WFH - a new model
Discussion
Thanks for all the responses - seems like I started this thread an age ago! I'm going to be taking a proper look at doing this with some local research - it does seem that most hot offices, etc are based around cities. Depending on set-up costs and what the local response is, I think it's probably well worth looking into in a rural but easily accessible environment. I'll let you know how it goes. Biggest hurdle currently is probably planning feedback from the bankrupt council so it may be a while!
Thanks all,
Emma
Thanks all,
Emma
I had a rural office for my business (three people. software development). It was 600sqft so we were like peas in a drum. I looked in to renting out desks by the day for homeworkers as an option to use some of the space and contribute to the rent. The three biggest challenges with the rural office location were:
1. Internet bandwidth and speed
2. Lack of on site catering
3. Transport links
We "got by" with the internet issue (via combined broadband+4G router) and because there was only 3 of us. Some of the neighbouring business used a pure 4G "rural broadband" solution. Openreach wanted £10K+ (including offset grant) to lay fibre. So the "day desk" hotdesking model wasn't really going to work.
Second issue was the lack of on site catering. Bringing packed lunch or driving 8 miles to get a sarnie at lunchtime is fine when it's your own business, but when renting out desks by the day/week people expect to be able to buy teas, coffees, flapjacks, sarnies, snacks etc on site. We looked in to getting one of the local M&S "Aluminium Duvet" sandwich vans to include us in their daily rounds but there wasn't enough interest from other businesses on site to make it worth their while detouring to us.
Final issue we had was transport links. You had to have a car to get to the office. It wasn't on a bus route. it was off a nasty A-road if you wanted to cycle it. £20 in a taxi from town. So it was only going to appeal to a certain part of the market. Fine for local-ish homeworkers who had a car, less fine for businesses with any staff travelling by train, or who wanted to hire a graduate who didn't drive, etc. etc.
So all of these things considered, we didn't pursue the idea. These are the sorts of things you might want to consider / have covered if you haven't already. Best of luck with it.
1. Internet bandwidth and speed
2. Lack of on site catering
3. Transport links
We "got by" with the internet issue (via combined broadband+4G router) and because there was only 3 of us. Some of the neighbouring business used a pure 4G "rural broadband" solution. Openreach wanted £10K+ (including offset grant) to lay fibre. So the "day desk" hotdesking model wasn't really going to work.
Second issue was the lack of on site catering. Bringing packed lunch or driving 8 miles to get a sarnie at lunchtime is fine when it's your own business, but when renting out desks by the day/week people expect to be able to buy teas, coffees, flapjacks, sarnies, snacks etc on site. We looked in to getting one of the local M&S "Aluminium Duvet" sandwich vans to include us in their daily rounds but there wasn't enough interest from other businesses on site to make it worth their while detouring to us.
Final issue we had was transport links. You had to have a car to get to the office. It wasn't on a bus route. it was off a nasty A-road if you wanted to cycle it. £20 in a taxi from town. So it was only going to appeal to a certain part of the market. Fine for local-ish homeworkers who had a car, less fine for businesses with any staff travelling by train, or who wanted to hire a graduate who didn't drive, etc. etc.
So all of these things considered, we didn't pursue the idea. These are the sorts of things you might want to consider / have covered if you haven't already. Best of luck with it.
skintemma said:
Thanks for all the responses - seems like I started this thread an age ago! I'm going to be taking a proper look at doing this with some local research - it does seem that most hot offices, etc are based around cities. Depending on set-up costs and what the local response is, I think it's probably well worth looking into in a rural but easily accessible environment. I'll let you know how it goes. Biggest hurdle currently is probably planning feedback from the bankrupt council so it may be a while!
Thanks all,
Emma
I'm a contractor so move around a fair bit and see some good and bad examples of working from home policy. One of the better places (part of Government actually) were undertaking a technical refresh which included desktop hardware as well as server infrastructure so there was a small on-premise footprint to provide connectivity (and security) and migrating services in to the cloud. The majority of desks had a pair of screen, USB-C docking station and everybody was issued with a laptop. This meant that allocated desks were a thing of the past as all the tech was the same so you could sit anywhere. Yes, people did tend to gravitate towards the same areas and sit with the same people but it wasn't required. This really opened the gates (by design) as there weren't enough desks for all staff and contractors in the 'allocated IT area' so encouraged people to either come in earlier to get a desk or if you don't need to be there, don't come in at all. As people didn't sit at the same desks, it was easier to look at your screen in Skype / Teams and look for the green dot to see if people were online followed by message 'you in today?'. Again, by design, it made it the norm to not assume who you wanted to speak to was going to be physically nearby and that as the tech was there to support it, didn't matter where they were.Thanks all,
Emma
Due to people not physically being on site, meetings evolved. If you book a meeting in a room, you'd invariably use a dial in number and/or Skype / Teams to screen share etc and gave people the option.
For me personally, not much has changed really, I've worked this way for quite a while partly because I work in IT, partly because there's no point travelling to sit in somebody else's office but mainly because everything I need is accessible from wherever I am due to modern networks, security and infrastructure being designed with remote accessibility in mind. I don't like using laptop screens for prolonged periods of time so all I need is a headset in my laptop bag, USB-C docking station at home with a screen and I'm done....I work in IT so obviously has gadgets too
My last client had around 5000 users and their site was huge. Meeting rooms were always a problem as despite there being loads of them, availability could be a pain and not all had large screens in them. They had a Warehouse facility that was used as meeting room overflow. The meeting rooms were kitted out quite nicely, had a coffee machine and basic facilities and as the main office had strict security measures in place, most of my external meetings were held there for ease of access. While it had a kitchen (Mugs, glasses, basic refreshments and snacks), a coffee area and some meeting rooms, it was still originally a warehouse so some of it was quite industrial but in a tasteful way and was surrounded by other warehouses. It was a nice facility and always busy. It had parking as it was out of the main busy areas, near public transport and was quite a nice place to be!
Similar to the above, i'm an IT contractor over the last 6 years and i've had various WFH experiences.
Pre CV-19, WFH on a friday was fairly commonplace. Some places offered employees and contract staff maybe WFH several days a week or in the last place i was, i worked from home every other week.
The "best" was a number of years ago - big IT outsourcer, had an office that held around 150 staff and had something like 1000-1500 staff working from it. Everyone was encouraged to WFH and only come in to the office if absolutely necessary.
Current role - they were letting me WFH on a Friday, but i'm now able to WFH full time - at least until this ends. The likes of Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business and Google Hangouts make videoconferences easy and the collaborative working capability of GSuite and Teams mean document sharing is a doddle too.
On top of that, a lot of IT systems are now Software as a Service, so you're basically logging in via a URL from any browser.
Given the entire company works from home - dont know how many staff they have in the UK, but several thousand - i cant see how they are going to come back from this and get everyone back in to the office.
Pre CV-19, WFH on a friday was fairly commonplace. Some places offered employees and contract staff maybe WFH several days a week or in the last place i was, i worked from home every other week.
The "best" was a number of years ago - big IT outsourcer, had an office that held around 150 staff and had something like 1000-1500 staff working from it. Everyone was encouraged to WFH and only come in to the office if absolutely necessary.
Current role - they were letting me WFH on a Friday, but i'm now able to WFH full time - at least until this ends. The likes of Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business and Google Hangouts make videoconferences easy and the collaborative working capability of GSuite and Teams mean document sharing is a doddle too.
On top of that, a lot of IT systems are now Software as a Service, so you're basically logging in via a URL from any browser.
Given the entire company works from home - dont know how many staff they have in the UK, but several thousand - i cant see how they are going to come back from this and get everyone back in to the office.
Broke this out to two posts for two industries.
My wife is a call centre director for one of the big call centre outsourcing groups. She had 1,000 or so staff on her site and they went from pretty much no WFH capability for agents, to 100% WFH in a matter of weeks.
They're now going to offer it as a work option going forward, so staff will be able to WFH full time if they want to. Should help greatly with recruitment and staff retention.
My wife is a call centre director for one of the big call centre outsourcing groups. She had 1,000 or so staff on her site and they went from pretty much no WFH capability for agents, to 100% WFH in a matter of weeks.
They're now going to offer it as a work option going forward, so staff will be able to WFH full time if they want to. Should help greatly with recruitment and staff retention.
Deep Thought said:
Broke this out to two posts for two industries.
My wife is a call centre director for one of the big call centre outsourcing groups. She had 1,000 or so staff on her site and they went from pretty much no WFH capability for agents, to 100% WFH in a matter of weeks.
They're now going to offer it as a work option going forward, so staff will be able to WFH full time if they want to. Should help greatly with recruitment and staff retention.
The interesting part is what it will do to commercial property...My wife is a call centre director for one of the big call centre outsourcing groups. She had 1,000 or so staff on her site and they went from pretty much no WFH capability for agents, to 100% WFH in a matter of weeks.
They're now going to offer it as a work option going forward, so staff will be able to WFH full time if they want to. Should help greatly with recruitment and staff retention.
I'm a management consultant in a bank (please, hold your adulation) and it's been amazing WFH.
We used to do it once a week, so we were already all setup for it. But genuinely much more productive / less knackered now we're doing it every day. I spend basically all day on conference calls with India / Poland / Sheffield - and I can do that from anywhere.
No commute. No smart clothes. No shaving. So lucky to work in an industry where it's had minimal impact - feel really sorry for those for whom it's just not an option. Missing having a giant monitor, but apart from that, it's been ace.
Already hearing rumblings from those at a senior level that they might look to offload some expensive Central London leases and become a bit more flexible in future. They've proved it can work, so why go back?
Shnozz said:
Deep Thought said:
Broke this out to two posts for two industries.
My wife is a call centre director for one of the big call centre outsourcing groups. She had 1,000 or so staff on her site and they went from pretty much no WFH capability for agents, to 100% WFH in a matter of weeks.
They're now going to offer it as a work option going forward, so staff will be able to WFH full time if they want to. Should help greatly with recruitment and staff retention.
The interesting part is what it will do to commercial property...My wife is a call centre director for one of the big call centre outsourcing groups. She had 1,000 or so staff on her site and they went from pretty much no WFH capability for agents, to 100% WFH in a matter of weeks.
They're now going to offer it as a work option going forward, so staff will be able to WFH full time if they want to. Should help greatly with recruitment and staff retention.
But yes, it may become an issue generally if businesses dont need the office space they once did.
wiffmaster said:
Aint that the truth.
wiffmaster said:
I'm a management consultant in a bank (please, hold your adulation) and it's been amazing WFH.
We used to do it once a week, so we were already all setup for it. But genuinely much more productive / less knackered now we're doing it every day. I spend basically all day on conference calls with India / Poland / Sheffield - and I can do that from anywhere.
No commute. No smart clothes. No shaving. So lucky to work in an industry where it's had minimal impact - feel really sorry for those for whom it's just not an option. Missing having a giant monitor, but apart from that, it's been ace.
Already hearing rumblings from those at a senior level that they might look to offload some expensive Central London leases and become a bit more flexible in future. They've proved it can work, so why go back?
Similar for me. Maybe 75% of my day on conf calls.We used to do it once a week, so we were already all setup for it. But genuinely much more productive / less knackered now we're doing it every day. I spend basically all day on conference calls with India / Poland / Sheffield - and I can do that from anywhere.
No commute. No smart clothes. No shaving. So lucky to work in an industry where it's had minimal impact - feel really sorry for those for whom it's just not an option. Missing having a giant monitor, but apart from that, it's been ace.
Already hearing rumblings from those at a senior level that they might look to offload some expensive Central London leases and become a bit more flexible in future. They've proved it can work, so why go back?
Why not buy your own monitor? I've twin 27 inch screens plus my laptop screen. Granted, i put them through my LTD co as an expense but not ridiculously expensive to do, particularly if you could get away with one.
I’ve worked from home since 2012, prior to that i commuted daily MK to Euston for 12 years.
I like being at home, nice big screens etc - going into the office or onsite means a crappy desk with an ancient vga screen.
Apart from one gov client, where all the desks had usb docking stations and dual large monitors which was nice.
I like being at home, nice big screens etc - going into the office or onsite means a crappy desk with an ancient vga screen.
Apart from one gov client, where all the desks had usb docking stations and dual large monitors which was nice.
It's pretty easy for me (engineering consultant) to work from home however the main problem is space.
I'm currently located on the dining room table in the lounge/diner and i'm quite fortunate it is a reasonably large room. A significant number of our employees are young (sub-30 years old) renters in Bristol. They do not have space for a permanent WFH set up. It's not so bad for management who have large 5 bed houses with kids who have left home.
When this is all over I might do once or twice a month from home but nothing more.
I'm currently located on the dining room table in the lounge/diner and i'm quite fortunate it is a reasonably large room. A significant number of our employees are young (sub-30 years old) renters in Bristol. They do not have space for a permanent WFH set up. It's not so bad for management who have large 5 bed houses with kids who have left home.
When this is all over I might do once or twice a month from home but nothing more.
MitchT said:
Why the hell do we have a small number of huge schools that are a long commute by road for many kids when communities could all be served by small, local schools within walking distance?
Easy - ££/head teaching costs....Quaint village school with 10 pupils and 2 teachers verus 45 per class in Town.....
Deep Thought said:
Broke this out to two posts for two industries.
My wife is a call centre director for one of the big call centre outsourcing groups. She had 1,000 or so staff on her site and they went from pretty much no WFH capability for agents, to 100% WFH in a matter of weeks.
They're now going to offer it as a work option going forward, so staff will be able to WFH full time if they want to. Should help greatly with recruitment and staff retention.
Same here - all the call centre staff are WFH and most are much happier. My wife is a call centre director for one of the big call centre outsourcing groups. She had 1,000 or so staff on her site and they went from pretty much no WFH capability for agents, to 100% WFH in a matter of weeks.
They're now going to offer it as a work option going forward, so staff will be able to WFH full time if they want to. Should help greatly with recruitment and staff retention.
As a business there were a number of roles we never thought would ever be suitable for working from home, but in the space of a couple of weeks almost all the offices are empty. People doing 12 hour shifts don't have to commute for an hour either side of the day, so they're happier. Office costs have gone down, not as much milk needed, less electric and heating.
I'm hopeful that we will be allowed to carry on working like this once its all over. There has been little or no difference in what we do and how we do it from an operational or financial basis, but knowing the boss like I do he'll want the staff back in the office. Working from home goes against everything he believes in, and even having to do it in the first place was agony.
Since WFH, my office has been having Zoom calls three times a week for updates and chat. On Monday's call came a revelation; the CEO himself brought up the subject of how well WFH seems to be working for the company and that when we're all back we shall have a discussion on the subject to see how he can give people more flexibility to do it more often.
He's quite an old school guy, has had two WFH days in 1.5 years before March *and* we are in the middle of having a new office kitted out with capacity for more staff (moving out of WeWork in June/July to our own space) so the virus has certainly changed opinion.
He's quite an old school guy, has had two WFH days in 1.5 years before March *and* we are in the middle of having a new office kitted out with capacity for more staff (moving out of WeWork in June/July to our own space) so the virus has certainly changed opinion.
illmonkey said:
Why didn't the host turn the video (and audio) off. Or tell them to sod off!
It was an outside provider and I don't think they wanted to appear rude! Not sure why they didn't mute him - can it be done mid-call? - he was asked to mute himself, but the mic kept coming back on.Sheepshanks said:
illmonkey said:
Why didn't the host turn the video (and audio) off. Or tell them to sod off!
It was an outside provider and I don't think they wanted to appear rude! Not sure why they didn't mute him - can it be done mid-call? - he was asked to mute himself, but the mic kept coming back on.We have 16 all wfh right now, it’s going quite well (websites and marketing) but feedback from clients has slowed down a lot making the projects stretch.
This has a knock on all along the line and it’s our biggest challenge to overcome.
Personally as an old, fat, diabetic sack of crap I’m getting used to wfh for the foreseeable future.
This has a knock on all along the line and it’s our biggest challenge to overcome.
Personally as an old, fat, diabetic sack of crap I’m getting used to wfh for the foreseeable future.
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