"Get off your Pelotons and back to the office"

[Terminator X]

devnull said:

jdw100 said:

Had to google peloton.

Stationary exercise bike.

Start from about £1,500, up to £2,000 or so.

Average UK take-home pay is about £600 a week.

Two weeks to one months take home pay for the average worker then.

Plus the ongoing £40 monthly sub to use it - I.e the point of the Peloton service.

I'm loving that you can now also get a Peloton treadmill for running *puts on trainers, walks out front door*

TX.

[Johnnytheboy]

Terminator X said:

I'm loving that you can now also get a Peloton treadmill for running *puts on trainers, walks out front door*

TX.

It's almost as if there was a way to combine going to the office again with some sort of exercise.

[ATG]

simonw67 said:

ATG said:

Being able to punch unimaginative colleagues who fail to recognise opportunities to improve productivity is one of the few benefits of "f2f' I've noticed. The majority of the supposed benefits I've heard being trotted out are an illusion.

Perhaps for your business. Building relationships for new staff/existing colleagues. Staff development. More casual conversations, collaboration. Clarifications after the meeting (this shouldn't happen but with packed agendas things often get clarified afterwards) when people didn't get the chance. Large meetings usually benefit from body language signals and faster paced conversation as do weekly 'whiteboard' team meetings. Personally, not sitting listening to audio for meetings or staring at a screen all day is nice too.

No, it is not about the business, it's about making very trivial changes to the way you do things to accommodate on-screen communication in order to gain all the benefits associated with more flexible working. The idea that it is hard to collaborate, hard to build relationships, hard to develop juniors, etc., etc. is bunkum. There are loads of firms that are managing to do this stuff very effectively, and indeed have been doing so prior to having it forced on then by covid.

If you don't like it, that's fine and my reaction would be feel free to go into the office if it suits you better as an individual. But let's not pretend there are more obstacles to remote working than really exist. Let's not fail to take advantage of the productivity gains that can be made.

[Terminator X]

thewarlock said:

I'm a structural engineer that runs a small team just now on a design project.

I'm more productive as I have less distractions, less standing about in the kitchen drinking coffee, less people appearing at my desk at random times of the day to ask silly questions.

As for my team (I can't speak for EVERYONE in the entire company), on average we're getting the work done quicker.

The main downside for me is lack of a plotter at home, as I prefer to review hard copies of drawings, and these drawings are usually A0 or bigger, as well as usually being classified/restricted, meaning you can't just go to the local copy place and print them off.

Bigger than A0

TX.

[Candellara]

ATG said:

Let's not fail to take advantage of the productivity gains that can be made

With cheaper, overseas labour. I agree. Business always finds a way.

[thewarlock]

Terminator X said:

Bigger than A0

TX.

Yes. Usually A0 height, but much longer. A0++. 841x~1800

[ATG]

Electro1980 said:

Because location does matter. There are two ways of employing people overseas, outsourcing and direct employment. Both have been tried in significant levels in finance, IT and customer service functions and have been around for a long time. They don’t work, except in very specific circumstances. It’s not cheaper, it’s not easy. There are very specific circumstances where it does work, and 90% of those are quickly going to be taken over by automation.

I think you're wrong about direct employment. There are certainly some functions where location does matter, but in finance and IT generally location is not an issue at all. What won't work is "direct employment that actually looks more like out-sourcing" ... e.g. try to get the grunt work executed in a cheap overseas location and don't pay proper attention to recruitment and man management as you would in what you think of as your core locations. But if you recruit and manage people in Mumbai or Buenos Aires in the same way that you would in Glasgow or Houston, then you'll get perfectly good outcomes.

[captain_cynic]

ATG said:

But if you recruit and manage people in Mumbai or Buenos Aires in the same way that you would in Glasgow or Houston, then you'll get perfectly good outcomes.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

You've never even come close to trying it.

If you try to recruit in India or South America like you do in in the west... You'll go broke in short order as you can simply buy a qualification over there. It takes hard interviewing to get good candidates, you'll end up paying them well above market and there is absolutely no loyalty, so as soon as a higher offer comes along they'll jump and you're back at square one.

It's the same with those who bought their qualifications. They'll jump ship as soon as they get anything better. In India you always need to be seen like you're moving, even sideways. Staying in a job for too long is seen as stagnation, your career has ended.

You've got completely different cultures... If you think everyone will just behave like westerners you're deluded and they'll see you a mile off. This is what the likes of Tata have made their fortunes from, dealing with the staffing issues westerners don't understand. If you offshore, you need to hire local troubleshooters and they are not cheap.

You can hire Indians and Latinos who are as good as their western counterparts... But to find them youre better off interviewing in London than Mumbai or Mexico City.

[ATG]

Candellara said:

ATG said:

Let's not fail to take advantage of the productivity gains that can be made

With cheaper, overseas labour. I agree. Business always finds a way.

It might have escaped your attention that a huge number of people in the UK are employed by non-UK employers. An awful lot of jobs are already globalised. There is far more to it than "cheap overseas labour".

[PeteinSQ]

croyde said:

Yeah, our line manager is still working from home, or time in a villa on the Med, whilst the rest of us have slogged it into the office all through this mess.

I'll give her this, she does answer phone or reply to emails and texts on a Friday night and over the weekend.

Does make me laugh that she's sending us emails from beside a pool whilst sipping on a Pina colada, telling us that we need to be in extra early on a Monday morning.

All for £80k a year.

wow, surprised there hasn't been a mutiny.

[croyde]

PeteinSQ said:

croyde said:

Yeah, our line manager is still working from home, or time in a villa on the Med, whilst the rest of us have slogged it into the office all through this mess.

I'll give her this, she does answer phone or reply to emails and texts on a Friday night and over the weekend.

Does make me laugh that she's sending us emails from beside a pool whilst sipping on a Pina colada, telling us that we need to be in extra early on a Monday morning.

All for £80k a year.

wow, surprised there hasn't been a mutiny.

There are rumblings.

[Jiebo]

Timothy Bucktu said:

Outsourcing to India is usually quite expensive, and the service received is almost always much, much worse than what you had before. It rarely works well.

I specialise in outsourcing within financial institutions, and you’re correct India has proven to be quite a poor partner for anything more than donkey work.

The real threat, ironically post brexit, is Eastern Europe. We have large numbers of Polish resources who completely run the operations in parts of the bank. These guys are good - they speak excellent English, very smart in the way Indians aren’t (doing things without being told), and similar culture and timezone. This is where the WFH jobs will be going, not India.

[ATG]

captain_cynic said:

ATG said:

But if you recruit and manage people in Mumbai or Buenos Aires in the same way that you would in Glasgow or Houston, then you'll get perfectly good outcomes.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

You've never even come close to trying it.

If you try to recruit in India or South America like you do in in the west... You'll go broke in short order as you can simply buy a qualification over there. It takes hard interviewing to get good candidates, you'll end up paying them well above market and there is absolutely no loyalty, so as soon as a higher offer comes along they'll jump and you're back at square one.

It's the same with those who bought their qualifications. They'll jump ship as soon as they get anything better. In India you always need to be seen like you're moving, even sideways. Staying in a job for too long is seen as stagnation, your career has ended.

You've got completely different cultures... If you think everyone will just behave like westerners you're deluded and they'll see you a mile off. This is what the likes of Tata have made their fortunes from, dealing with the staffing issues westerners don't understand. If you offshore, you need to hire local troubleshooters and they are not cheap.

You can hire Indians and Latinos who are as good as their western counterparts... But to find them youre better off interviewing in London than Mumbai or Mexico City.

Total garbage. Haven't tried it? We do it every day.

My colleagues are in London, Glasgow, New York, Houston, Buenos Aires, Mumbai and Bangalore. We have the full spectrum of senior and junior staff in all those locations and they undertake roles independent of location. They are all employees. Depending on what specific things we're doing, we'll pull together individuals from all those locations to build teams to execute particular bits of work.

We've been doing this for years. It is nothing special.

If you think you can outsource grunt work to a cheap location, manage it all from the UK, pay no attention to recruitment or man management in your overseas location, then of course it will fail. But it's failing because you're doing it wrong.

[ATG]

Jiebo said:

Timothy Bucktu said:

Outsourcing to India is usually quite expensive, and the service received is almost always much, much worse than what you had before. It rarely works well.

I specialise in outsourcing within financial institutions, and you’re correct India has proven to be quite a poor partner for anything more than donkey work.

The real threat, ironically post brexit, is Eastern Europe. We have large numbers of Polish resources who completely run the operations in parts of the bank. These guys are good - they speak excellent English, very smart in the way Indians aren’t (doing things without being told), and similar culture and timezone. This is where the WFH jobs will be going, not India.

Indians aren't smart? Do you want to read that back to yourself and wonder if the problem might not be you rather than "them" ... all 1.4 billion of them.

[Candellara]

Jiebo said:

I specialise in outsourcing within financial institutions, and you’re correct India has proven to be quite a poor partner for anything more than donkey work.

The real threat, ironically post brexit, is Eastern Europe. We have large numbers of Polish resources who completely run the operations in parts of the bank. These guys are good - they speak excellent English, very smart in the way Indians aren’t (doing things without being told), and similar culture and timezone. This is where the WFH jobs will be going, not India.

I agree. This "new" WFH movement has yet to play out. It'll be interesting to see who the ultimate beneficiaries really are - the employers or employees? Just in the same way Covid advanced the digital economy as prolifically seen in the retail sector but it also advanced the further globalisation of workforces brought on by WFH.

Edited by Candellara on Wednesday 6th October 12:04

[pquinn]

Well this has all diverted away from being about the *civil service* going back to the office.

And if we look at the level of service that's actually being delivered there it shows any claims about productivity being maintained are bullst. They aren't delivering even close to their previous level of service (which was st to start with) so their productivity is obviously well down.

Some may seek to blame some of that on limitations of home working but if you can't resolve that by now then you won't ever, and just like other jobs you'll just have to go to where the work is.

[Candellara]

ATG said:

If you think you can outsource grunt work to a cheap location,

I don't think that is generally the case. Manufacturing "grunt" work still needs bodies in the UK but higher wage demands will mean either further outsourcing (to eastern Europe rather than the Far East) or more importantly, a real pursuit of automation.

With desk based jobs, i don't think employers are ultimately looking purposely at "cheap" locations. Rather if someone is located overseas (Eastern Europe being a great example, is suitably qualified, speaks good English and can fulfil the role at 2/3rds the cost of a UK worker located in SE England - why not? Makes great sense especially if everyone is working remotely anyhow.

This whole WFH thing is great - it simply opens huge opportunities. This of course, applies to UK workers also - wishing to work for overseas employers (should they wish to pay a premium for a UK based employee)

[Murph7355]

ATG said:

Electro1980 said:

Because location does matter. There are two ways of employing people overseas, outsourcing and direct employment. Both have been tried in significant levels in finance, IT and customer service functions and have been around for a long time. They don’t work, except in very specific circumstances. It’s not cheaper, it’s not easy. There are very specific circumstances where it does work, and 90% of those are quickly going to be taken over by automation.

I think you're wrong about direct employment. There are certainly some functions where location does matter, but in finance and IT generally location is not an issue at all. What won't work is "direct employment that actually looks more like out-sourcing" ... e.g. try to get the grunt work executed in a cheap overseas location and don't pay proper attention to recruitment and man management as you would in what you think of as your core locations. But if you recruit and manage people in Mumbai or Buenos Aires in the same way that you would in Glasgow or Houston, then you'll get perfectly good outcomes.

It really depends what you mean by "work".

Functionally there's often no technical reason why they can't be made to work. But if the objective is cost effectiveness, mid-long term it's a busted flush.

And for linked reasons this can often compromise the functional side - longevity of service is not a valued commodity when all firms are typically doing is chasing the $s down.

[ATG]

Murph7355 said:

ATG said:

Electro1980 said:

Because location does matter. There are two ways of employing people overseas, outsourcing and direct employment. Both have been tried in significant levels in finance, IT and customer service functions and have been around for a long time. They don’t work, except in very specific circumstances. It’s not cheaper, it’s not easy. There are very specific circumstances where it does work, and 90% of those are quickly going to be taken over by automation.

I think you're wrong about direct employment. There are certainly some functions where location does matter, but in finance and IT generally location is not an issue at all. What won't work is "direct employment that actually looks more like out-sourcing" ... e.g. try to get the grunt work executed in a cheap overseas location and don't pay proper attention to recruitment and man management as you would in what you think of as your core locations. But if you recruit and manage people in Mumbai or Buenos Aires in the same way that you would in Glasgow or Houston, then you'll get perfectly good outcomes.

It really depends what you mean by "work".

Functionally there's often no technical reason why they can't be made to work. But if the objective is cost effectiveness, mid-long term it's a busted flush.

And for linked reasons this can often compromise the functional side - longevity of service is not a valued commodity when all firms are typically doing is chasing the $s down.

If your staff feel like they're being treated as a commodity, then of course your firm will fail. You could employ them in London, Mumbai or wherever. They'll still leave.

But in just the same way that Indian companies manage to successfully employ Indian staff in India, a British or American firm can do exactly the same thing ... just as Indian firms employ people in the UK, just as American firms employ people in the UK.

If you are not a good employer, then, no surprise, you'll fail. If you're a good employer in the UK and a crap one in India, then your Indian operation will fail ... because you're a crap employer, not "because India", not "because outsourcing never works" (you're not out-sourcing, and in any case out-sourcing works fine when it is appropriate).

This isn't theoretical. There are loads of firms that have been doing this stuff successfully for years. When they get big enough we start calling them "multinationals"; hardly a new concept.

[ATG]

Candellara said:

ATG said:

If you think you can outsource grunt work to a cheap location,

I don't think that is generally the case. Manufacturing "grunt" work still needs bodies in the UK but higher wage demands will mean either further outsourcing (to eastern Europe rather than the Far East) or more importantly, a real pursuit of automation.

With desk based jobs, i don't think employers are ultimately looking purposely at "cheap" locations. Rather if someone is located overseas (Eastern Europe being a great example, is suitably qualified, speaks good English and can fulfil the role at 2/3rds the cost of a UK worker located in SE England - why not? Makes great sense especially if everyone is working remotely anyhow.

This whole WFH thing is great - it simply opens huge opportunities. This of course, applies to UK workers also - wishing to work for overseas employers (should they wish to pay a premium for a UK based employee)

I think an awful lot of firms were kidding themselves that easy savings were possible. Thinking of things in terms of "this is grunt work" is frequently the starting point for a chain of bad decisions. The "grunt work" is an activity that is obviously materially important to the firm, otherwise why try to reengineer it, yet it isn't valued and the firm's trying to do it at arm's length on the cheap ... alarm bells. Shoving your call centre, the first point of contact for already pissed-off customers, in a location where English is not your employees' first language ... what could possibly go wrong? What's wrong with squandering the most direct communication channel you've got to help retain existing customers that are considering dumping you? You couldn't make half of this stuff up.

Cost is of course one of the drivers when hiring. If I want to hire someone, I have to make a case to justify a London salary, rather than a Glasgow salary or a B.A. salary, etc. What my firm hasn't yet done is figure out that we could also start paying Swindon salaries or a Truro salary and start tapping the entire UK labour market, or Argentine labour market, etc. We still think in terms of cities where we have office space, and that is pretty silly. Sorting that out isn't going to seem like great news for Londoners, but at least they'd be able to move out of London taking their jobs with them and their existing salary differential for a considerable period of time, and that exodus would help deflate the cost of living in London while boosting salaries across the rest of the country. It can only be a good thing over the long term.