WFH - a new model

Author
Discussion

hepy

1,260 posts

139 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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Work for a major bank, and prior to Covid 19, WFH from home was supported in some departments, and frowned upon i.e. expressly forbidden in others. Unfortunately, I worked for the forbidden department.

6 weeks in now, and been on several Zoom calls were senior management are now saying what a wonderful thing it is, cost saving, better work/life balance etc. What an about face!

Personally, I think a lot of senior managers saw WFH as a licence to skive and hence were scared of it and the loss of control. My employer has always seen office attendance as key to success and if you weren't seen in the office at least twice a week (mandated for some), then you couldn't be successful - which was BS.

Most businesses have now proved it can work, and hopefully will promote it going forward. While my role will still involve field visits, I'd be happy to do a day or two at home, and save on mileage, pollution, etc.

Gio G

2,945 posts

208 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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I have been WFH for around 15 years now. Spent at least 1 day a week in an office. The company I work for provides communications solutions globally. So we have helped many of our large contact centre customers move agents remotely and provided video and UC solutions. I personally feel this will become the new normal, as the tools are there, just need the infrastructure to be robust.

So many companies have found WFM so alien to them and much of that is around trust and feeling that productivity will go down. This whole period will show that on the whole, if you can work from home, people are allot happier and just as productive.. With respect to getting a WeWorks in commuter city/towns, not 100% sold on that. People will start investing in building purpose built offices to work remotely.. No doubt garden offices will start to trend upwards..

G

akirk

5,377 posts

113 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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hepy said:
Personally, I think a lot of senior managers saw WFH as a licence to skive and hence were scared of it and the loss of control. My employer has always seen office attendance as key to success and if you weren't seen in the office at least twice a week (mandated for some), then you couldn't be successful - which was BS.
Exactly this...

In a previous life in c. 2001 I worked as an internal management consultant for a major financial services company and was given the job of looking at working from home as a strategy for the company... The report I put forward was positive - it showed that (then) it cost c. £6k p/a to have a member of staff in an office, and c. £2k year 1 (inc. setup) and £1k p/a thereafter to have that person working from home - cost saving was in the multi-millions p/a

We looked at how you would work collaboratively / where you didn't need to / etc. and the Board loved it - but it was completely dismissed by middle-management who had no idea how to manage staff they couldn't see - if Bob comes in at 8.30 and leaves at 5.30 he has 'worked' for 8-9 hours, because he can be seen at his desk (even if he actually spends all day playing patience!) - but if they are at home they are probably in their pyjamas watching Jeremy Kyle all day wink

Even then with vastly reduced technical ability the concept worked, but middle management not understanding how to manage by outcome killed it - it is fascinating to see it being forced on companies now, and I do believe that many will change... of course you can never bolt a car together from home / be in the army from home / etc. but there are many sectors of society which can do it - the biggest issue as above will be that many workers won't have houses set up to do it and not everyone has the luxury of spare rooms / office gardens / etc.

interesting times ahead

Deep Thought

35,724 posts

196 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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hepy said:
Personally, I think a lot of senior managers saw WFH as a licence to skive and hence were scared of it and the loss of control.
Agreed - based probably on two things.
  • How little they did when they worked from home
  • Their inability to manage people correctly.

Deep Thought

35,724 posts

196 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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Was speaking to my wife RE: how things were working out with agents in their call centre WFH.

One of the most noticable changes so far is that sickness absence has dropped dramatically. I guess thats down to two things - (a) people dont feel as much need to "pull a sickie" when working from home and (b) if they are feeling a bit under the weather they dont have commuting / being in an office to worry about so can work on.


RammyMP

6,729 posts

152 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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Deep Thought said:
Was speaking to my wife RE: how things were working out with agents in their call centre WFH.

One of the most noticable changes so far is that sickness absence has dropped dramatically. I guess thats down to two things - (a) people dont feel as much need to "pull a sickie" when working from home and (b) if they are feeling a bit under the weather they dont have commuting / being in an office to worry about so can work on.
To be honest, (historically) if I’ve not feeling 100% I’d work from home instead ringing in sick. Before I could WFH I’d have the day off when I was I’ll.

Condi

17,089 posts

170 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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akirk said:
the biggest issue as above will be that many workers won't have houses set up to do it and not everyone has the luxury of spare rooms / office gardens / etc.
This too will change though. Once you remove the need to be near the office people can spread out more, and it doesn't matter if you live out of town. People can then afford larger houses in cheaper areas without sacrificing their good salaries, and so paying for an extra bedroom to have your desk in, or buying the garden office no longer is as much of a burden.


Given the choice I expect half of London will move out. Loads of people have gone back to their parents out of town and are doing the same work they were doing at the office. One of our guys is in Belgium with his gf and it makes no difference at all.

DSLiverpool

14,673 posts

201 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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I think were going to decide to review in August but plan to WFH completely (not thinking of it as a temp measure) our H&S advisor says we need to improve our insurance and give an allowance for the work environement which is something were looking into now.

Deep Thought

35,724 posts

196 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
quotequote all
RammyMP said:
To be honest, (historically) if I’ve not feeling 100% I’d work from home instead ringing in sick. Before I could WFH I’d have the day off when I was I’ll.
Yes same here.

But call centre workers (generally) havent previously had the capability to work from home and its not the most inspiring job sitting on the phones so sickness rates tend to be relatively high.


Deep Thought

35,724 posts

196 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
quotequote all
Condi said:
akirk said:
the biggest issue as above will be that many workers won't have houses set up to do it and not everyone has the luxury of spare rooms / office gardens / etc.
This too will change though. Once you remove the need to be near the office people can spread out more, and it doesn't matter if you live out of town. People can then afford larger houses in cheaper areas without sacrificing their good salaries, and so paying for an extra bedroom to have your desk in, or buying the garden office no longer is as much of a burden.


Given the choice I expect half of London will move out. Loads of people have gone back to their parents out of town and are doing the same work they were doing at the office. One of our guys is in Belgium with his gf and it makes no difference at all.
Agreed and you dont necessarily need a "room" just space set up in a room. That could be a bedroom or a kitchen or living room. A desk and a chair neednt take up much space.

Likewise, i dont think people should be forced to work from home when this is all over, if it doesnt otherwise work for them.

But if 75% of people who could did, imagine the difference to the roads, public transport and office space requirements.

Deep Thought

35,724 posts

196 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
quotequote all
DSLiverpool said:
I think were going to decide to review in August but plan to WFH completely (not thinking of it as a temp measure) our H&S advisor says we need to improve our insurance and give an allowance for the work environement which is something were looking into now.
Wife and i were talking about this earlier - i suspect that even when we see a loosening of the restrictions the backbone will still be "work from home if you can". That i think is borne out by the Chief Medical advisor saying that he thought we'd need social distancing measures for easily a year+.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52389285


Edited by Deep Thought on Thursday 23 April 10:30

jammy-git

29,776 posts

211 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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We (my micro web dev agency) have always done part time work at a co-working office and 2 days WFH.

I wouldn't exactly say WFH is a new model, nor is co-working or hot desking.

I do really enjoy my days at my co-working office. There are new people coming through all the time so it's a good socialising opportunity and with quite a variety of businesses and freelancers working from there, it also presents a good chance to network, find devs and designers to use on projects and new clients to bring in. This is a co-working office in Canterbury, so not a large city.

I do know it's taken a long time to become profitable. They've been running for 8-9 years now and I've been a member for much of that time. I believe they've only been profitable in the last few years and in a way it's similar to a gym where they rely on a certain percentage of their membership to pay their monthly fees but rarely turn up.

Condi

17,089 posts

170 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
quotequote all
jammy-git said:
I wouldn't exactly say WFH is a new model, nor is co-working or hot desking.
No, but there are a huge number of jobs where it was considered impractical, or management were against the idea, or there wasn't the technology 10 years ago.

Those businesses and those roles and those managers have had no choice now, and many are finding it is nowhere near as bad as we expected.


hepy

1,260 posts

139 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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Condi said:
jammy-git said:
I wouldn't exactly say WFH is a new model, nor is co-working or hot desking.
No, but there are a huge number of jobs where it was considered impractical, or management were against the idea, or there wasn't the technology 10 years ago.

Those businesses and those roles and those managers have had no choice now, and many are finding it is nowhere near as bad as we expected.
Trust me WFH is very new in some industries! Generally the one's run by people in their 40's and 50's, who worked through the office culture of the 80's and 90's - in early, work late = you are better than others.

Jiebo

908 posts

95 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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hepy said:
Trust me WFH is very new in some industries! Generally the one's run by people in their 40's and 50's, who worked through the office culture of the 80's and 90's - in early, work late = you are better than others.
This is true.

I work for a large bank, and have worked in different parts of it. Some have been anti wfh, and middle management have been in their 50s. The area I’m in now is more mixed age wise with people in their 30s in middle management, and wfh 4 days a week is the norm.

The bank has been running out of desk space for years, and encouraging wfh. But I can’t see them moving out of Canary Wharf because it’s one of the main towers.


Big picture - if people start moving out of london as they can wfh from the countyside, property prices will increase in these areas. Also competition for the london Jobs will increase massively as it’s no longer tied to people in the south east. What’s to stop this trend moving to hiring remote resources in Eastern Europe or even India? That’s the threat here, remote globalisation. I don’t want to be competing against a £5 an hour resource in India.

jammy-git

29,776 posts

211 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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As someone who has worked in the digital scene for 15 years, we've been competing against overseas labour for much of that time.

One of the only reasons to go overseas has been cost. So as long as you have something to offer other than being cheap labour, you're generally fine.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
quotequote all
DSLiverpool said:
I think were going to decide to review in August but plan to WFH completely (not thinking of it as a temp measure) our H&S advisor says we need to improve our insurance and give an allowance for the work environement which is something were looking into now.
If you mean a home office allowance our accountants have always recommended £520 per annum per HO as an acceptable allowance that hmrc is happy to not include as personal income.

Sheepshanks

32,535 posts

118 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
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soofsayer said:
If you mean a home office allowance our accountants have always recommended £520 per annum per HO as an acceptable allowance that hmrc is happy to not include as personal income.
We (company) got pulled up for paying too much a couple of years ago and were told the max without additional justification is £4/wk. I think I read the other day that it's just been increased to £6 by HMRC.

ETA: https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/workin...

Deep Thought

35,724 posts

196 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
quotequote all
Realistically i could forsee the "social distancing" - whilst being relaxed - still including "work from home if at all possible" to the end of this year and even in to next year.

"Working from home if at all possible" could become part of the "new normal".

akirk

5,377 posts

113 months

Thursday 23rd April 2020
quotequote all
Deep Thought said:
Realistically i could forsee the "social distancing" - whilst being relaxed - still including "work from home if at all possible" to the end of this year and even in to next year.

"Working from home if at all possible" could become part of the "new normal".
I think that is a part of societal change we will see...
however, still needs children back at school as many families are struggling with under 10s and two parents trying to work...