The Covid Revolution - All over for the offices?
Discussion
Are we now likely to see a massive change on the scale of the previous revolutions in the way they the majority of office workers will now work from home, finally embracing technology that has been around for hears but everyone was a bit to scared to try. Over the past few months I've never stopped working, work longer hours and apart from distractions like pornhub, II no longer spend hours taking crap to 'Dave' and 'Helen' from accounts.
On top of this I'm saving around £25-30 a day on travel and lunch, I've had hospital appointments that are done over VC that take 10 minutes instead of 2 hours. As a result I can see this carrying on for some time as its going to be hard to get people back in the traffic jams and on the crappy trains again.
I do wonder what the end result of this will be. Plenty of articles about London and small businesses that feed of office workers for breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks etc etc and eventually office space value going down, so effecting pension funds etc.
Ultimately, I wonder how long it will be until big business realise they can now hire people from anywhere in the UK, so no higher London wages and ultimately anyone in the world, so very cheap labour and everyone will have a ahhem 'Masters Degree' from the university of Lagos?
On top of this I'm saving around £25-30 a day on travel and lunch, I've had hospital appointments that are done over VC that take 10 minutes instead of 2 hours. As a result I can see this carrying on for some time as its going to be hard to get people back in the traffic jams and on the crappy trains again.
I do wonder what the end result of this will be. Plenty of articles about London and small businesses that feed of office workers for breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks etc etc and eventually office space value going down, so effecting pension funds etc.
Ultimately, I wonder how long it will be until big business realise they can now hire people from anywhere in the UK, so no higher London wages and ultimately anyone in the world, so very cheap labour and everyone will have a ahhem 'Masters Degree' from the university of Lagos?
I reckon, for a bit, maybe. Then in a few years, someone will write a management textbook on how people work better face to face and everyone will rush back into towns again . Like outsourcing, it'll go in cycles of "why didn't we think of this before", then finding out why, then going back to what they did before.
Maybe.
Maybe.
I think we are in the midst of a new “industrial Revolution”
Covid has just accelerated what was inevitable with the introduction of the internet
Add in environmental pressures and the green lobby and I don’t think the future will look like the past
Massive office blocks, with huge numbers commuting vast distances aren’t necessary anymore
They will go the way of the typing pool and many other roles/buildings in the past
I can see a resurgence in small towns and rural areas .. the big draw to the cities is gone
Covid has just accelerated what was inevitable with the introduction of the internet
Add in environmental pressures and the green lobby and I don’t think the future will look like the past
Massive office blocks, with huge numbers commuting vast distances aren’t necessary anymore
They will go the way of the typing pool and many other roles/buildings in the past
I can see a resurgence in small towns and rural areas .. the big draw to the cities is gone
What happens to all the ghost town office blocks??
Developers in local town have repurposed at least three office blocks into flats: they still look bloody awful - either concrete monoliths, or 80s red brick/brown windows. No gardens & reminiscent of prisons(!!) It seems people want a place with a garden, so I can't see a great deal of profit in converting office blocks. This could have a massive impact on pensions.....
Developers in local town have repurposed at least three office blocks into flats: they still look bloody awful - either concrete monoliths, or 80s red brick/brown windows. No gardens & reminiscent of prisons(!!) It seems people want a place with a garden, so I can't see a great deal of profit in converting office blocks. This could have a massive impact on pensions.....
Four Litre said:
Are we now likely to see a massive change on the scale of the previous revolutions in the way they the majority of office workers will now work from home, finally embracing technology that has been around for hears but everyone was a bit to scared to try. Over the past few months I've never stopped working, work longer hours and apart from distractions like pornhub, II no longer spend hours taking crap to 'Dave' and 'Helen' from accounts.
On top of this I'm saving around £25-30 a day on travel and lunch, I've had hospital appointments that are done over VC that take 10 minutes instead of 2 hours. As a result I can see this carrying on for some time as its going to be hard to get people back in the traffic jams and on the crappy trains again.
I do wonder what the end result of this will be. Plenty of articles about London and small businesses that feed of office workers for breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks etc etc and eventually office space value going down, so effecting pension funds etc.
Ultimately, I wonder how long it will be until big business realise they can now hire people from anywhere in the UK, so no higher London wages and ultimately anyone in the world, so very cheap labour and everyone will have a ahhem 'Masters Degree' from the university of Lagos?
off shoring has happend in a big way since the 00's with varying degrees of sucess so that is not likely to change signigicantly. Lesss reliance on a office location was always going to happen but now will move more at a pace. This is good for workers bank balance, good for the enviroment and in some cases good for mental health (if work life balance is right),
Barriers to this are a need to have face to face interation (I am a big fan of tecnology and it does work but some times people do need face to face or close support i.e. new staff etc). Fear from managers about productivity, will people actuially work.
The final issue an the one that annoys me most is the goverment. Basically they dont want you (joe average) so save cash, they want you to use public transport and also use your car, they want you to buy over priced coffee an cakes which are taxed, to use offices that pay rates, to pay parking charges, more fuel duty etc.
They want you to just get buy month in month out, they want people to work in jobs that are low skileld low paid (sandwhich shop) and do that forever because it keeps you dependant on the state.
Technology allows many to upskill an not use things the state make cash from (public transportm commercial buldings etc).
Its very complex but ultimatly the state does not give a hoot about the enviroment or over all skills or creating wealth it cares about getting money off you not leaving it in your pocket to spend how you see fit.
On top of this I'm saving around £25-30 a day on travel and lunch, I've had hospital appointments that are done over VC that take 10 minutes instead of 2 hours. As a result I can see this carrying on for some time as its going to be hard to get people back in the traffic jams and on the crappy trains again.
I do wonder what the end result of this will be. Plenty of articles about London and small businesses that feed of office workers for breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks etc etc and eventually office space value going down, so effecting pension funds etc.
Ultimately, I wonder how long it will be until big business realise they can now hire people from anywhere in the UK, so no higher London wages and ultimately anyone in the world, so very cheap labour and everyone will have a ahhem 'Masters Degree' from the university of Lagos?
off shoring has happend in a big way since the 00's with varying degrees of sucess so that is not likely to change signigicantly. Lesss reliance on a office location was always going to happen but now will move more at a pace. This is good for workers bank balance, good for the enviroment and in some cases good for mental health (if work life balance is right),
Barriers to this are a need to have face to face interation (I am a big fan of tecnology and it does work but some times people do need face to face or close support i.e. new staff etc). Fear from managers about productivity, will people actuially work.
The final issue an the one that annoys me most is the goverment. Basically they dont want you (joe average) so save cash, they want you to use public transport and also use your car, they want you to buy over priced coffee an cakes which are taxed, to use offices that pay rates, to pay parking charges, more fuel duty etc.
They want you to just get buy month in month out, they want people to work in jobs that are low skileld low paid (sandwhich shop) and do that forever because it keeps you dependant on the state.
Technology allows many to upskill an not use things the state make cash from (public transportm commercial buldings etc).
Its very complex but ultimatly the state does not give a hoot about the enviroment or over all skills or creating wealth it cares about getting money off you not leaving it in your pocket to spend how you see fit.
Four Litre said:
Are we now likely to see a massive change on the scale of the previous revolutions in the way they the majority of office workers will now work from home, finally embracing technology that has been around for hears but everyone was a bit to scared to try. Over the past few months I've never stopped working, work longer hours and apart from distractions like pornhub, II no longer spend hours taking crap to 'Dave' and 'Helen' from accounts.
On top of this I'm saving around £25-30 a day on travel and lunch, I've had hospital appointments that are done over VC that take 10 minutes instead of 2 hours. As a result I can see this carrying on for some time as its going to be hard to get people back in the traffic jams and on the crappy trains again.
I do wonder what the end result of this will be. Plenty of articles about London and small businesses that feed of office workers for breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks etc etc and eventually office space value going down, so effecting pension funds etc.
Ultimately, I wonder how long it will be until big business realise they can now hire people from anywhere in the UK, so no higher London wages and ultimately anyone in the world, so very cheap labour and everyone will have a ahhem 'Masters Degree' from the university of Lagos?
Seems to me that in many cases, if your role can be 100% done from home, it can be done from home somewhere cheaper. On top of this I'm saving around £25-30 a day on travel and lunch, I've had hospital appointments that are done over VC that take 10 minutes instead of 2 hours. As a result I can see this carrying on for some time as its going to be hard to get people back in the traffic jams and on the crappy trains again.
I do wonder what the end result of this will be. Plenty of articles about London and small businesses that feed of office workers for breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks etc etc and eventually office space value going down, so effecting pension funds etc.
Ultimately, I wonder how long it will be until big business realise they can now hire people from anywhere in the UK, so no higher London wages and ultimately anyone in the world, so very cheap labour and everyone will have a ahhem 'Masters Degree' from the university of Lagos?
Personally if I worked in an office I’d be pushing for a mix of home and office work and stressing how important the face to face element is otherwise lots of roles will be replaced by cheaper employees who live in cheaper areas.
Plus also if you’re WFH 100% the amount of people and applicants who can do any particular job, suddenly increases massively, driving down wages presumably.
Depending on the amount of visits you need to do to the U.K. or the office you might even be able to base yourself in another country completely, which may have cheaper tax rules etc. Easier if it’s all WFH obviously.
This won’t work for all roles though and I think there’s a lot of evidence about the success and innovation and teamwork that comes from people physically being close together and interacting in certain roles.
Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 29th July 10:21
Yes and no.
I've worked from home quite happily for 4 months - saved a fortune, haven't spent time on the train, all good. It's worked when I was part of an existing team, we'd worked together for 18months, we knew what we were good at, and what people were bad at. Right now, I'm trying to set up something new. This is much, much harder. Yes you can VC, but the ability to get 10 people in front of a whiteboard and design something in 2 hours is priceless. I suspect we are 50% as productive as before.
I'm getting the senior team into the office next week for exactly this reason.
Does that mean a return to 5 days a week in the office? No. 2 or 3 days a week is the likely outcome. I suspect that people who spend more time in the office will be more successful come promotion time (they will get more opportunities, not that they work harder) and gradually there will be a drift back to normality.
That's true for our business - but there are loads of other business which don't have that dynamic - people travel into London, bash a keyboard for 8 hours and go home. They may be a lot more WFH.
IMO the regional office idea is bobbins. If you're going to go into the office, you want somewhere that is easy to get to for the vast majority of people - and despite all its faults, most of the talent lives in striking distance of London, and the transport is set up to support those journeys. People will go to the office to meet rather than work - so 10 regional offices scattered all over the country won't help.
The interesting impacts will be on the economy of places like London. I can see the utilization of our office being 50% of what it was for several years. That's 50% fewer journeys for TFL, 50% fewer sandwiches served. The idea of a season ticket will be gone - and that's the interesting bit. If you haven't got a season ticket, you're much more likely to stay at home if you can.
I've worked from home quite happily for 4 months - saved a fortune, haven't spent time on the train, all good. It's worked when I was part of an existing team, we'd worked together for 18months, we knew what we were good at, and what people were bad at. Right now, I'm trying to set up something new. This is much, much harder. Yes you can VC, but the ability to get 10 people in front of a whiteboard and design something in 2 hours is priceless. I suspect we are 50% as productive as before.
I'm getting the senior team into the office next week for exactly this reason.
Does that mean a return to 5 days a week in the office? No. 2 or 3 days a week is the likely outcome. I suspect that people who spend more time in the office will be more successful come promotion time (they will get more opportunities, not that they work harder) and gradually there will be a drift back to normality.
That's true for our business - but there are loads of other business which don't have that dynamic - people travel into London, bash a keyboard for 8 hours and go home. They may be a lot more WFH.
IMO the regional office idea is bobbins. If you're going to go into the office, you want somewhere that is easy to get to for the vast majority of people - and despite all its faults, most of the talent lives in striking distance of London, and the transport is set up to support those journeys. People will go to the office to meet rather than work - so 10 regional offices scattered all over the country won't help.
The interesting impacts will be on the economy of places like London. I can see the utilization of our office being 50% of what it was for several years. That's 50% fewer journeys for TFL, 50% fewer sandwiches served. The idea of a season ticket will be gone - and that's the interesting bit. If you haven't got a season ticket, you're much more likely to stay at home if you can.
El stovey said:
Seems to me that in many cases, if your role can be 100% done from home, it can be done from home somewhere cheaper.
Personally if I worked in an office I’d be pushing for a mix of home and office work and stressing how important the face to face element is otherwise lots of roles will be replaced by cheaper employees who live in cheaper areas.
Off shoring has happened its often where skills are based. So in the UK london in financial capital as lots of people in that iundustry are attracted there. Long term this may change but "cheaper" is not replacign like for like. So if you can get a derivatives analyst in Doncaster great but if they are only in an around london then that is market rate you pay.Personally if I worked in an office I’d be pushing for a mix of home and office work and stressing how important the face to face element is otherwise lots of roles will be replaced by cheaper employees who live in cheaper areas.
over time this will change if we become less london centric of course, but 20 years of off shoring has not replaced london yet
The 2 or 3 very large companies I'm in contact with are saying that full WFH is only manageable in the short-medium term and unsustainable as a way forwards - human contact is apparently a vital part of team or department-based business to remain competitive and motivated.
For the next year or 2, probably 2-3 day office days/week depending on the individual worker's situation, and 40-50pc reduction in office size possible depending on leases etc.
For the next year or 2, probably 2-3 day office days/week depending on the individual worker's situation, and 40-50pc reduction in office size possible depending on leases etc.
Gecko1978 said:
El stovey said:
Seems to me that in many cases, if your role can be 100% done from home, it can be done from home somewhere cheaper.
Personally if I worked in an office I’d be pushing for a mix of home and office work and stressing how important the face to face element is otherwise lots of roles will be replaced by cheaper employees who live in cheaper areas.
Off shoring has happened its often where skills are based. So in the UK london in financial capital as lots of people in that iundustry are attracted there. Long term this may change but "cheaper" is not replacign like for like. So if you can get a derivatives analyst in Doncaster great but if they are only in an around london then that is market rate you pay.Personally if I worked in an office I’d be pushing for a mix of home and office work and stressing how important the face to face element is otherwise lots of roles will be replaced by cheaper employees who live in cheaper areas.
over time this will change if we become less london centric of course, but 20 years of off shoring has not replaced london yet
dan98 said:
The 2 or 3 very large companies I'm in contact with are saying that full WFH is only manageable in the short-medium term and unsustainable as a way forwards - human contact is apparently a vital part of team or department-based business to remain competitive and motivated.
For the next year or 2, probably 2-3 day office days/week depending on the individual worker's situation, and 40-50pc reduction in office size possible depending on leases etc.
This.For the next year or 2, probably 2-3 day office days/week depending on the individual worker's situation, and 40-50pc reduction in office size possible depending on leases etc.
We are currently doing well with ~80 people WFH, but I've taken on half a dozen people that I've never actually met yet, and team cohesion is potentially at risk as this ratio increases.
I think that each staff member will settle down to an office/home ratio that suits their role and preferences. Some of my people will want 100% wfh, whilst others will want 100% wfo. Most will likely be in the 50% zone I think...
But we'll still need those occasional everyone in the office days.
I think if you're doing a job where it's working through a list of functional tasks then you may as well be sat at home doing it, with maybe a day or two a week in the office for planning.
If you do any sort of dynamic job then moving the collective together in the right direction and coming up with ideas as a group is difficult to achieve completely remotely.
There's definitely a balance to be struck though, particularly for people with children. My hydraulics designer has at times been far more productive because once he's got a task he'll sit there more focused than in the office and working on it until it's done rather than having to disappear off to look after his kids.
I also think there's a lot of wishful thinking knocking about at the moment for people who do a boring job that are happier sat at home in their skidded kegs not having to talk to any of their co-workers that don't like them. Tax accountants for example
Personally I got sick of working from home. Work days and weekends all blend together and it ends up like groundhog day. It's made me appreciate going into the office and socialising, as well as the value of the socialising from a team perspective too. Some people are timewasters, but not all standing around the coffee machine is wasted time.
There's also something to be said about being able to walk across the office and look someone in the eye when they're not getting on with something you need doing.
If you do any sort of dynamic job then moving the collective together in the right direction and coming up with ideas as a group is difficult to achieve completely remotely.
There's definitely a balance to be struck though, particularly for people with children. My hydraulics designer has at times been far more productive because once he's got a task he'll sit there more focused than in the office and working on it until it's done rather than having to disappear off to look after his kids.
I also think there's a lot of wishful thinking knocking about at the moment for people who do a boring job that are happier sat at home in their skidded kegs not having to talk to any of their co-workers that don't like them. Tax accountants for example
Personally I got sick of working from home. Work days and weekends all blend together and it ends up like groundhog day. It's made me appreciate going into the office and socialising, as well as the value of the socialising from a team perspective too. Some people are timewasters, but not all standing around the coffee machine is wasted time.
There's also something to be said about being able to walk across the office and look someone in the eye when they're not getting on with something you need doing.
I certainly hope that wfh become much more common. Its daft for all that energy and time to be wasted in trekking in to work everyday when there is no need. I would prefer to be 100% wfh but I think that say 2 days in the office and 3 at home is a good balance.
If will make a huge difference to congestion for a start!
If will make a huge difference to congestion for a start!
El stovey said:
Gecko1978 said:
El stovey said:
Seems to me that in many cases, if your role can be 100% done from home, it can be done from home somewhere cheaper.
Personally if I worked in an office I’d be pushing for a mix of home and office work and stressing how important the face to face element is otherwise lots of roles will be replaced by cheaper employees who live in cheaper areas.
Off shoring has happened its often where skills are based. So in the UK london in financial capital as lots of people in that iundustry are attracted there. Long term this may change but "cheaper" is not replacign like for like. So if you can get a derivatives analyst in Doncaster great but if they are only in an around london then that is market rate you pay.Personally if I worked in an office I’d be pushing for a mix of home and office work and stressing how important the face to face element is otherwise lots of roles will be replaced by cheaper employees who live in cheaper areas.
over time this will change if we become less london centric of course, but 20 years of off shoring has not replaced london yet
but we are chaning and on the up side the enviromental change is good (less pollution) and the cost to your averaghe worker has been zero and this is what gets to me the governemt tell us they want x (lower emmesions) we give it to them and then they say no all go back to work.
Basicaly the state wants a change only on their terms which means 99% paying for it.
Lots of people make grandiose statements based on London/other large cities, where they remain shut largely due to public transport issues
Lots of offices in rest of country are open, albeit some with reduced or staggered staff
I think London/other expensive rent areas could see a massive downturn, I dont think the office is dead as a concept
Lots of staff dont have space at home to work, its fine sitting at a kitchen table in a 2up2down for a few months, for years less so
We also havent done a winter yet, id be borred utterly s
tless stuck at home beavering away day in day out when its cold and dark outside, its easier (for me) in the summer as you can sit outside/walks etc
Lots of offices in rest of country are open, albeit some with reduced or staggered staff
I think London/other expensive rent areas could see a massive downturn, I dont think the office is dead as a concept
Lots of staff dont have space at home to work, its fine sitting at a kitchen table in a 2up2down for a few months, for years less so
We also havent done a winter yet, id be borred utterly s
tless stuck at home beavering away day in day out when its cold and dark outside, its easier (for me) in the summer as you can sit outside/walks etcI certainly think the days of 500 people going into an office just to do emails and do business are over.
You can achieve it at home, I still think companies will retain some office space for bi weekly or monthly get togethers but gone are the days where we all need to be in every day at 9am, which is great I think. I've been working from home for 5 or 6 years now and personally at no point has working remotely impacted my work.
You can achieve it at home, I still think companies will retain some office space for bi weekly or monthly get togethers but gone are the days where we all need to be in every day at 9am, which is great I think. I've been working from home for 5 or 6 years now and personally at no point has working remotely impacted my work.
El stovey said:
Seems to me that in many cases, if your role can be 100% done from home, it can be done from home somewhere cheaper.
Personally if I worked in an office I’d be pushing for a mix of home and office work and stressing how important the face to face element is otherwise lots of roles will be replaced by cheaper employees who live in cheaper areas.
I'm not really sure there is a correlation there. Plenty of jobs have been outsourced to India, but the ones that remain in the UK haven't been home based. You still have to go into the office, you simply spend all your day on Skype meetings as half the attendees are offshore resources.Personally if I worked in an office I’d be pushing for a mix of home and office work and stressing how important the face to face element is otherwise lots of roles will be replaced by cheaper employees who live in cheaper areas.
Couple this with the fact that I'm pretty sure every job which can be offshored has been over the last decade. WFH isn't going to suddenly trigger a new wave of offshoring.
El stovey said:
Plus also if you’re WFH 100% the amount of people and applicants who can do any particular job, suddenly increases massively, driving down wages presumably.
The flip side of this is that it massively increases the number of roles you can apply for - many of which would have been far outside a reasonable commute.Zero impact for our team being at home, or for the majority of the firm. The client facing side will be dead anyway and cooperate entertainment had been dwindling for a while before COVID, due to regulations on what hospitality you can actually accept. We're still talking about going back on a rota. That appears to be the common approach outside of the more progressive tech firms who have told staff to WFH forever, and firms which already had flexible working or hot desk policies.
Of course this all changes with official advice as we were supposed to be on a rota before everyone was advised not to go to work.
Can we turn this in to a poll as I'd like to gauge what other employers are doing?
Of course this all changes with official advice as we were supposed to be on a rota before everyone was advised not to go to work.
Can we turn this in to a poll as I'd like to gauge what other employers are doing?
Edited by R Mutt on Wednesday 29th July 11:01
Gecko1978 said:
Sure it won’t work for all roles but someone growing up in Doncaster and looking at those jobs might now think they don’t have to move to London in the first place or people doing that job in London might move back to Doncaster and be living in a castle or whatever the attraction is back in Doncaster with a big salary.
True, but the employer might realise that it's just as easy for that member of staff to be in Johannesburg as it is in Doncaster and make a saving of 60% on salaries. I definitely think there will be changes to working practices and my staff have stated a preference to more flexible working (which will work fine) but everyone shouldn't be too keen to tell their employer that their job can be done from anywhere!Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff