Aberdeen Lockdown

An awful lot of denial on here. I’m an FD with nearly 20 years post qualification experience, and a degree from the best university in the world. I’m under absolutely no illusions that without the personal interaction element of my job there are people in every single country in the world that could do it, and about 80% of them would be cheaper. You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think 100% home working lends itself to massive offshoring.

 

My previous employer moved a lot of jobs to India - which is looking at 20+ years of double-digit wave inflation. There is not much difference in pay between Mumbai/Bangalore and Sheffield at the top-end.

Pakistan, Bangladesh and Singapore are the other *major* English speaking countries in Asia, but there are issues with data protection, data security and other legal implications of transferring work outside the UK - not to mention political stability. Generally though, it might save money to transfer functions overseas but there is often a payoff in terms of quality. I know of a few companies that have transferred functions (such as call centres) overseas but brought them back onshore due to that.

One of the reasons for the pressure on people to return to offices is that a lot of rich people who happen to donate to the Tories have money tied up in office and residential space in the big cities. If *these* offices aren't needed (and they aren't) then they are sitting on large white elephants. The overall impact is expected to be a "normalization" of property prices across the UK - more demand in rural areas and less in the cities. This will probably make house prices higher in this area, but lower in London.

 

Surely the idea is to keep the hospitals from being overrun Covid patients so they can actually treat cancer patients and other conditions

 

Yes, that’s been done. There’s less than 2 Covid inpatients on average per UK acute hospital on current figures.

 

I’m giving up with these threads I’m obviously too emotional about them so just letting them go

 

That's already the case, just need to get on with the 2nd part of that statement.

 

see answer above

 

Ok, take care.

 

Don’t put words into my mouth.

 

They won't like another Sikora link.....

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12324109/coronavirus-ministers-stop-confusing-caution-fear/

Look at all those different graphs and how much lower they all are compared to the peak. You wouldn't know it with all the added restrictions that should have been in place months ago and now any longer.

 

It's fine to say the man has a agenda, he may well do. He may be spinning things more positive than they are. I'm waiting for someone to tell me how is wrong other than "you can't trust him"

 

Well it’d be a breach of the law for my job to be done outside the UK.
So that’s a No!

 

Perpetual restrictions required then?

 

That’s a logical leap.

do you imagine that companies have been ignoring the opportunities of outsourcing abroad for 20 years simply because people didn’t work from home.

it’s not just illogical it’s barking.

 

I’m assuming you mean offshoring, not outsourcing? Big companies can still do it in house, just employing people in other places.

 

I have no idea. If people who they previously believed had to be in the office to the work are now showing they can actually do the same work from home then they wouldn't have known. Genuinely something I don't know much about it was just a passing thought. I keep hearing it said that we are going to see a shift to more working at home. Why were the companies ignoring the cost saving benefit of doing this pre lockdown?

 

I imagine this isn't the case for all jobs. And I didn't mean all jobs, also I'm not suggestin firms will just lay people off and replace them. Just that moving forward perhaps more roles could become open internationally as a result. Sorry if I didn't Express that clearly.

 

Yes probably, if the goal is to have zero deaths from Covid.

 

Presenteeism. Usually a sign of poor management or a manager that doesn't trust his staff.

My last employer (multinational with 200,000+ employees worldwide) had an office in Rotherham with 2-300 staff on-site every day in 2010. By 2019 (when I left), that site was closed and they had an office in Sheffield with capacity for 20 - and usually less than that were in the office. Some of those jobs were offshored to India, some were moved to cheaper places (Inverness and the Welsh Valleys), and some were TUPEd out. At the same time, some were recruited, some relocated and some of us changed roles. The headcount based in that office when I left was roughly the same, but we were nearly all based at home or on client sites.

My first boss there was in the office every day and expected you to be too. He was old school and retired, but in my last 3 years I visited the office maybe 6 times in total - including my last day and to empty my desk when the office moved.

 

I used the same word used by the poster I answered