Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2022 21:47:02 GMT
Haven't been in the office since 12 March 2020. My wife's job is fully remote (she's built a little empire in a corner of the house) and my new job is going to be one day a month in the office for team meetings. Saves a small fortune and gives so much more free time.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2022 21:48:54 GMT
One of the girls in my kid's school is quite poorly with COVID today we've heard. There's now 13 of them positive and cases are rising in the other year groups.
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Post by stuz359 on Jan 20, 2022 22:45:27 GMT
WFH is quite a contentious thing. I think it's great, because I can. But won't someone think of the owners of large amounts of office space? What about Pret?
The truth is, we had an opportunity to reorder the way society works for the modern world and certain interests don't want it to happen. From different ends of the spectrum too. Wealthy landlords, business in town centres (understandable) but also people who cannot work from home.
The pandemic gave us an opportunity to rethink how we function as a modern society but I just see a depressing trend to want to get back to normal.
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111
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Post by 111 on Jan 20, 2022 22:56:13 GMT
I'd say that so far, by far and away the most noise seems to be around a situation where vast swathes of the population move from working in the office basically all the time, to less than half the time - and with a lot of freedom to do more/less than that as suits the individual in many cases. Which would be a pretty massive shift.
To me the companies itching to get everyone mandatorily back in offices full-time seem to be on the fringes rather than the trend.
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richardiox
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Post by richardiox on Jan 20, 2022 23:04:07 GMT
"Mild cold" "Infections plummeting" (to 100k a day) "It's over" etc
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Post by Reviewer on Jan 20, 2022 23:10:02 GMT
I'd say that so far, by far and away the most noise seems to be around a situation where vast swathes of the population move from working in the office basically all the time, to less than half the time - and with a lot of freedom to do more/less than that as suits the individual in many cases. Which would be a pretty massive shift. To me the companies itching to get everyone mandatorily back in offices full-time seem to be on the fringes rather than the trend. Ours is still talking about hybrid working which, given we’ve worked from home for two years and everything has worked as well as it did when we were in the office, makes no sense. A recent internal survey of a few thousand people suggests a lot of people are very willing to walk to other companies. I’ll be one of them if I see something I’m interested in and they try to force me in. They’ve asked how we want our teams to work eg how many days a week in about 4 times in the last 3 months. Our hr person said everyone has to be in 3 days a week and you can’t WFH Mondays and Fridays (because people might pretend to be working and really be on holiday) despite them using recommendations, not rules, that people will be in 3 days but it’s up to the team and managers. Pre pandemic our HR people were the only ones never in the office, the rare times they were they turned up at about 10 and disappeared in the afternoon. I hate our HR.
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111
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Post by 111 on Jan 20, 2022 23:18:10 GMT
Flexibility is really what's going to be important in keeping staff happy, rather than having everyone in the office or everyone working at home (or mandating a certain mix of each). At our place, there's people with spare rooms to work in, £20 per day hour-each-way train commutes and school runs to manage who can't get enough WFH - but there's also people flat-sharing with four strangers who all have one kitchen table to share and who live 15 mins walk from the office who can't wait to be able to stroll down the road to a nice big desk and a coffee machine.
Right now, those of us half-way through a career with a decent house to work in and no great pressure to make new connections see WFH as a luxury (and it is, it's great), but done right offering someone a proper office facility can be a luxury too - particularly (though not only) if the alternative is being hunched over a laptop in a cramped flat having barely met anyone you work with.
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geefe
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Post by geefe on Jan 20, 2022 23:20:43 GMT
The fact is people WILL dictate how they work and the smart companies will cotton on pretty fucking quickly.
The other, huge, elephant in the room is rising costs. Trains have just gone up above inflation again. We're all going to be, at best, around 6% worse off in real terms this year - just on energy and tax rises.
Now try telling Johnny Dad of 2 that he's got to spend another £100 a month on commuting, see his kids less, possibly fork out for childcare because his 3 year old isn't ready for school when he's spent the best part of 2 years adjusting to a better way of life that he can possibly only afford BECAUSE he works from home.
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Post by Reviewer on Jan 20, 2022 23:21:23 GMT
It’s going to come down to managers learning to manage properly. Most of the senior people got to where they have not by ability but by visibility and office politics.
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111
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Post by 111 on Jan 20, 2022 23:24:36 GMT
Hey come on no-one wants to see more of their three year-old.
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Post by technoish on Jan 21, 2022 0:07:35 GMT
I can WFH in a large house with a dedicated office, and my wife likes to work in dining room (she is in office/at clients much more frequently). I have team members who basically can only work in their bedroom in a shared flat, another who lives in a one bed flat with wife and baby, and another who lives in a studio flat with his wife. One of those has basically continued to go into the office most days already. Our normal will be 2 or 3 days a week in office. It's a massively different experience. On cost of living... I just had a team member resign/transfer to another dept which has an office in a place he can afford to buy a house (compared to London). I can see big challenges for people ahead inflation will go up to like 7%. Who is going to get a payrise like that or bigger? Not many... Public sector workers definitely won't!!!!
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Post by Dougs on Jan 21, 2022 6:58:48 GMT
Yep, it's definitely going to vary depending on your circumstances. Even as someone well used to WFH and have a dedicated office, I need that human contact even if it costs me cash and time. And it is much harder to build a cohesive team remotely.
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Post by Reviewer on Jan 21, 2022 7:22:54 GMT
Yeah it will be very different for different people. Leaving it to the individuals and their managers is going to be the best way, assuming the manager is sensible and reasonable.
Part of our company do manufacturing work and they were complaining that those doing office work were getting flexibility but they don’t. Strange that they think it has anything to do with them or effects them if the office bods are at home.
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Post by knighty on Jan 21, 2022 8:07:39 GMT
I also work in Engineering, and get the same sort of feeling from the shop floor guys. I can totally understand their point though - already paid less, and now have to pay for a commute etc when the well paid office staff might not have to.
Maybe there’s a conversation to be had about paying office people less if they aren’t coming in?
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Post by Dougs on Jan 21, 2022 8:09:34 GMT
That already been suggested by the politicians. They can get fucked.
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Post by khanivor on Jan 21, 2022 8:22:24 GMT
So.. what about all the folks who never have WFH as it’s not an option?
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Post by Dougs on Jan 21, 2022 8:24:33 GMT
What about them?
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Post by Nitrous on Jan 21, 2022 8:34:04 GMT
I'd like to see people continue to be allowed to WFH if they can. Less cars on the road is great for me as I physically have to be on site. 20 minutes drive to work can easily be double.
No idea what the office staff will be instructed to do but as some work from home I've no idea whos left.
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Post by AccidentProne on Jan 21, 2022 8:35:01 GMT
Annoyingly, just before Covid hit, our company consolidated all the UK offices to a single location and took out a ten year lease on a large office space to accomodate all of us. Then during lockdown they blamed any project delays on people working from home, rather than the more obvious cause that they lost a significant number of key staff, who didn't fancy moving. This meant losing some of the better folks, as they knew they'd be able to find work elsewhere easily enough. This of course meant the company generally wants us all in the office as soon as possible, despite no obvious improvements in productivity when we were back last year.
WFH obviously won't work for everyone and I do like the social side of things in the office, but with the choice of an 80 mile commute or staying in a hotel, I'd much rather be at home most of the time. I get so much more done without the added stress.
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111
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Post by 111 on Jan 21, 2022 8:35:02 GMT
Part of our company do manufacturing work and they were complaining that those doing office work were getting flexibility but they don’t. Strange that they think it has anything to do with them or effects them if the office bods are at home. Our place struggle with this sort of thing - they like to be seen to be doing the right thing and get a bit tied up in knots over giving people what they can vs not being unfair in effectively giving certain benefits to some but not all.
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RobEG
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Post by RobEG on Jan 21, 2022 8:57:38 GMT
Our CEO has been massively against WFH from day 1. He uses absolutely everything to try to get people ‘back to work’. He thinks people are coming downstairs in their pjs at 11am and doing fuck all all day, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
We put in place a policy last summer of up to 50% wfh at manager discretion. We’ve since reduced to 40%. I think (at least for me personally) that’s fine, as I think there are benefits to having face to face interaction. In my circumstances, working from home 1 or 2 days per week is nice, but probably wouldn’t want to do much more. Just personal preference.
He said to me yesterday that ‘wfh is finished now cos boris said so’. I told him we’ve been following our own policy for 6 months not government guidance so it doesn’t matter what boris says.
It’s so frustrating.
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Post by technoish on Jan 21, 2022 9:03:32 GMT
I am sure most in my team are doing longer hours than before, and there is less socializing and chat, and no long lunches.
Taking 10 minutes to put in a wash is not an issue!
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Post by Reviewer on Jan 21, 2022 9:14:40 GMT
Most of our office used to have an hour long coffee break each day and then two hours for lunch. It would be hard for them to do less from home.
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Post by AccidentProne on Jan 21, 2022 9:19:40 GMT
My boss is actually in favour of WFH, especially as I largely work independently anyway. The CEO and senior management are fundamentally against it though and believe "corridor conversations" betwween staff are important for business. I'm not sure how what we've been watching on Netflix or who made an arse of themselves at the pub last night are good for business, but I'm sure they know best...
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dmukgr
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Post by dmukgr on Jan 21, 2022 9:24:18 GMT
At the end of the 90s my misses worked in the office as a programmer for a large successful engineering company who at that time were second in the world for their sector. The shop floor workers used to start at 7:30 or 8am and have Friday afternoon off, finishing at 1pm (office staff at 5:30). Over the years the office staff started going in later, in part as they were finishing later and working from home unpaid overtime due to the pressures of coding jobs. The shop floor workers didn't like the office staff coming in later, HR took their side and the knock on effect was loads, including my wife, left. A few years later the company was no more and catching up with some HR/shop floor workers at a wedding, they were at a complete loss as to what had gone wrong - all they knew was that the coding side of the business (firmware, embedded sw etc.) deteriorated so badly as there was nobody there with any experience and they could only hire numpties to replace them, who were not up to the job. Of course they had no self awareness that they had caused it.
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Post by Dougs on Jan 21, 2022 9:31:23 GMT
My boss is actually in favour of WFH, especially as I largely work independently anyway. The CEO and senior management are fundamentally against it though and believe "corridor conversations" betwween staff are important for business. I'm not sure how what we've been watching on Netflix or who made an arse of themselves at the pub last night are good for business, but I'm sure they know best... Yeah, but I know what they mean - an overheard convo sparks debate and makes linkages between similar but different workstreams etc and helps to build a cohesive team. It's one of the key reasons I want to go back in one day a week, arranged for when others are in.
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RobEG
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Post by RobEG on Jan 21, 2022 9:31:33 GMT
I think there are benefits to office working in certain situations. Some things are just easier or better done face to face rather than teams or zoom and there is more spontaneous idea sharing etc. But every role, person and team is different. For me, I’ll only work at home when my diary is clear and I can just crack on with stuff.
For my team, I like them to be in sometimes as I think it’s good for morale to be together and sometimes it’s just easier to get things done when we are all together, but I really don’t have strong feelings if they want flexibility to work at home when it makes sense to do so.
To me it just seems like using common sense in each situation is the best approach. I just get frustrated by the old school ‘I pay you to be in the office approach’. Times have moved on and it seems like a strange thing to get so hung up on when there are so many other problems in the business (in our case).
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Post by GigaChad Sigma. on Jan 21, 2022 9:32:28 GMT
I can see why there is a push for returning to the office as there's certain benefits to being onsite that can't be replicated virtually.
Peoples productivity can drop when WFH over long periods whether it's tech fatigue, lack of space to work or family distractions. Casual workplace interaction and networking has real value to the business but also individuals job satisfaction and career but who has a casual Teams/Zoom call outside there immediate team/without specific topic? Certainly in more creative industries having a physical presence encourages quick and spontaneous idea sharing. Then there's organisational culture which has an influence on business performance and a sense of belonging.
That said I'm in no rush to go back and given most of my team are in Belfast one day a week works for me. Plus I hate the commute and the lifestyle benefits and cost savings are huge.
The working world has changed for most people, if I was hiring 3 years ago and someone had requested that they work from home minimum of 2-3 days a week it would have been a difficult sell, now I would expect the majority of candidates to have that expectation.
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Post by elstoof on Jan 21, 2022 9:33:02 GMT
The most common complaint from people in my wife’s office whenever 3 days in the office is discussed is the fact that 3 days of train travel is as expensive as it would be for 5 days, like that matters in some way
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Jan 21, 2022 9:39:14 GMT
Four day week next. If I organised my calendar a bit better, I could start on monday.
But, yes, there is no putting the cork back in the WFH bottle. Because I'm great, I get hit up on linkedin a fair bit and jobs now mention WFH either in their job description or as part of the 'reward package'. I wouldnt accept anything less than 4/5 days WFH now, certainly.
And, yeah, we have lost some things. I went to a wedding last summer that may well have been the last office romance wedding the company ever sees. But you gain things. Younger staff miss out on that social life, yes, but they also dont have to move for work so can hang with their actual mates. They can carry on living where its cheaper.
We will lose things but the gains quite clearly outweigh them.
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