Home working for those early in their careers

[trebor79]

Thought inspired in another now locked thread, @FenMan said:
"For what it's worth, my opinion is established professionals who are set up at home love working remotely. But for younger employees who want to get on who live in flat-shares or have a young family in a small home, i.e most of them, it's pretty tough."

I was home working for about 18 months prior to covid, and didn't really like it very much as I prefer to interact with people directly, and I felt quite "remote" from any colleagues. Ironically, covid resulted in the company rolling out Teams and I now am reasonably happy working from my home office (but I'd still prefer to go in) as a middle-aged professional.
But I think it would be very different for a younger person. Thinking back to my early career, it was a funny time of life in a lot of ways and interacting with my work mates helped get me through a few sticky patches where I think in other circumstances I might have given up, or fallen flat on my face.
I was actually nearly fired from my first job as a result of being perceived to be lazy or useless or some combination of the two. Someone took me under his wing, reported back to the brass after a few weeks that I was fine and they shouldn't listen to everything certain people tell them and was given the benefit of the doubt. I ended up being fought over by factory managers who wanted me to be in their respective teams and achieving the quickest ever promotion to a particular role.
I'm certain that sort of situation where someone is prepared to stick their neck out for a newbie just wouldn't happen remotely where there's very little chance to build an interpersonal relationship.

If someone offered me a job on the same pay as I do now "but you have to come into the office every day" I'd snap their hand off.

I'm not certain home working is the panacea it's made out to be. For sure if you're established in a career avoiding the commute and saving the time and money is a good thing, but we lose a lot of other intangible benefits IMO.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm not sure that's actually true about flat shares, for two reasons.

One - pretty much all students (and it's students who go into these entry level graduate professional roles) have a desk in their bedroom on which to do their uni work, and it's just an extension of that norm.

Two - this need to live in scabby, over-small, overcrowded flat shares pretty much entirely comes from the need for many such young professionals to live in London. If they don't need to be in the office daily, they don't need to live in London, and might be able to afford more salubrious accommodation.

Of course some will want to, and some (like you say) may need the support. But some will also like the higher quality of life offered by not going into an office every day. I'm still of the view that, while I'm 100% remote at the moment, two days a week would be perfect, and that could be viable living somewhere like Birmingham even if the office was London.

 

[richw]

Two - this need to live in scabby, over-small, overcrowded flat shares pretty much entirely comes from the need for many such young professionals to live in London. If they don't need to be in the office daily, they don't need to live in London, and might be able to afford more salubrious accommodation.

I have a couple of friends who have been able to escape london flatshares and get on the property market themselves by moving to cheaper areas of the country to buy homes. Only possible thanks to remote working.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have a couple of friends who have been able to escape london flatshares and get on the property market themselves by moving to cheaper areas of the country to buy homes. Only possible thanks to remote working.

And that not only has benefits to them, but means you get higher-income people living in cheaper parts of the country, spending in the shops and other businesses. It will mean a bit of house price inflation, but other than that it has the potential to help the economies of nice-but-fairly-low-employment places. The Cumbrian Coast is one possibility.

 

[WelshBluebird]

If someone offered me a job on the same pay as I do now "but you have to come into the office every day" I'd snap their hand off.

Why does it have to be either or? Can't the company say "it's upto you if you use the office or not"? I think that is the problem here. The comments having a go at employers forcing staff back are exactly that - comments about employers who aren't giving staff the choice. Surely the better way of dealing with it would be its up to each employee if they use the office or not, as long as they can get their work done. For some things that will mean needing to use the office (some meetings where face to face does work better, some time for mentoring if you are a mentor or a mentee etc) but for other things that can mean using the office if you want or being at home if you want.

 

[nlogax]

I'm not certain home working is the panacea it's made out to be. For sure if you're established in a career avoiding the commute and saving the time and money is a good thing, but we lose a lot of other intangible benefits IMO.

It depends on a raft of things, of course. Despite the asinine mutterings from Mogg et al the last couple of years have proven that more WFH is the way forward for many people to enable them to strike a better home and work balance without a couple of hours of commute at either end of the day. Don't know about you but these days I appreciate in-person meetings and office time more because I don't have to do it every single day.

For my younger colleagues starting out in their careers in my line of work remote working over the last couple years has been challenging to say the least. It's been incredibly tough for them and I wouldn't wish that sort of fully remote experience on anyone in that stage of a new career.

 

[miklcct]

One of my past companies, doing software development, had never moved to remote working apart from temporary COVID-19 arrangements. Once the restriction was lifted it returned to full office working.

Also, I am not a supporter of remote working as well as I believe in a complete segregation of home and work environment. When at work it's 100% work and when at home it's 0% work. This only applies to regular employment but not self-employment though.