Return to office - your situation

[Cloudy147]

Flooble said:

Leaving your contract as officially office based will likely be so they don't have to pay you expenses when you do go into the office. I wouldn't read anything into that other than that companies have to protect themselves from the handful of people who will totally rip the backside out of any loophole they can find.

Yep, agree that's definitely the reason. And that's fine to be honest, but its just something else that adds to the mixed messaging they are giving out.

Thankfully my boss, and the exec above him aren't too precious about where people work, which is allowing me to have the flexibility to keep my own guys happy. Which is great!

[untakenname]

Meant to be doing 1 day a week minimum back in the office but I've gone in one day in the past month and no one minds as my workload is quite heavy at the moment.

Commuting on public transport has peaked at 45% pre pandemic capacity this month
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59094685

Now the nights are drawing in there will be even less reason to commute into the office, especially if the cases keep rising as the main risk vector for catching covid will be the train into work.

[Wings]

Be careful what you wish for!!

One large energy company, having been forced to take on 250,000 new customers, has realised that it can now engage in South Africa two university graduates, for the same cost as one UK employee. Now having opened an office in South Africa engaging up to 200 employees.

[craigjm]

Wings said:

Be careful what you wish for!!

One large energy company, having been forced to take on 250,000 new customers, has realised that it can now engage in South Africa two university graduates, for the same cost as one UK employee. Now having opened an office in South Africa engaging up to 200 employees.

Which large energy company is that? Whoever it is, thats quite comical considering the inability of South Africas own energy company to function properly

[Autopilot]

We've made a reasonable amount of progress with regards to our future ways of working. I've been a contractor for 18 years and took a permanent role near the beginning of lockdown as a CIO / Head of IT.

Where I've not been wedded to a single office for most of my career, I'm very flexible so bring with me the attitude that work is something you do not somewhere you go. Homeworking has been popular within our service and I have no intention in bringing people back. I was approached by Facilities Management and asked if we would be a study group and essentially hand back half the space we currently occupy (there's 117 of us) and operate on the basis that we won't all be in at the same time but will have collaboration space and desks for those that need / want it.

We are not back in the office and won't be until next year so don't have any real world experience of our future way of working yet. There is a desk booking system, uniformed style of desk with standard connectivity, we're migrating to MS Teams telephony so that's not a problem anyway and have come from IP Based Telephony anyway so no culture shock and some meeting rooms are getting bit of an overhaul to ensure we offer 'Hybrid' meetings so those not in the room feel included. Flexible working is the rule not the exception.

Since Skype, MS Teams etc has moved on, it seems like a long time since I last forgot about the person / people on the end of the Spider phone on the desk.

I guess the proof is in the pudding and we will see how it works in January onwards but I don't see how it will be any different from now. I'm lucky enough to have a small outbuilding at home which I have converted in to an office. I'm not in the house, I have a wired connection to the network, I have a decent desk / screen / headset / desktop mic & speaker, so I don't care where I work from and have no intention of being a permanent fixture in the office and will be present on a needs basis.

[hyphen]

Google spent $1bn this week to buy (not lease) new offices in Central London. They are spending many millions refurbishing them before moving staff in. Once ready it will up their desk space capacity in London to 10,000.

Is the future a gradual move back to 5 days a week and bums on desks? Appears so.

https://www.cityam.com/google-feels-lucky-in-londo...

[Podie]

hyphen said:

Google spent $1bn this week to buy (not lease) new offices in Central London. They are spending many millions refurbishing them before moving staff in. Once ready it will up their desk space capacity in London to 10,000.

Is the future a gradual move back to 5 days a week and bums on desks? Appears so.

https://www.cityam.com/google-feels-lucky-in-londo...

Same story seems to have a slightly different slant on the Beeb - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59980216

We are struggling to recruit with a 3 days in / 2 days out approach. Offers have been turned down and people have left, wanting more flexibility. Bonuses are paid at the end of the month, so will be interesting to see what happens then.

[Andy 308GTB]

Podie said:

hyphen said:

Google spent $1bn this week to buy (not lease) new offices in Central London. They are spending many millions refurbishing them before moving staff in. Once ready it will up their desk space capacity in London to 10,000.

Is the future a gradual move back to 5 days a week and bums on desks? Appears so.

https://www.cityam.com/google-feels-lucky-in-londo...

Same story seems to have a slightly different slant on the Beeb - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59980216

We are struggling to recruit with a 3 days in / 2 days out approach. Offers have been turned down and people have left, wanting more flexibility. Bonuses are paid at the end of the month, so will be interesting to see what happens then.

We are seeing a lot of competition for staff. Salaries are being pushed up and staff, both existing and potential, have huge expectations of flexible and/or fully remote working. But I think Google have got it right, being in the same building for the bulk of roles is important.

[Halmyre]

hyphen said:

Google spent $1bn this week to buy (not lease) new offices in Central London. They are spending many millions refurbishing them before moving staff in. Once ready it will up their desk space capacity in London to 10,000.

Is the future a gradual move back to 5 days a week and bums on desks? Appears so.

https://www.cityam.com/google-feels-lucky-in-londo...

The cost of the offices is no doubt allowable as a tax offset.

[Flooble]

I still don't really understand why there is suddenly so much difficulty in finding new employees, with salaries rocketing and people job hopping on a whim.

I don't see anything that has actually changed since 2019, in fact if anything the WFH options have opened up more opportunities to send work away from the hotspots - with the entire UK being a "hotspot" to a greater or lesser extent. e.g. South Africa, India etc. are cheaper places to employ people than here, if people no longer come to the office you can recruit out there too, so logically I would expect somewhere like the UK to have fewer vacancies and wages to be going down as jobs were sent abroad.

The economy isn't particularly growing, so why are there so many new jobs?

[Sporky]

Flooble said:

The economy isn't particularly growing, so why are there so many new jobs?

Partly musical chairs. If I recruit someone, whoever they worked for probably needs to replace them, and so it goes.

[anxious_ant]

Podie said:

We are struggling to recruit with a 3 days in / 2 days out approach.

I am surprised you are struggling to recruit with 3 in 2 out perk, unless your salary range is below market rate?

[skwdenyer]

hyphen said:

Google spent $1bn this week to buy (not lease) new offices in Central London. They are spending many millions refurbishing them before moving staff in. Once ready it will up their desk space capacity in London to 10,000.

Is the future a gradual move back to 5 days a week and bums on desks? Appears so.

https://www.cityam.com/google-feels-lucky-in-londo...

At £1200 psf + refurb costs, this is a good but by no means top end price.

[Sporky]

anxious_ant said:

I am surprised you are struggling to recruit with 3 in 2 out perk, unless your salary range is below market rate?

I'm not. If my new corporate overlords tried that I'm pretty sure they'd have to replace my entire team. We don't need to be in an office - it'd be counterproductive - and we could all have new jobs in a week. I've been recruiting as we need more capacity, and the first question every applicant has asked is how often they have to come to the office.

Productivity went up by every measurement when we went to remote working - pre Covid we went from every day in the office to 1 day a week, to once a month in, and at every shift, throughput increased. We still go to see customers (so replacing us with people overseas wouldn't work), and we go to the office occasionally - maybe once every 6 weeks - but commuting is a waste of time, money, and employee engagement for many roles.

Edited by Sporky on Saturday 15th January 09:48

[hyphen]

Flooble said:

I still don't really understand why there is suddenly so much difficulty in finding new employees, with salaries rocketing and people job hopping on a whim.
...

Could it be migrant staff not returning?

When covid hit, a lot of staff who were just renting a room or flat moved back to family. Be it elsewhere in the UK, Europe or around the world. Perhaps they have not decided to stay home and not return to their previous area of work?

[Flooble]

hyphen said:

Flooble said:

I still don't really understand why there is suddenly so much difficulty in finding new employees, with salaries rocketing and people job hopping on a whim.
...

Could it be migrant staff not returning?

When covid hit, a lot of staff who were just renting a room or flat moved back to family. Be it elsewhere in the UK, Europe or around the world. Perhaps they have not decided to stay home and not return to their previous area of work?

If it was that, I'd expect it to mostly be the lower end jobs (the sort where you are just renting a room or flat and have no ties in the local area)? But from what we hear it's across the board, from bottom end entry-level jobs up to high-powered lawyers and the like. It's as if a whole vertical slice of the workforce has vanished.

Maybe it is migrant staff, even those in higher-end jobs with ties here, deciding that despite that they'd rather be "home" in case there's even more difficulty travelling in the future.

[hyphen]

Don't know about rest of UK, but tons of foreign professional workers in London and other cities.

[Deep Thought]

Flooble said:

hyphen said:

Flooble said:

I still don't really understand why there is suddenly so much difficulty in finding new employees, with salaries rocketing and people job hopping on a whim.
...

Could it be migrant staff not returning?

When covid hit, a lot of staff who were just renting a room or flat moved back to family. Be it elsewhere in the UK, Europe or around the world. Perhaps they have not decided to stay home and not return to their previous area of work?

If it was that, I'd expect it to mostly be the lower end jobs (the sort where you are just renting a room or flat and have no ties in the local area)? But from what we hear it's across the board, from bottom end entry-level jobs up to high-powered lawyers and the like. It's as if a whole vertical slice of the workforce has vanished.

Maybe it is migrant staff, even those in higher-end jobs with ties here, deciding that despite that they'd rather be "home" in case there's even more difficulty travelling in the future.

There has been some talk that many people who would otherwise have worked on for a number of years yet have now taken early retirement / not returned to their previous professions.

Companys also potentially wanting to expand now, new projects starting up again and need more headcount.

Brexit also has brought changes both in companies now setting up offices here or pulling out and taking staff with them.

[hyphen]

Deep Thought said:

There has been some talk that many people who would otherwise have worked on for a number of years yet have now taken early retirement / not returned to their previous professions...

Along with people enjoying furlough too much to return, lockdown also coincided with the Contractor law changes which happened same time, and a lot of contractors did quit and retire.

[vulture1]

Flooble said:

I still don't really understand why there is suddenly so much difficulty in finding new employees, with salaries rocketing and people job hopping on a whim.

I don't see anything that has actually changed since 2019, in fact if anything the WFH options have opened up more opportunities to send work away from the hotspots - with the entire UK being a "hotspot" to a greater or lesser extent. e.g. South Africa, India etc. are cheaper places to employ people than here, if people no longer come to the office you can recruit out there too, so logically I would expect somewhere like the UK to have fewer vacancies and wages to be going down as jobs were sent abroad.

The economy isn't particularly growing, so why are there so many new jobs?

Personally I think the majority of people working from home are not doing as much work and enjoying the freedom of it being very difficult to monitor. During proper lockdoen there was nothing to do so people worked more at home. Now not so much.