How do you lose a laptop at home?

[ecsrobin]

theplayingmantis said:

Wfh is less productive anecdotally and subjectively in many industries.
I do 4 days a week from home. I'm less productive.

I still perform to a high standard yet i'm undoubtedlyless productive and spend less time work focussed.
My friends, peers and colleagues admit the same yet we now demand it as a work condition.

I understand the annoyance at public sector being less productive. Especially given there generally crap anyway for a variety of reasons.
Awaits the CS on here to anadoidly rebuke me about being right wing or some such nonsense and get all defensive.

Having issues with productivity, wastefullness, bloatedness and ineffectiveness of the civil service is not a right/left issue. Its just an issue that in my personal experience has consensus form those across the political spectrum.

WFH doesn't help with any of that. Yes there will be dedicated people who still perform highly but such is the selfishness of society now many will take the p.

But are you really less productive?

In the office you get people coming over for a chat, let’s go for a coffee, your boss suggests lunch which then over runs as they go off spinning tales of old.

I find WFH has just as many distractions they’re just different.

[ScotHill]

S600BSB said:

Ditch laptops and get everyone behind a desktop. In an office serving the public. Problem solved.

Should they also wear bowler hats?

[SpidersWeb]

S600BSB said:

Ditch laptops and get everyone behind a desktop. In an office serving the public. Problem solved.

Good luck with that.

HMRC's regional office design was based on staff not all staff being in the office at the same desk and sat behind a desktop, so that will be an interesting bump up in their office costs.

And then as HMRC now only have 13 offices and all of those are in large cities then they are competing for staff in those cities with every other employer - except it is paying minimum wage for at least 1/3 of those staff it wants those minimum wage staff to do skilled work - so interesting how they would persuade people to take a job with them and not with the private sector employer in the same cities who pay more and are happy with staff working from home.

[scenario8]

What are the justifications behind this “you must take your laptop home with you” idea?

I can come up with my own reasons but for many/most the risk of “loss” will greatly increase with each movement, won’t it? Is it a widespread policy?

[Carl_VivaEspana]

chrispmartha said:

What is it with dome people who always seem to be on the right wing side of politics who despise people working from home?

I don't see it as a political issue, its more of a generational one.

Older people are less likely to understand technology or, modern working patterns.

[borcy]

scenario8 said:

What are the justifications behind this “you must take your laptop home with you” idea?

I can come up with my own reasons but for many/most the risk of “loss” will greatly increase with each movement, won’t it? Is it a widespread policy?

Often nowhere to leave them. With hot desking there's no guarantee you have the same desk two days in a row.

[SpidersWeb]

scenario8 said:

What are the justifications behind this “you must take your laptop home with you” idea?

I can come up with my own reasons but for many/most the risk of “loss” will greatly increase with each movement, won’t it? Is it a widespread policy?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, between 2015 and 2020 HMRC closed hundreds of offices in towns and cities across the UK and opened 13 new large regional centres, and that meant the staff it did retain (many thousands were paid to leave) were likely to be travelling significant distances to those new offices.

That additional travel meant staff were much more susceptible to transport disruption, so a 'take it home' direction mitigates that issue as the employee can just work from home.

With respect to the risk of loss, that is only the hardware as the data is safe as the drives are all encrypted, so a few hundred pounds risk of loss to a tiny percentage of laptops against ensuring you have all your staff available to work.

[J4CKO]

Randy Winkman said:

J4CKO said:

pokethepope said:

J4CKO said:

DM Comments are hilarious, someone suggesting they are being stolen and sold, that would be an edge case having a job with HMRC and being that desperate for a laptop, maybe in the past when they were very expensive devices but they are ten a penny now, who wants to lose their job over a crappy, usually basic work laptop

Not everyone working at HMRC is on a big wage - https://www.accountancydaily.co/third-hmrc-workers...

Still, not worth losing your job and potentially getting a criminal record over a £400 laptop ?

When I was a manager of an apprentice in the civil service I didnt give him much advice but one thing I did say was "Don't get too stressed about making mistakes in your work but dont under any circumstances pinch anything, look at anything dodgy on a work computer or send an inappropriate email".

Indeed, I worked for Greater Manchester Police and they went for a colleague in a big way as he had been taking the piss, he could coast, do his work well and then slack off, plus he used to clock out for thirty mins for lunch, then go to the pub for an hour and a half so as not to dent his flexi time.

Another chap and myself, his mates, got scrutinised to the nth degree but we hadnt dont anything wrong, it was quite oppressive actually having all your emails read because he had been sending personal emails of an explicit nature.

He nicked a graphics card, but they never noticed that, despite taking his home pc to check for evidence.

I did send one email they picked up on, a medical article from the Lancet that says "Regular masturbation guards against prostate cancer", so when I had my interview that came up, I thought I was done for but fronted it out as "Its a legitimate medical article from a legitimate source on a male health matter, my team are all male", basically I was calling them wkers but the woman interviewing me didnt know where to go with that as I suggested we get the union in to discuss and they had already been torn a new one by the union a couple of times.

I did take stuff from GMP, a fireplace, some old hardware, however I always ensured I had written confirmation that it was authorised, wouldnt ever nick anything.

[oyster]

theplayingmantis said:

oyster said:

The DM re-hashing a Telegraph article lambasting working from home - again.

Does working from home really anger people? I mean really anger them? Why?

Wfh is less productive anecdotally and subjectively in many industries.
I do 4 days a week from home. I'm less productive.

I still perform to a high standard yet i'm undoubtedlyless productive and spend less time work focussed.
My friends, peers and colleagues admit the same yet we now demand it as a work condition.

I understand the annoyance at public sector being less productive. Especially given there generally crap anyway for a variety of reasons.
Awaits the CS on here to anadoidly rebuke me about being right wing or some such nonsense and get all defensive.

Having issues with productivity, wastefullness, bloatedness and ineffectiveness of the civil service is not a right/left issue. Its just an issue that in my personal experience has consensus form those across the political spectrum.

WFH doesn't help with any of that. Yes there will be dedicated people who still perform highly but such is the selfishness of society now many will take the p.

Even assuming your anecdotal and subjective view on WFH productivity is correct (which I'd counter anyway), surely this isn't the reason why some folk (and these 2 papers especially) get so wound up by it.

[snotrag]

scenario8 said:

What are the justifications behind this “you must take your laptop home with you” idea?

I can come up with my own reasons but for many/most the risk of “loss” will greatly increase with each movement, won’t it? Is it a widespread policy?

Standard everywhere I've worked.

I''ve always assumed it was based on a single event (lets say, a fire at the office) taking out the entire workforce, as opposed to an employee having an event which would only affect them (fire at home, or, as per here, 'losing' it).

Secondly, post covid, there is also the risk of waking up on a Monday morning and we've all been told to stay at home. Would be hard to remain operational if all our kit was locked in the office miles away.

[theplayingmantis]

ecsrobin said:

But are you really less productive?

In the office you get people coming over for a chat, let’s go for a coffee, your boss suggests lunch which then over runs as they go off spinning tales of old.

I find WFH has just as many distractions they’re just different.

Yes I am

[scenario8]

borcy said:

scenario8 said:

What are the justifications behind this “you must take your laptop home with you” idea?

I can come up with my own reasons but for many/most the risk of “loss” will greatly increase with each movement, won’t it? Is it a widespread policy?

Often nowhere to leave them. With hot desking there's no guarantee you have the same desk two days in a row.

Thanks. These justifications were some of those I’d imagined and I appreciate hot desking, for example, would present issues. A correspondent above, however, made mention of “lockers” which suggested safe spaces and hinted at return visits. In these sorts of scenarios it just seems a bit daft to prohibit leaving laptops at work.

On the wider point I’m not convinced that data isn’t at potential risk along with the hardware when laptops go missing. I suspect in a high number of cases there would be data on lost devices. Not just referencing HMRC in these comments, incidentally.

[ecsrobin]

theplayingmantis said:

Yes I am

Doesn’t mean everyone else is

[oyster]

scenario8 said:

borcy said:

scenario8 said:

What are the justifications behind this “you must take your laptop home with you” idea?

I can come up with my own reasons but for many/most the risk of “loss” will greatly increase with each movement, won’t it? Is it a widespread policy?

Often nowhere to leave them. With hot desking there's no guarantee you have the same desk two days in a row.

Thanks. These justifications were some of those I’d imagined and I appreciate hot desking, for example, would present issues. A correspondent above, however, made mention of “lockers” which suggested safe spaces and hinted at return visits. In these sorts of scenarios it just seems a bit daft to prohibit leaving laptops at work.

On the wider point I’m not convinced that data isn’t at potential risk along with the hardware when laptops go missing. I suspect in a high number of cases there would be data on lost devices. Not just referencing HMRC in these comments, incidentally.

Isn't one of the primary reasons for not leaving laptops in an office (even a locker) to do with business continuity?

Not data loss, as that should be cloud or backed up anyway. But hardware loss.

If one employee has a house fire and loses 1 laptop then so be it. If the office burns down and you lose 50 laptops, that's going to have an effect on business in the coming days/weeks.

[theplayingmantis]

oyster said:

theplayingmantis said:

oyster said:

The DM re-hashing a Telegraph article lambasting working from home - again.

Does working from home really anger people? I mean really anger them? Why?

Wfh is less productive anecdotally and subjectively in many industries.
I do 4 days a week from home. I'm less productive.

I still perform to a high standard yet i'm undoubtedlyless productive and spend less time work focussed.
My friends, peers and colleagues admit the same yet we now demand it as a work condition.

I understand the annoyance at public sector being less productive. Especially given there generally crap anyway for a variety of reasons.
Awaits the CS on here to anadoidly rebuke me about being right wing or some such nonsense and get all defensive.

Having issues with productivity, wastefullness, bloatedness and ineffectiveness of the civil service is not a right/left issue. Its just an issue that in my personal experience has consensus form those across the political spectrum.

WFH doesn't help with any of that. Yes there will be dedicated people who still perform highly but such is the selfishness of society now many will take the p.

Even assuming your anecdotal and subjective view on WFH productivity is correct (which I'd counter anyway), surely this isn't the reason why some folk (and these 2 papers especially) get so wound up by it.

In the civil service context because senior people in it are undoubtedly of a left leaning persuasion and conciouslybor subconsciously push against the implementation to there best efforts of the ruling parties policies who these 2 papers support perhaps.

How in reality the political beliefs of the sir humphreys impact some low down hmrc bod who likely has no opinion on much is beyond me.

Generally I don't know. But there are far far more distractions and temptations at home i would think for the average person, than even working in thr informalist of office's.

[borcy]

theplayingmantis said:

oyster said:

theplayingmantis said:

oyster said:

The DM re-hashing a Telegraph article lambasting working from home - again.

Does working from home really anger people? I mean really anger them? Why?

Wfh is less productive anecdotally and subjectively in many industries.
I do 4 days a week from home. I'm less productive.

I still perform to a high standard yet i'm undoubtedlyless productive and spend less time work focussed.
My friends, peers and colleagues admit the same yet we now demand it as a work condition.

I understand the annoyance at public sector being less productive. Especially given there generally crap anyway for a variety of reasons.
Awaits the CS on here to anadoidly rebuke me about being right wing or some such nonsense and get all defensive.

Having issues with productivity, wastefullness, bloatedness and ineffectiveness of the civil service is not a right/left issue. Its just an issue that in my personal experience has consensus form those across the political spectrum.

WFH doesn't help with any of that. Yes there will be dedicated people who still perform highly but such is the selfishness of society now many will take the p.

Even assuming your anecdotal and subjective view on WFH productivity is correct (which I'd counter anyway), surely this isn't the reason why some folk (and these 2 papers especially) get so wound up by it.

In the civil service context because senior people in it are undoubtedly of a left leaning persuasion and conciouslybor subconsciously push against the implementation to there best efforts of the ruling parties policies who these 2 papers support perhaps.

How in reality the political beliefs of the sir humphreys impact some low down hmrc bod who likely has no opinion on much is beyond me.

Generally I don't know. But there are far far more distractions and temptations at home i would think for the average person, than even working in thr informalist of office's.

I think will always find ways of avoiding work if they want. In the office the standard was to have/attend lots of meetings. Not everywhere of course.

[ScotHill]

scenario8 said:

On the wider point I’m not convinced that data isn’t at potential risk along with the hardware when laptops go missing. I suspect in a high number of cases there would be data on lost devices. Not just referencing HMRC in these comments, incidentally.

Our hard drives are encrypted, BitLocker I believe, and without the six digit key entered at the beginning of logon it's pretty much inaccessible to anyone else.

[scenario8]

oyster said:

Isn't one of the primary reasons for not leaving laptops in an office (even a locker) to do with business continuity?

Not data loss, as that should be cloud or backed up anyway. But hardware loss.

If one employee has a house fire and loses 1 laptop then so be it. If the office burns down and you lose 50 laptops, that's going to have an effect on business in the coming days/weeks.

Yes I had considered that, of course. It’s interesting that that idea may have trumped earlier practice when desktops were left overnight for years on end.

I’ll be honest, my concern with data loss was as much on the side of the clients as it was the operation.

[Byker28i]

scenario8 said:

What are the justifications behind this “you must take your laptop home with you” idea?

I can come up with my own reasons but for many/most the risk of “loss” will greatly increase with each movement, won’t it? Is it a widespread policy?

Hybrid working. You can shut offices as you need less room, save money. Staff come in a day a week, alternate

[MikeM6]

Rufus Stone said:

It doesn't appear to be from a taxpayer perspective though.

Why?

I very much doubt homeworking is the route cause of HMRC issues. Employing the wrong people and badly managing them is more likely to be major issues.

Our organisation has the majority of staff working form home, we are operating on a different level of productivity and quality. Personally, going into the office once per week is sufficient for me, I can't afford the lost productivity of dealing with other people and commuting any more than that, let alone wasting money on parking.