Remote working preferences (in the longer term)

[Jamesrob637]

I must say that although I can’t work from home (I work on other people’s homes ). The difference in traffic around Exeter is very noticeable even now when we’re supposed to be getting back to normal.
I think the percentage that haven’t gone back to their normal workplaces yet must be almost the exact same percentage that tips the city into rush hour gridlock normally.
I’m finding that if I go across the city in rush hour it’s taking me virtually no extra time than off peak because it’s just that bit quieter.

Exeter is stupid for traffic as I studied there in the 00s. Getting out from the Uni northbound towards Tiverton or Pennsylvania (second year digs) was okay but any other direction was a nightmare. It's hardly Manchester!

 

[Tracked]

I did wonder, given there's something like 300+ people in the building I work in (not just in our company, there's another one in the same building), how many days it would be after any sort of larger scale reopening before someone displays symptoms and the building has to be closed for a deep clean.

 

[MontyMinerWA]

I certainly do not miss working in the office. In normal times my journey to and from work is over three hours in total and means that I have to be out of bed for 06.00 Monday to Friday. Currently I'm rolling out of bed at 07.30 for a 08.00 start.

In addition I've already saved a large sum of money by not renewing my train season ticket. I've also saved money by not buying an over priced hot drink on the way to work. The PM is clearly trying to encourage people to return to their place of work but he can sod off as far as I'm concerned.

In all fairness I do realise that loneliness is a terrible thing and that all too often it can prove to be fatal. Fortunately I don't live by myself and so do not seek or want the social life that work can provide. I get on with my colleagues but certainly don't consider them to be my friends. I've never been for a pint after work for the simple reason that I just want to go home.

Working from home has also made me feel more cheerful about having to work for a living. I put this down to getting more sleep each night. I'm certainly not looking forward to returning to the office, whenever that might be.

 

[BJames]

I certainly do not miss working in the office. In normal times my journey to and from work is over three hours in total and means that I have to be out of bed for 06.00 Monday to Friday. Currently I'm rolling out of bed at 07.30 for a 08.00 start.

In addition I've already saved a large sum of money by not renewing my train season ticket. I've also saved money by not buying an over priced hot drink on the way to work. The PM is clearly trying to encourage people to return to their place of work but he can sod off as far as I'm concerned.

In all fairness I do realise that loneliness is a terrible thing and that all too often it can prove to be fatal. Fortunately I don't live by myself and so do not seek or want the social life that work can provide. I get on with my colleagues but certainly don't consider them to be my friends. I've never been for a pint after work for the simple reason that I just want to go home.

Working from home has also made me feel more cheerful about having to work for a living. I put this down to getting more sleep each night. I'm certainly not looking forward to returning to the office, whenever that might be.

To me this is exactly why things need to be more balanced. You accept that working from home doesn't suit everyone, but equally going into the office five days a week clearly isn't working out either. An option to go into the office for the connection and the ability to work somewhere else rather than your home is good, something I do hope isn't lost - but the ability to work from home more flexibly as well should (and I suspect will) be supported throughout and after the pandemic. As said multiple times on the forum as well it could mean people would be more willing to live further from work if they're just travelling in once or twice a week.

Personally, I'd still only want to work from home once a week but that's down to personal preference regarding my productivity levels and the fact that I want to be able to physically separate home from work.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With regard to work-life separation it will be interesting to see what effect this has on the housing market and the market for outside buildings. People wanting separation are going to want a separate office, so with more spending power available as people won't be buying season tickets might there be a move from 2 to 3-bedroom properties to allow for a separate formal office room used only for work? Or even to 4-bedroom ones so a couple can have an office each?

 

[Scrotnig]

I did wonder, given there's something like 300+ people in the building I work in (not just in our company, there's another one in the same building), how many days it would be after any sort of larger scale reopening before someone displays symptoms and the building has to be closed for a deep clean.

And all 300 get a 14 day prison sentence to be served under house arrest.

 

[yorksrob]

With regard to work-life separation it will be interesting to see what effect this has on the housing market and the market for outside buildings. People wanting separation are going to want a separate office, so with more spending power available as people won't be buying season tickets might there be a move from 2 to 3-bedroom properties to allow for a separate formal office room used only for work? Or even to 4-bedroom ones so a couple can have an office each?

Could be a nice little trade in garage conversions for builders.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Could be a nice little trade in garage conversions for builders.

Possibly also people moving to larger houses a bit further from London. That BBC programme about a house in the country is going to see boom time!

 

[philosopher]

Could be a nice little trade in garage conversions for builders.

Where will all the junk that is normally stored in garages go if they become offices!

 

[yorksrob]

Where will all the junk that is normally stored in garages go if they become offices!

The loft of course (except perhaps the car !)

 

[Ianno87]

With regard to work-life separation it will be interesting to see what effect this has on the housing market and the market for outside buildings. People wanting separation are going to want a separate office, so with more spending power available as people won't be buying season tickets might there be a move from 2 to 3-bedroom properties to allow for a separate formal office room used only for work? Or even to 4-bedroom ones so a couple can have an office each?

A number of colleagues work out of their (presumably well-insulated) sheds!

 

[yorksrob]

I'm sure my neighbours would be pleased to see me go back to the office, given that I seem to spend most of the day swearing and cursing at the computer.

 

[Class 466]

I started a new job about 2 months ago and undertook training all from home via video calls, I see no need to return more than once a week once this is over. I’ve also been more productive at work (can’t say I’m missing office politics either) and saved a hell of a lot of money!

 

[trebor79]

Before all this kicked off I was looking for another job, partially because I was disliking home working. Now I don't even get out to visit clients and potential clients and I'm at home all week it's convinced me more than ever I want to be back in an office.
It's where all the creativity happens. I miss having proper colleagues, a bit of banter and the casual conversations. And video conferences are doubly stressful when I can hear things kicking off in the rest of the house, that I'm sure are picked up on the microphone.

Secondly, it's not going to take long for company bosses to realise that if their staff can do everything from home, they can pay someone far less to do it on the other side of the world. Could be a similar bloodbath to what we are seeing in retail and hospitality.

FWIW I think those companies that eliminate office working will lose the competitive edge as people who work together will have a creativity edge.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Secondly, it's not going to take long for company bosses to realise that if their staff can do everything from home, they can pay someone far less to do it on the other side of the world. Could be a similar bloodbath to what we are seeing in retail and hospitality.

As a long term home worker in IT it's not how things have happened - it did for a short while almost as a novelty, then people realised that cultural understanding is more important than physical location, and so while you might get someone from the US working on a UK project that doesn't save money and so it won't be done as a means of killing jobs.

Offshoring is now more commonly done for basic "follow the sun" support than to save money.

 

[DB]

As a long term home worker in IT it's not how things have happened - it did for a short while almost as a novelty, then people realised that cultural understanding is more important than physical location, and so while you might get someone from the US working on a UK project that doesn't save money and so it won't be done as a means of killing jobs.

Depends which part of IT - I can certainly think of some examples of large-scale offshoring in the past decade, e.g. Dell moved almost all their UK accounts teams and most of the support centres from Dublin to India not many years ago.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Depends which part of IT - I can certainly think of some examples of large-scale offshoring in the past decade, e.g. Dell moved almost all their UK accounts teams and most of the support centres from Dublin to India not many years ago.

And I bet it lost them customers. It's very much out of favour now. If anything automating the jobs away by way of things like chatbots is more in vogue.

 

[SS4]

I'd like to merge aspects of homeworking and office working. From home I like the ability to grab better hot food, sensible dress code and no colleagues nearby but from the office I enjoy the quiet and being able to talk to a few colleagues as well as the commute when the weather is nice.

In an ideal world I'd have an even split with the option to pick one or the other at short notice - for example if the weather forecast says poor then I'll stay at home with the fans

 

[DB]

And I bet it lost them customers. It's very much out of favour now. If anything automating the jobs away by way of things like chatbots is more in vogue.

Well, they've not moved them back! You can draw your conclusions from that.

 

[yorksrob]

Happily, my employer is now actively talking about a limited return to the office, which frankly I will jump at.

Sadly, said employer is now also talking about compulsory redundencies, so whether I get to work in said office again, is up for question.

Such is life in COVID Britain.

 

[takno]

As a long term home worker in IT it's not how things have happened - it did for a short while almost as a novelty, then people realised that cultural understanding is more important than physical location, and so while you might get someone from the US working on a UK project that doesn't save money and so it won't be done as a means of killing jobs.

Offshoring is now more commonly done for basic "follow the sun" support than to save money.

I'm offshoring most of my development as we speak. Six months ago I'd never have considered it, but it's going incredibly well. I agree it was an absolute disaster area 10-15 years ago, but now we have better mutual understanding of cultures, smarter use of near-timezones, and much better collaboration and home-working tools. It just works

 

[yorksrob]

Another wave of off-shoring is a potential economic disaster in the making.

A while back there was talk of the Government taxing robots used by companies, so that they would cost the same as employees, as a recognition of the cost to society of not having people employed.

Perhaps a similar approach needs to be considered for off shored workers.

 

[westv]

Happily, my employer is now actively talking about a limited return to the office..

Hopefully it won't be limited to those not made redundant!

 

[yorksrob]

Hopefully it won't be limited to those not made redundant!

I'll second that !!

 

[Yew]

So yesterday I went into the office to help them prepare for reopening, and I must say that it was a nice change, I'm now certain I wouldn't want to be 100% home working, but I'm not sure where on the 20-80% spectrum I would want to be. Particularly as most of our teams are remote, so there aren't regular face to face meetings to attendv

 

[Mag_seven]

I think that those stating "well home working has worked so it should stay that way" should really be concentrating on keeping the job they have regardless of its location. The impact on jobs of the lockdown, social distancing etc still hasn't hit home for a lot of people yet.

 

[MontyMinerWA]

We've been told by our CEO that we'll continue to work from home until at least October. Given how much money many of us are saving by working from home I don't think there are many complaints if any.

Given the nature of the work carried out by our organisation our jobs are secure but I certainly appreciate that we are lucky in that respect.

 

[stj]

It will be interesting to see if there is a boom in new homeworking jobs as you will be able to run an office based company without the overheads of an office to pay for and salaries could be lower.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It will be interesting to see if there is a boom in new homeworking jobs as you will be able to run an office based company without the overheads of an office to pay for and salaries could be lower.

Interestingly, my employer, which was founded in the early 2000s but is now much bigger and owned by a large corporate, tried to start out without an office (and have customer meetings either on their site or in a neutral venue) but found that there was pressure to have one from various directions, so got a small one which was about the size of my lounge. Whereas now I think that is much more feasible for a small business.

I doubt salaries would be that much lower other than that London weightings could disappear.

There's also another issue that some flat leases and deeds of covenant, particularly in places like MK where you have designated purpose of use of given areas, prohibit having businesses registered at home addresses and carrying on certain types of business. This would need a change in the law to remove that requirement.

 

[Yew]

There's also another issue that some flat leases and deeds of covenant, particularly in places like MK where you have designated purpose of use of given areas, prohibit having businesses registered at home addresses and carrying on certain types of business. This would need a change in the law to remove that requirement.

That feels awfully close to American "Zoning" rules, I didn't realise we had anything close to that in the UK!