Work from home… Storm Brewing

As I’ve mentioned a few times on here, I work in a mid to high level management role for a company that is 100% work from home and has employees around the world.

You wouldn’t believe the amount of applications I’ve had over the last couple of months where when I’ve spoken to the applicant the reason for wanting to leave their current job is that it’s moving back to office based.

Companies are going to have to be very careful over the coming months. People have had a taste for work from home now and companies that refuse to give at least that choice I think will find it very difficult to hire.

 

Yes It's here to stay I think. I also work in senior management for one of the most well known companies in the world. I have both worked from home and been in the office, I've found I'm more productive at home as I don't keep office hours, (except for meetings) nor have hours a week commuting. What I do though is work more hours at home than at the site, often things will occur to me at all sorts of the time and day, weekends included so I just fire up the laptop, log into works servers, and crack on.
Saturday night 10pm, writing a presentation for the following week!.
Having thousands of people commuting to the same site every day from miles around isn't good for the planet.
There's less time wasted stood around a coffee machine talking rubbish
Most meetings can be done by Skype and I find more people join in than would do in a physical people meeting
People have a better home/work balance, and actually get to see their kids
I can get to weekday home matches in good time....oh wait....

It doesn't work in every employment environment I know, obviously mostly office based, but I think that if you can make it work efficiently it's good for people and good for the planet

 

Agree fully with this, and all client sentiment is leaning that way, the current fight it seems is for company bosses to land at a 50/50 balance while employees want a greater home working element. Obviously there are exceptions to that, but that's the global sentiment.

The issue that will obviously arise in the meantime is for those businesses that were centred around office workers and people commuting to a fixed location. Bars, cafes, sandwich shops and the like can all expect reduced footfall, though I could certainly envisage an initial flurry for those at offices where they eat and drink out more, just because they can. Humans are social creatures, so the demand will be there. It will just take time to understand how its been affected and what it needs to become.

 

I started working from 2 days a week in November 2019 and then of course, 5 days a week in March 2020. I love it, but then I’m not a hugely sociable person that misses the office “banter”. I can get so much more done at home and I’ve proved that over the past 15 months.

If they turn around and say that I’m expected to be back in the office 5 days a week in the coming months then I’m pretty certain I’ll look for another job. As you say, we’ve had a taste for it now so should hopefully be resistant to it. The only thing I can think of as to why they’d want people back in is for the culture of the company, so that they can make sure everyone is pulling in the same direction.

 

I started working from home 1 day a week in 2018, which became 2 days in 2019 and obviously full time since last March.

My employer is now talking about us all being in the office 3 days a week but from an as yet undecided future date. All of my team want to remain home for 5 days, and feel there’s no benefit in going into the office. For context, we’re not worldwide, but everyone on my team (except me) works in the west coast of England . So I spend a lot of time in virtual meetings with people from all round the country, whether I’m sat in Sheffield, or here at home.

I do sometimes have meetings in Sheffield or just formal chats w colleagues from adjoining teams, but nothing that’s worth 2 hrs of commuting. As I’m currently counting down to retirement I’m not likely to go looking for another job if called into the office, but I might be a bit more bolshy than I’m used to, in order to WFH as much as possible.

 

I wouldn’t mind doing a 3 days in and 2 days at home. There are times I need to be in our warehouse but other than that home working was pretty simple for me, although I only live a ten minute walk from my work anyway!

 

I work 2 days in office 3 days at home . I can get more work done in the 3 days at home than I would if I worked 5 days in office . No distractions . But I do I miss the office banter and social interaction .

 

I present webinars regularly and it's like presenting into a void. Cameras off, mics off, no feed back, no chance of reading expressions or body language. And you don't get questions. Nobody likes to speak. When I present in person people have met before hand, had a cup of tea and a chat and feel comfortable speaking. And I'll give prompts, look people in the eye, encourage input. On the Web there's nothing.

I've continued to travel to work but the majority of my office work from home. There are huge issues regarding picking up on what others are doing, collaboration, idea sharing which are all lost.

Working from home has huge benefits for many people, but there are definite downsides too.

 

As someone who rarely visits his company offices (average 1-2 per year for the last 5 years), but normally spends 2-3 days on clients sites, I can't see that returning to normal levels ever. Maybe once per month, with more at project initiation and delivery events.

In some ways, it will reduce travel time, costs and being away from home, but on a personal level I quite liked exploring new places and visiting the local restaurants, cafes and hotels - even if some of those places might not be tourist hotspots (18 months in Swindon!!!).

Working like this doesn't give you the same personal bond to the company or your workmates, which will probably make it easier to switch jobs if you aren't happy. You do also miss out on the office gossip - not who is shagging who, but what other teams are doing and how it might affect your work. On the project I'm on now, I have a stronger bond with the client-site team than I do with my project team - but I have only met one of the project team and I have met all the client people many times.

I doubt I'll work anywhere again that wants me in the office every day. I might choose to do that for a spell, but the key word there is "choose".

 

10 years ago when I was senior software developer at Jaguar Landrover, I worked 1 day a week from home and found I was more productive. I put it down mainly to the lack of office chat. Basically I used to bore the arse off them all talking about the super tykes....

 

Prior to being made redundant last year, I was told that my job would become permanently remote. They'd spent so much money on laptops and the infrastructure to be able to facilitate home working, that they didn't think it cost effective to have us back in the office. Then they didn't think it cost effective to have us at all and made us redundant in December. I could have had an internal transfer, but being office based in Leeds (after I'd moved to Sheffield) didn't suit me anymore.

My Mrs can't wait to get back in the office, she's climbing the walls. She's been promoted during the lockdown, taking on a role with more responsibility. She's found that working remotely means she's not got the support she would have in the office. When I got a new job, and stopped being at home all day, that only made it worse for her, as she now has nobody to even vent at, or any reassurance. She has had exciting news today though that she could be back in the office from next week.

 

Even in this day and age, I have to deal with an insane amount of physical paperwork which comes in from a variety of sources. I'd love to be able to work from home but that would mean people coming to my house between 5 and 10 times a day to drop off signed agreements which then need filing, and I certainly don't have the space for that at home, not to mention the GDPR nightmare if my home was burgled.

I honestly thought that the pandemic would force my employer to go paperless, but if anything it's got worse.

Working from home, even 1 day a week is a fantasy unfortunately, which is why I'm actively looking at a change of employer...

 

Informal knowledge sharing is very important- “talking rubbish at the coffee machine” often leads to new ideas and collaboration. I’m in a privileged position in that I’ve worked for the company for 23 years and in the technical area for even longer and I have my own office at home (converted garage). So working from home for me is a sinch. It cannot be easy if you are new to a job or to working in general if it’s all remote from the start. No amount of training and formal knowledge sharing is going to cover the unofficial information you gleen from idle chatter nor the quick question you can ask a colleague about who such-and-such is and what they do. Also if you live in a small flat with no office, spending all day working in your bedroom and then going to bed there is no better then being in prison. So while I get home working - and was doing it myself long before the pandemic as my boss is in Prague and my boss before that was in the USA, I think it has its fair share of downsides.

 

...... you bored them all.... talking about SuperTyke?

Oh sorry, I misread ;-)

 

I think the downside will be the expectation that you are more " available" at home. At least in an office you pack your things away at the end of the day and that's it till the mornng! it also discriminate s against those in cramped conditions, with noisy neighbours etcetc. My grandpa mainly did home working back in the 70s \ 80s but he was high up and had a Secretary go to his house and a sizeable room for an office.

 

This is it for me. It’s easy for people who have a big house and the space, not so easy for the poor feckers in a one bedroom flat with a partner and possibly a child.

 

A lot will come down to what it is that you do and what you need access to. There are two of us working from home. I'm lucky that everything we do is completely digital so I don't need any paper or traditional filing structure at all and all our systems are online.

As a result I only need a laptop and a phone. My wife needs a bit more space, so she has the dining table colonised, while I'm either on the sofa, in the small back bedroom or ligged out on the bed!

 

This is the biggest drawback as far as I'm concerned and it can waste weeks of development. Some things, if I'd caught them early, as I would if everyone was in the office, would have prevented massive headaches down the line. I have no doubt productivity on a personal level improves for many people when working from home. But as a whole I have serious reservations. That's not to say I'm advocating full time return to the work place, but I believe a day per week, certainly in my department, would be hugely beneficial.