Millions of people's jobs can't be done from home

[Annoyance]

I'm getting so fed up with all of this "working from home is the future" stuff, which seems to me to be extremely privileged.

What is going to happen to your support staff like receptionists and admin/filing people, most of whom cannot do their job from home?

What about all the people working in the cafes near your office? The venues nearby you sometimes hire out? The retail staff?

Do you not realise that for every office worker who starts to permanently work from home, someone else loses their job because of it?

It seems like a very privileged point of view to think oh surely everyone can work from home these days. I realise the possibility is there, but I'm getting sick of the way people are talking about it as if it's a given fact. Just stop and think about it please.

What about all the people working in the cafes near your office?

If I don't commute into my nearest city but wfh instead, I can walk to the village cafe to get a treat with my lunch. If I don't pick up a few food bits from the Sainburies local in the city before commuting home, I'll walk to the village shop for my milk and butter instead,

Far better for the environment, and supporting businesses regardless. Why are city centre business more important than local ones?

It's not privileged OP, perhaps small minded. But only in the way you are being to assume that it's only lower paid and support workers who can't work from home.

But then again, I don't begrudge those who can work from home doing so. It's better for all of us to reduce car journeys etc.

I do see what you're getting at. Lots of office jobs can be done from home but equally there are lots that can't be, and most of those are low paid entry-level positions.

Mumsnet users are generally a very privileged bunch, though.

@Annoyance yes, I understand; a friend who's an auditor/accountant found that a lot when working with smaller companies. And for some things currently a physical signature or presence is required (exams and tests immediately spring to mind).

Years ago I worked in a job (in another country) where the disparities between us (we all had the same job title but conditions varied dramatically) were nicely summed up with the phrase "Everyone's Situation Is Different"...

Yes but lots of places could go completely digital, they have just chosen not to - which includes "not being able to afford it".

e.g. part of my job involves preparing files for inquests. We (the originating agency) manage to prepare the whole file digitally. The police (assisting) manage to do the same. CPS manage to do it. Coroner A manages to access everything digitally. But oh no, Coroner B can't possibly do that, so we have to spend £££ and hours of staff time photocopying everything and delivering it to them in cardboard boxes. it's ridiculous.

Lots of jobs could go digital if they had to and would be in a better place for something like this if they had done so earlier, not to mention the financial reduction, staff wellbeing, lack of pollution etc. that comes from staff being allowed to wfh regularly (not necessarily always).

Plus your "for every office worker who starts to permanently work from home, someone else loses their job because of it?" is completely wrong, hyperbolic, and backed up by no data or factual information whatsoever!

Why on earth would that be the case?

You refer to retail staff for example - but CV hasn't lead to mass unemployment - in fact the opposite - pretty much all the shops have been desperately recruiting in huge numbers. Changes to working practices might occur - e.g. perhaps some staff who would be on the tills have been deployed to doing more deliveries/packing orders but it doesn't necesarily mean a loss of jobs!

Another of your examples is cafes - in normal circs (not during lockdown) I would actually be more inclined to go to a cafe if I was WFH as I wouldn't have free tea and coffee as I do in my workplace. Also it's a change of scenery from being in my house all day, avoids keeping the heating on in the winter, and is an opportunity to meet friends for lunch I wouldn't have if I were rushing back to/from work.

Plus some jobs would be lost, true, but others will be created. as there have ever been. it's called change. For every lost 'knocker upper,' or seamstress there are now quantity surveyors and social media managers. i bet coachmen were gutted when people started using cars for transport rather than coach and horse...but perhaps a descendant of theirs is now a taxi driver.

“Working from home is the future” is a privileged attitude in the sense that it’s far easier to do if you have a house with a spare room or dining room you can work from. Not everyone’s home is set up for long term homeworking. It’s much more difficult for people who live in small flats with no space for a proper desk; and pretty miserable for people who live in shared houses who are just shut in their bedrooms most of the day. If employers do decide that wfh is the future, decide to downsize their office space and make wfh a requirement of many jobs, it’s going to disadvantage a lot of people on lower salaries who can’t afford designated space.

It’s great if you’re thinking how much you’d save on childcare by being able to work flexibly and not need much childcare - but this is unrealistic anyway: at the moment, people are being given a lot of leeway by employers because this is a novel situation, hence many people think they would genuinely be able to do their job from home whilst not paying for wraparound childcare and being flexible with their hours; whilst in reality not many employers are going to be tolerant long term of employees doing half-assed work because they’re trying to look after their DC at the same time.

Admin is one occupation at greatest risk of automation so I think this has started a conversation that should have already been happening. Coronavirus has brought a lot of issues to boiling point that were previously simmering in the background.

That said, I worked in a paperless office in one of my first jobs in 2006 so the technology definitely exists for a lot of admin to be done at home.

Most posts I've seen about enjoying working from home have mentioned the ability to be there for deliveries, kids etc. That's why we rent offices :)

I'd love to WFH but unfortunately I don't have the space for 3 industrial sewing machines 50lbs of leather and a cutting press so I guess I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way, if the job's still there after lockdown of course.

You refer to retail staff for example - but CV hasn't lead to mass unemployment - in fact the opposite - pretty much all the shops have been desperately recruiting in huge numbers. Changes to working practices might occur - e.g. perhaps some staff who would be on the tills have been deployed to doing more deliveries/packing orders but it doesn't necesarily mean a loss of jobs!

But food retail is only a tiny part of the retail sector - you're forgetting the thousands of shops that have closed because of this, and many of them may never re-open.

I think it’s unlikely most people will go from bring full time office based to full time WFH after this. Even if companies now realise they can run with people WFH they will probably be more inclined to offer more flexible working with a portion of the employees working week being from home. So people will still go into the office a few days a week and buy lunches and coffees etc.

You can’t say people shouldn’t WFH because if will lead to losing their jobs.

1. it is not true, jobs will just be differents. The cafe in the city might close but another one will open in a residential area. Less staff in shops but more in warehouses, IT support for online orders and delivery roles.
2. you can’t prevent/forbid society changes to try to avoid job losses. I’m sure when offices starting using PCs it meant some roles became redundant, aren’t you glad it went this way, though?

vanillandhoney - sorry, I don't understand. Ok food retail is only one part of the retail sector (I wouldn't agree that it's a 'tiny' part) - what other elements of retail are there that would be hugely nehatively affected by a move to more people WFH in the future?

e.g. clothes shops - Lots of people now already either wear more casual clothes or a uniform even when they go into work so don't need 'office' clothes anyway - if I WFH I would buy fewer 'smart' clothes -but more lounging or casual wear, so limited difference

furniture shops - surely this would only increase - people would need to buy more home working equipment and maybe even redecorate/replace their 'normal' furniture more often if they were at home more

garden - as above. apparently sales of hot tubs, trampolines, swimming pools etc have gone through the roof over the last few weeks due to people spending more time at home

can you give some examples of what types of retail you would expect to start losing money due not to a one-off pandemic but solely from people WFH more in the future, which is what the OP asked? honestly interested

I'm admin and our team has been able to work from home for the first time.
We have taken some customer details home to clear the last of the office post backlog. We're a pretty sensible team so obviously senior management decided it was very low risk.
Paper post is being scanned in by skeleton staff at one of our sites and we deal with the scanned images. Loads of phone calls and emails to pick up too. Skype meeting once a week.

Paper work will be filed when we're back in. We have to keep copies for 5 years.

I'm hoping to being able to mix office work and WFH when things are back to our new normal.

I work in an office. Our admin people work from hone regularly. We don’t have filling. That would very very expensive and time consuming. Cloud storage is far superior in so many ways. The only people that would loose their jobs as a result of our entire office working from home from now on would be the cleaning crew and maybe one of the reception staff. Maybe one barista from a local coffee shop (obviously the coffee shops/pubs etc don’t exclusively service our office).

can you give some examples of what types of retail you would expect to start losing money due not to a one-off pandemic but solely from people WFH more in the future, which is what the OP asked? honestly interested

The high street is suffering a huge decline already. Less people shopping = less shops. It's not as easy as just moving to online sales, either. Lots of online-only shops run at a loss because of the huge numbers of returns - for lots of bricks and mortar stores, this just isn't affordable and without regular footfall, they will close for good.

The less people available to shop in bricks and mortar stores, the more the high street will decline and the more businesses will close.

Interesting to categorise the jobs.
The first two are simple but after that it gets more complex:
A) will always need to be done in a specific workplace and can never be done from home: E.g. firefighter, heavy manufacturing, bus driver, hairdresser, actor, usher, barman, chef, waiter, most healthcare roles. There are enormous numbers of these and most will remain unchanged except that public transport need may decrease a bit.
B) can easily be done from home: many pure office jobs, call centre jobs, lots of IT.
C) the unavoidable physical elements of work associated with class B - maybe IT workers managing data centres?
D) the temporarily necessary physical elements of work associated with class B - cash handling, printing, mailrooms. All of that needs doing in person at the moment because some service users haven’t given the physical aspect up yet, but they are probably not long for this world, and many such jobs were probably doomed on financial grounds even if people carried on working in offices.
E) jobs servicing jobs of type B): receptionists, office facilities managers, pot plant waterers, cafes in business districts. Probably will suffer major fallout in the event of a move to increase home working.

I was thinking about this the other day - for example office cleaners will be out of work if everyone is wfh

Vanillaandhoney - but why does people wfh more = fewer people shopping?

In my old town shops opened 9-5, the exact time I was in work, so I very rarely went shopping, except on the weekend, which was always rammed. Now i live in a city, the big shopping centre near me opens 10.30-7/8 instead and this means, particularly on the days when I wfh and lose my commute and choose my hours, mean I often pop into the shops much more.

Surely wfh = saving time and money commuting = more time and money to shop?

Vanillaandhoney - but why does people wfh more = fewer people shopping?

Lots of people shop on their lunch break. You may not have done, but plenty do.

I worked retail for 10 years - the high street is dying. The company I used to work for will very likely go bust as a result of this pandemic - they were considerably down on last year before any of this kicked in. I'm not saying that more WFH = the direct death of the high street - there
are lots of combining factors at play.

The point of my original post was that the retail and hospitality sectors are the sectors that will be massively hit by social distancing going forward. Fewer bums on seats in restaurants and cinemas means less profit and more chances of businesses going bust. Lots of places can't survive if they can only run at 50% capacity due to maintaining the two metre rule.

That's inevitably going to mean redundancies - less customers means less staff are needed. Those people can't be redeployed elsewhere. Shop staff can't work from home, neither can bar staff or waitresses or baristas.

With social distancing becoming the norm, less people are going to shop in towns - they're all going to go online to avoid social contact, even if they are WFH. The whole point isn't that WFH means less people shopping, it just signifies a huge change in society that some sectors simply won't be able to recover from.

We were a paper office, face to face customer care etc. We've managed to move onto WFH in 4 weeks it can be done. Obviously shop staff are different but it's not impossible for businesses who's only excuse is we use paper

It seems like a very privileged point of view to think oh surely everyone can work from home these days.
It's not privileged at all most people can work from home however businesses need to get a grip and facilitate it

@ twinkleprincess - What if, as my post above, it’s not businesses which can’t get a grip and facilitate it but employees?

DP and I currently live in a one-bedroom flat. I mean, yes, in our case it’s a lovely one-bedroom flat in central London and therefore we have options available to us if we wanted to sell up and move to a cheaper area with more space. But this month has really driven in that we cannot both work from home long term if we live here. And hundreds of thousands of people across the country don’t have our options.

Keeping office premises is expensive. If employers do decide that wfh is the future, decide to downsize their expensive office space and make wfh a requirement of many jobs, it’s going to disadvantage a lot of people on lower salaries who can’t afford designated space at home to work in.

@ComtesseDeSpair we don't have a dedicated space. DP will work on the sofa with a pull out table and I will work either sitting on the bed with a cold out desk or at the kitchen table.

You don't need a designated space, you just need a table/surface and a chair

@twinkleprincess - Fair. And you are a better woman than me! 😁 I have griped all month about my terrible posture from not having a good deal and chair and DP not being disciplined enough to move his shit from the dining table.

But surely if your company said you could work from home permanently or 4 out of 5 days a week then you might consider moving to a cheaper area outside of London with space to wfh and then do a longer commute every now and then?

An increase in wfh would certainly impact on house prices.

Dare I sound pessimistic but I believe automation is our future and if you work in a job that can be automated then it may/will eventually disappear.

I don’t think that is a good thing necessarily, and I think it’s something that governments need to be aware of with regards to unemployment etc before it’s too late and we have loads of people out of work because machines are doing it for us.

Also companies relying on paper filing are lagging behind. Yes there are particular instances paper is needed but most of the time it isn’t and it’s people or companies being stuff in their ways. I’ve been at home near 6 weeks and haven’t been able to print or scan anything for my job. Where I used to print and tick/mark up etc now I do that in a pdf editor and save it to our system.

Also computers are far more secure. A server failure sucks but that data is backed up. Your office burns down? Bye bye paperwork!