Do you miss travelling for work?

[Countdown]

Carbon Sasquatch said:

People enjoy the travel AND people in head office like having people travel in.

I used to work for a US bank - in a profitable year, I'd be in NY once a month, in a bad year not at all, then the next good year, I'd be back on a plane.....

I could clearly do my job without travelling, but I could do it better when I was.

What could you do when you were physically "there" that you can't do via Skype/Teams?

One of the things I've noticed is that it's FAR easier to organise a meeting when we're working from home. No having to pre-book a room for XYZ people, no having to arrange lunch, nobody travelling 200+ miles or having to stay overnight in hotels or get up at 4am. No X hours wasted on travel with work and emails piling up until you get back to a decent table/chair to work from home.

[Carbon Sasquatch]

Countdown said:

What could you do when you were physically "there" that you can't do via Skype/Teams?

Teams & Zoom have come a long way very quickly and are certainly filling the gap, but still not quite as good as all sitting in the same room with a whiteboard - but it's getting very close.

The soft stuff is obviously better in person - the social side of building relationships - eating together seems to be one of those human bonding things.

On balance, I'd definitely rather work from home now the tech is there - I'd happily never get on another flight for work - or any other form of transport for that matter.....

However, it's going to be harder for new people joining an existing team. It's also going to give an advantage to kids from privileged backgrounds - much easier to work from home if mummy & daddy have a huge house than a council flat. Going into an office is a good leveller when you're starting out.

[Countdown]

Carbon Sasquatch said:

Teams & Zoom have come a long way very quickly and are certainly filling the gap, but still not quite as good as all sitting in the same room with a whiteboard - but it's getting very close.

The soft stuff is obviously better in person - the social side of building relationships - eating together seems to be one of those human bonding things.

On balance, I'd definitely rather work from home now the tech is there - I'd happily never get on another flight for work - or any other form of transport for that matter.....

However, it's going to be harder for new people joining an existing team. It's also going to give an advantage to kids from privileged backgrounds - much easier to work from home if mummy & daddy have a huge house than a council flat. Going into an office is a good leveller when you're starting out.

Yes I think you're right. It's definitely the personal 1-to-1 stuff that is best done when you're both sat around the same table.

[mr_spock]

Although I was WFH anyway before all this, I was in our office in Barcelona every few weeks. I miss the interaction with the team, the side conversations over coffee, the impromptu meetings to solve problems or whiteboard ideas. Not so bothered about the whole dog-to-sitter, drive/park/fly/Aerobus/hotel/eating alone stuff though. Just another commute really.

I do miss the long haul though. We just lost a deal largely because I couldn't visit the prospect in Taiwan, personal relationships matter a lot. We also had a couple of events cancelled in the US we were planning to attend, so those are sales/marketing opportunities it's hard to replace. I have a good prospect in Canada I may need to go and see, if I can. New staff in the Barcelona team have been recruited and onboarded by Zoom, it seems to be working OK for the moment.

[so called]

p1stonhead said:

abzmike said:

so called said:

I live in south Cheshire and used to use Manchester Airport all the time for heading to the office in Germany, India or North America.
I posted earlier to say that I'm really missing the travel. 22 years working in Germany, Switzerland and the last 13 covering North America and India.
4 or 5 weeks out and a week at home. It was great.
After 3 years with only a daily commute I'e realized how good working from home is and that my pining for travel has eased.
THAT IS UNTIL LAST NIGHT.
I got an mail from a customer in San Francisco asking for help and have spent most of today day dreaming about my old San Fran routine.
Day 1 -
Flights Manchester - Frankfurt - San Fran.
Rental car.
Hotel.
Day 2 -
Meet with customer.
Day 3 -
Drive to Sacramento to our Service Facility.
Call in to the Tommy Bahamas store in Vacaville for a couple of shirts or shorts etc., on the way.
Day 4 - head back to San Fran.
Day 5 - flight to somewhere else.
Miss the people.

I used to have weeks like that, but realistically look at it from an efficiency perspective. A whole week out, about $2000 of costs, for one client meeting, and a visit to your office over there. Over the past few months companies have realised that type of trip was a bit daft really, the expectation of personal visits is gone now and for the forseable future, and for all but the most special reasons isn't going to be coming back.

I don’t see how anyone will justify regular trips to see people across countries now. For important face to face introductions (or bkings) sure, but regular?

These trips were every month but a normal US or India trip would last 2 to 3 weeks with plenty of meetings set up.
Often involed going out to India and then on to the US so 4 or 5 weeks.
The trips worked as we increased our customer base 3 fold and completely cornered one of the sectors over the period I was travelling.
You cant always establish a potential customers needs, there existing issues and their problems through a computer screen.

[Kermit power]

vaud said:

R33FAL said:

Wonder how things will change on business travel going forward.

Companies start to realise a couple of zoom calls could replace a £10k+ expense each time you have a trip to the west coast.

Will probably be a long time before thing go back to "normal", if ever.

Agree 100%

Actually I suspect that the opposite will be true, and companies will realise just how much a couple of zoom calls can't replace a trip!

Personally I can't wait to start travelling to meet with clients again, as carrying out business over zoom takes away a huge amount of the interaction, and that's before you miss something important because the sound just broke up!

I'm sure more of the internal stuff will be done that way, as cost will ultimately become a driving factor, but I was really pleased to hear our CEO on a recent call say that "one thing this isolation has really brought home to me is the importance of getting us all together face to face on a fairly regular basis".

[jamoor]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavi...

[Kermit power]

acd80 said:

PinkFatBunny said:

Wrote a blog last year after doing 100 flights/year about getting bored of business travel - read it here if you want

That has to be a parody. It's cringe-inducing reading.

Oh my lord, that's priceless!

The bit where he spells "au fait" as "aufaix" in a sentence mocking others for their lack of sophistication? Not even Del Boy falling through the bar trumps that!!

[PinkFatBunny]

Kermit power said:

acd80 said:

PinkFatBunny said:

Wrote a blog last year after doing 100 flights/year about getting bored of business travel - read it here if you want

That has to be a parody. It's cringe-inducing reading.

Oh my lord, that's priceless!

The bit where he spells "au fait" as "aufaix" in a sentence mocking others for their lack of sophistication? Not even Del Boy falling through the bar trumps that!!

yep its was a bit self deprecating depending how you read it - adds to the interest :-)

[pti]

PinkFatBunny said:

Kermit power said:

acd80 said:

PinkFatBunny said:

Wrote a blog last year after doing 100 flights/year about getting bored of business travel - read it here if you want

That has to be a parody. It's cringe-inducing reading.

Oh my lord, that's priceless!

The bit where he spells "au fait" as "aufaix" in a sentence mocking others for their lack of sophistication? Not even Del Boy falling through the bar trumps that!!

yep its was a bit self deprecating depending how you read it - adds to the interest :-)

That blog is one of the greatest things I've ever read.

[PinkFatBunny]

ha ha even if it's st I find it therapeutic. My favourite seat blog must be the top contender

[Puggit]

BA and IHG have kindly extended my statuses for another year - so there's no pressure to get back out there. Routine is certainly running well at home, with the kids and wife all settling in to the new normal.

I was WFH or out visiting customers - so not a huge shake up for me. Certainly would like to get back out though.

Have a weekend away in Somerset soon, and then off on holiday to France. It will feel odd being out and about!

[ATG]

Kermit power said:

vaud said:

R33FAL said:

Wonder how things will change on business travel going forward.

Companies start to realise a couple of zoom calls could replace a £10k+ expense each time you have a trip to the west coast.

Will probably be a long time before thing go back to "normal", if ever.

Agree 100%

Actually I suspect that the opposite will be true, and companies will realise just how much a couple of zoom calls can't replace a trip!

Personally I can't wait to start travelling to meet with clients again, as carrying out business over zoom takes away a huge amount of the interaction, and that's before you miss something important because the sound just broke up!

I'm sure more of the internal stuff will be done that way, as cost will ultimately become a driving factor, but I was really pleased to hear our CEO on a recent call say that "one thing this isolation has really brought home to me is the importance of getting us all together face to face on a fairly regular basis".

The lockdown has at least made us all do the experiment, so we've now got some data to look at, albeit collected at a time of enormous economic disruption. We should certainly be able to see how normal 9-5 productivity has changed as a result of working from home and be able to compare that to the cost of office space and supporting home working. I suspect we'll have enough data to show that most inter-office travel was an exceedingly expensive waste of time that was largely motivated by air miles and the jolly factor. It might take a bit more effort to establish relationships over video calls, but when you put a price on the cost of that bit of extra effort I suspect that bit of effort is going to fall into the "just doing your job properly" bucket. New business origination well be much harder to judge due to the economic disruption. I suspect clients' decision making has benefited from being distanced from salespeople. Who knows? Maybe their firms will learn to discourage face to face meetings with salespeople?

[eein]

eein said:

50% of the time I think I miss not travelling and then 50% of the time I love not travelling!

A few years ago I was talking about frequent business travel with a colleague who's been doing it a lot longer than me. I was expressing my pleasure about how I'd just achieved three gold cards in parallel from three different airline programmes and we chatted about the benefits and how to retain them. He then gave me a bit of advice from his decades of experience … "it's nice to get these benefits, but it feels great when you loose them". His point was frequent travel has such an impact on your life that while some perks are good, after a few years you'd rather just have your life back.

The current situation might be forcing me to look through that window and I wonder if I'm getting to that stage!

Now that a few months has passed my opinion is changing! While I'm still quite liking time at home (DIY progress has been stellar) the cracks are begining to show at work.

The lack of 'whites of the eyes' interaction with collegues and customers in far away locations means it is taking longer to get to the right answer and number of rework iterations to scope or plans or pricing is frustrating to the degree I'd much rather travel and get it nailed faster.

I do not work on a 'pure product' and therefore all the remote technololgies hit a limit quickly. I need to see every nuance of a collegue or customer reaction to what I say, I need the ability for short sharp and quick comments and discussions not hampered by latency induced talking over each other. I need those casual comments off to the side, on the way in and out the meeting room.

I don't think all this 'new' technology can completely replace travel, however it is a useful tool that maybe reduces in some cases.

[toon10]

Very much so. I'm a European IT consultant so when I'm not working from home, my job is done working on projects is fantastic European cities. I'm also away every 4 to 6 weeks but not been in the air since February. I should have been in Ljubljana this month, Athens last month and I've already missed two meetings in Luebeck since February. I really enjoy a few nights on my own in a hotel room as little break from the normal family chaos at home.