Remote working preferences (in the longer term)

[Bletchleyite]

Then my employer started going in for all this hot desking malarkey and it became increasingly difficult to get my spot in the office with my immediate friends. I ended up coming in earlier to get my seat, which meant getting the earlier train which was always standing room only by my stop.

I know @Bantamzen will be on me like a flash here, but our office operates a desk booking system. It's not however compulsory, and there are reservation displays on each desk very similar to trains, showing green if free and red and the surname of the booker if booked (and you can tap the screen and enter a personal code number to book the one you're sat at). It works very well in my experience - if you know you're travelling, you can book in advance, and you can book near others (or book as a group) if you're going to collaborate rather than be sociable. Or you can just rock up and take your chances if you prefer, with the risk of having to relocate to Starbucks if nothing is available (and there are a few banks of unreservable desks, again like a train). There are also lockers for those not wanting to carry everything back and forth - they aren't bookable the same way, but it'd be quite a good addition for some to be like that. Those who are in the office all the time (very few) get one permanently allocated, but if they're on holiday people tend to use them as unreserved desks.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

No seat reservations of Thameslink as far as I know.

This was a subtle dig at someone on here who thought it was a great idea ...

I must have observed , whilst working today in the SAC signal box about 40 or so trains passing - (you cannot see the EMT loadings due to speed / tinted glass) , and I do not think that any train had more than 6 people on them , and the local and semi-fast Rainhams / Luton services were all empty.

5 Northbound bulk freight trains went by - so there is some economic activity going on !

 

[ChiefPlanner]

For many many years, I always used to get the slow train and get a seat, and in those days enjoyed my trip in.

Then my employer started going in for all this hot desking malarkey and it became increasingly difficult to get my spot in the office with my immediate friends. I ended up coming in earlier to get my seat, which meant getting the earlier train which was always standing room only by my stop.

So really, home working ruined my commute !

Hot desking is an absolute curse - (and frankly a huge downer on "quality of office life") - perhaps it's day is done. Says he remembering longingly the days when he had a full private office with meeting table , personal clerical support etc etc

 

[yorksrob]

Hot desking is an absolute curse - (and frankly a huge downer on "quality of office life") - perhaps it's day is done. Says he remembering longingly the days when he had a full private office with meeting table , personal clerical support etc etc

I agree whole heartedly.

I never had a private office with a meeting table, but at least before hot desking I had space for my mug !

 

[nlogax]

Hot desking is an absolute curse - (and frankly a huge downer on "quality of office life") - perhaps it's day is done. Says he remembering longingly the days when he had a full private office with meeting table , personal clerical support etc etc

Our hotdesks were labeled 'out of use' pretty early on and I doubt that they'll be easy to reinstate. Curious to know how companies such as WeWork and Regus will do out of this. On one hand.. offices aren't going to be as popular as they were. On the other, companies will always need a place to congregate regularly, even if it's only once a month.

Wouldn't want to be working in the business real estate industry right now. The uncertainty must surely be miserable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Wouldn't want to be working in the business real estate industry right now. The uncertainty must surely be miserable.

Of course the biggest investors are...our pensions.

I think Regus etc might do OK - some companies will decide to stop having a permanent office and just hire collaboration space as needed.

 

[yorksrob]

Without hot desking, there's no point for companies of anything less than full home working, as without it you can't downsize the office space.

 

[nlogax]

Of course the biggest investors are...our pensions.

I think Regus etc might do OK - some companies will decide to stop having a permanent office and just hire collaboration space as needed.

Yeah..I'm not even daring to look at my pensions right now. I'd need the stiffest of stiff drinks to summon up that sort of courage.

Anyway, hope you're right about Regus. I imagine there'll have to be some serious finagling of their business model to survive in the brave new world post-C19.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I agree whole heartedly.

I never had a private office with a meeting table, but at least before hot desking I had space for my mug !

Without the demeaning task of packing your stuff into a crate and locking it into a cubicle overnight. Really c**p way to add value to the work experience. I can think of one organisation that had "hot desking" with no proper seats - but a sort of perch. You might as well try and work on a class 376 on a SE Metro train , balancing your work on a perch squab.

Mind you (apart from "proper" offices , I might be construed as being a loser as I missed that part of BR where there were "officers messes" , tightly regimented by grade and you had to be "invited") - as trainees when we had none of this we used to jump on a lightly loaded Inter City train to somewhere like Bristol to get some peace to read the paperwork and sketch out the reports we had to do. Other junior managers did this also - sometimes Euston to Northampton and back maybe twice , - in those days even standard class had tables to work on.

I will now retire for my medication in the home .....sorry about this.

 

[philjo]

Keyboards and mice at shared desks will be removed so will need to use own laptop keyboards from now on.

the IT connections from home are improving over time. In March our network capacity was equipped based on 30% of staff connecting remotely at any one time. But I think it can now cope with 90%. Though access to network drives struggles at times.

 

[yorksrob]

Without the demeaning task of packing your stuff into a crate and locking it into a cubicle overnight. Really c**p way to add value to the work experience. I can think of one organisation that had "hot desking" with no proper seats - but a sort of perch. You might as well try and work on a class 376 on a SE Metro train , balancing your work on a perch squab.

Mind you (apart from "proper" offices , I might be construed as being a loser as I missed that part of BR where there were "officers messes" , tightly regimented by grade and you had to be "invited") - as trainees when we had none of this we used to jump on a lightly loaded Inter City train to somewhere like Bristol to get some peace to read the paperwork and sketch out the reports we had to do. Other junior managers did this also - sometimes Euston to Northampton and back maybe twice , - in those days even standard class had tables to work on.

I will now retire for my medication in the home .....sorry about this.

I've heard of the Northampton Cobbler - I wish my hot desking could be in a mk1 !

 

[Bletchleyite]

Access to network drives struggles at times.

Using OneDrive to sync to the PC itself deals with this quite well. Previously this would have been a risk if the laptop was nicked, but now you can encrypt the HD it's not.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I've heard of the Northampton Cobbler - I wish my hot desking could be in a mk1 !

Well done you for recalling them - 12 MK1;s at line speed was memorable .....

 

[Ianno87]

Long train rides can be fantastic for writing entire reports, from experience.

Hot desking is an absolute curse - (and frankly a huge downer on "quality of office life") - perhaps it's day is done. Says he remembering longingly the days when he had a full private office with meeting table , personal clerical support etc etc

Hot Desking is fine provided that the ratio of desks to staff wanting them is fine. It can be a good thing by mixing up who you sit with occasionally.

 

[takno]

Without hot desking, there's no point for companies of anything less than full home working, as without it you can't downsize the office space.

I was just having that discussion this morning. We decided on balance that we'd very much like an office to go back into asap. While we'll only be pushing people to come into the office two days a week, that's likely to be the be same days so that we can be decently collaborative (which is more or less what I was pushing for before this whole thing kicked off anyway). If we want the office to be big enough for everybody to be there at once, and be a welcoming place that they are inclined to come to more often anyway, I really don't see a lot of opportunities to save any money. Even in central Edinburgh office space isn't a huge cost compared to the salaries we are paying anyway.

Obviously that varies by sector, but I'd say that most companies who have particularly fancy offices are doing it to impress clients/investors/shareholders rather than for the staff's benefit anyway, and none of the need to impress those people disappears just because the staff you reluctantly shuffled in somewhere under the atrium don't want to come in anymore.

 

[Tezza1978]

Yeah..I'm not even daring to look at my pensions right now. I'd need the stiffest of stiff drinks to summon up that sort of courage.

Anyway, hope you're right about Regus. I imagine there'll have to be some serious finagling of their business model to survive in the brave new world post-C19.

My best mate is a senior manager at Regus looking after a regional group of offices. They are -surprisingly - VERY busy at the moment!!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Long train rides can be fantastic for writing entire reports, from experience.

Agreed, works for me too. When I've got stuff to get done I've been known to do the LNR all the way from Liverpool to Bletchley - grab the extra-legroom table (ideally on a /3 for the sockets) and take on some drinks and you're sorted.

The upshot of that is that people who need to go to London a couple of times a week rather than daily could well consider living further away and working on the train on the way in, aiming for a later arrival for a cheaper fare, and going home either before the evening peak or later on. As I only live in MK for work reasons (I've built up a decent life here and quite like it but it's still not really my "forever home" even 19 years on) and my family are all "up north" I'd be lying if I said I was not considering it now the chance of having to do London daily in my job is now near-zero - the most I've had to do in the last 6-7 years or thereabouts is twice a week. Even if I have to pay for it myself, the far cheaper housing would make the costs of this bearable provided it was possible to avoid Anytime fare territory.

 

[yorksrob]

Well done you for recalling them - 12 MK1;s at line speed was memorable .....

I can imagine !

I was just having that discussion this morning. We decided on balance that we'd very much like an office to go back into asap. While we'll only be pushing people to come into the office two days a week, that's likely to be the be same days so that we can be decently collaborative (which is more or less what I was pushing for before this whole thing kicked off anyway). If we want the office to be big enough for everybody to be there at once, and be a welcoming place that they are inclined to come to more often anyway, I really don't see a lot of opportunities to save any money. Even in central Edinburgh office space isn't a huge cost compared to the salaries we are paying anyway.

Obviously that varies by sector, but I'd say that most companies who have particularly fancy offices are doing it to impress clients/investors/shareholders rather than for the staff's benefit anyway, and none of the need to impress those people disappears just because the staff you reluctantly shuffled in somewhere under the atrium don't want to come in anymore.

Yes, that's a good point about the showpiece offices. External meetings are a lot easier face to face !

 

[Bletchleyite]

I was just having that discussion this morning. We decided on balance that we'd very much like an office to go back into asap. While we'll only be pushing people to come into the office two days a week, that's likely to be the be same days so that we can be decently collaborative (which is more or less what I was pushing for before this whole thing kicked off anyway). If we want the office to be big enough for everybody to be there at once, and be a welcoming place that they are inclined to come to more often anyway, I really don't see a lot of opportunities to save any money. Even in central Edinburgh office space isn't a huge cost compared to the salaries we are paying anyway.

I guess you're a small business, so effectively only one team? Larger businesses would be able to save by having different teams come in on different days allowing a substantial downsizing.

 

[3rd rail land]

I would refuse to work in an office 5 days a week where I didn't have a fixed desk. I set up my IT equipment to allow maximum productivity and to be as clutter free as possible. There is no way I would be willing to put everything away in a locker overnight!

Of course as I am a mobile worker, working mostly from home, I obviously don't have an assigned desk when I do go to an office but I am ok with that as it is usually just 2-3 days a month on average. That said I do enjoy a day out working from somewhere other than my flat from time to time.

More and more of the teams in my company are spread out across all parts of England and Scotland so all getting together doesn't happen too often due to the sheer cost of doing so. There are now a handful of people in my wider team I've never net.

 

[kje7812]

First day of a new month of 'working' from home. I can't do my work effectively from home (I am a PhD student who used to work in a lab pre-COVID-19). The building where I used to work is starting to reopen today but will only be able to accomodate 20 % of the people who used to work there. Notice I use past tense, because the consensus seems to be that 20 % occupancy is the maximum, and even with shifts possibly being introduced it's hard to see how they can avoid having to lose more than half the people in the department. I am one of the 80 % who are currently not allowed to work, and I am also not eligible to be included in any potential shift working.

Others have mentioned a loss of motivation after a long period of working from home, I too am feeling this. It genuinely makes no difference to anyone or anything whether I do any work these days, as my main aim is to make my limited amounts of work last for as long as possible. As a country we have put ourselves into a ridiculous situation where we have cut our capacity do to or achieve anything significant in science and technology (except test people for the virus) to the extent that restarting is virtually impossible. All this for a virus with a low fatality rate, especially among the young and healthy, who are most likely to be involved in these fields. I think soon we will start to see a 'brain drain' effect, not of people migrating to other countries to work (obviously that's no longer possible), but of educated people unable to use their skills, who will end up working in jobs that they are overqualified for (that's if there are any jobs available, which there probably won't be). Personally I don't expect to have my current position for much longer, if this madness continues.

Ha, we haven't even got back in labs yet being in Scotland. We seem to be aiming at 25% occupancy but some labs might be able get away with more. For instance, our lab has only 4 fumehoods but is quite spread out such that 2 people could happy work whilst still being greater than 2m apart. Office space is an issue though, and we'll have to see about the use of the glovebox.

And yes, loss of motivation is strong with myself and others. And I'm writing up!

 

[3rd rail land]

Agreed, works for me too. When I've got stuff to get done I've been known to do the LNR all the way from Liverpool to Bletchley - grab the extra-legroom table (ideally on a /3 for the sockets) and take on some drinks and you're sorted.

The upshot of that is that people who need to go to London a couple of times a week rather than daily could well consider living further away and working on the train on the way in, aiming for a later arrival for a cheaper fare, and going home either before the evening peak or later on.

If the table seats are occupied then it's hard to work. The seat back tables are useless for getting work done as it is too cramped. Plus I find train WiFi to be rather hit and miss, sometimes it simply will not connect.

 

[WestCoast]

I bet nobody does. Daily commuting is grim in just about every way - I've done it and I hated it, it caused me serious stress problems due to unpunctuality and unreliability, lack of sleep and at one point made me consider changing jobs - and I like trains, consider what it would be like for someone who disliked them. However, 2 days a week is quite different - it can be a pleasant day out, and because it's only two days you can consider things like avoiding the evening peak and grabbing a cheeky Nando's before boarding instead, or whatever, or maybe travelling later or earlier (I'm happy to be on the 06bleugh twice a week but definitely not daily).

I think partial home working (3 days to 2, or 2 days to 3) will become the "new normal" - and unlike most usages of that phrase I think it will be a very good thing for pretty much everyone - even the railway.

Agreed! The worst time of my life was when I left Uni four years ago and got a job working in Manchester yet commuting everyday from my parents house in Blackpool with Northern (this was about 18 months before their horrendous timetable change). It was pretty much 90 minutes door to door each way before/after working 9am - 6pm and after the intial novelty had worn off, I found it absolutely exhausting. My regular train was 06:28 leaving in the morning and 18:27 coming back. I know of people that have done similar for years but I could not hack it at all, even though I'd done night shfits etc in a warehouse before this was something else to me.

In fact, I lasted just three months and moved to Manchester - after that I vowed always to live in walking distance of work even though it's cost me so much more to rent above the transport costs. Before the lockdown I rented a place at my new base in Glasgow where I could walk in half an hour to the office or catch the Subway in about 10 minutes.

If the option had have been available to work at home back then even two days a week - preferably inbetween days in the office - I think I could have probably hacked it. Before the lockdown I was working one day a week at home and had meetings with customers offsite typically once a week so I was in the office three days a week and even that was getting too much for me.

I suspect when we return to some point of normality I'll be aiming for two office days a week, depending if I can get that passed by my bosses, but I will also be looking at a larger flat with dedicated office room.

 

[johntea]

Been back in the office a couple of days, one thing that does stand out a lot more now is the difference between having a conversation with someone over email vs. having a conversation with them in person, for several staff the difference is like night and day!

Hopefully I'll drop to 2-3 days in the office as that is all I really need and I've found I can't 'break off' as much when in the office at the end of the day compared to working from home funnily enough, I know for some people that is the opposite way round! At home I can just think 'right 6pm time to disconnect for the day' but at work I find myself looking at train times 'ah not for another half hour yet might as well start on this' 3 hours later...'wonder when the next train is!'

My commute is around 1hr 30min each way 'door to door' (i.e. my front door to my office door) assuming I don't miss the connection - this is my only issue really I would obviously much rather just have to rely on one service rather than two at opposite ends of the station...and then a bus unless I fancy a 20 minute uphill walk! I've done 'longer distance' commuting since my first job 15 years ago so it doesn't really feel like 3 hours each day but writing that down now has opened my eyes to the fact I was spending 15+ hours a week just commuting! I did move closer to work at one point (10 minute walk) but eventually grew to hate that too as all I could think about was work, not much to do in the area and my friends all back at home so I knocked that on the head

Having said all that I have a stable job (NHS), fair salary, great team and enjoy the work so swings and roundabouts I guess!

 

[6862]

We seem to be aiming at 25% occupancy but some labs might be able get away with more. For instance, our lab has only 4 fumehoods but is quite spread out such that 2 people could happy work whilst still being greater than 2m apart.

In our case the 2m rule is not what they are using, rather a ridiculous rule of 1 in 1 out for any room to make sure there are never more than 2 people per room.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In our case the 2m rule is not what they are using, rather a ridiculous rule of 1 in 1 out for any room to make sure there are never more than 2 people per room.

Indoors there can be risks beyond 2m depending on how air circulates. There's an article knocking about relating to spread in a restaurant far further than that.

 

[6862]

Indoors there can be risks beyond 2m depending on how air circulates. There's an article knocking about relating to spread in a restaurant far further than that.

Yes, I agree that there are obviously risks involved with being in a confined space, so from the purely scientific view I can see why they are doing it. The reason I say that it's ridiculous is that it will make doing any work (research) almost impossible, especially as the vast majority of the workforce will still have to work from home and will therefore not be able to actually do anything!

 

[VauxhallandI]

Lots of anti-hot desking here.

I was apprehensive at first but now wouldn't go back to the fixed desks. I have rid myself of loads of stuff that you don't really need on your desk and I almost never use the printer anymore to boot.

The introduction of the large widescreen monitors help for reading and drafting of documents so I no longer feel the need to print them out to annotate.

I was new to a team in the organisation and the ability to move about let me get to know everyone quicker. Large areas are divided in to sectors so you still keep together and all I have to do at night is sling my laptop in a locker.

There was a booking system in place at first but its actually worse as people block book desks; its more of a placebo tool to get people away from fixed desks.

I remember the almighty fuss from people when we got rid of the bins under desks, its was a real insight.

Anyway my comment was going to bw about working from elsewhere. We had a Q&A session with the leadership team this week and someone asked if they could work from abroad. The answer was in principle yes; obviously with local area consultation and caveats that long term periods would be harder due to tax implications.

Ive spent the last few days day dreaming about taking a Villa somewhere for a month with 2 weeks working and 2 weeks holiday.

 

[westv]

When you are hot desking don't you have to spend time every morning adjusting the chair to suit you? Also does it make the office more sterile with less option for personal stuff on desks?

 

[route101]

Im due to start a graduate scheme this september. Not sure if its happening , (Not heard anything from them0, expecting the worst . Will be hard if i cant get trained in office . Job is a misture of site visits and office work.Cant really learn the ropes from home.