bloody zoom !

 

[yorkie]

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