To think we could make a massive dent in pollution very easily

[Lifeover]

Offices. Everyday millions of people travel to offices, in cars, on trains, on buses. All causing much stress and pollution. Commutes, even short ones take hours out your day.

You get to these big offices, usually in pollution filled cities, massive buildings, usually hot dealing so no where near your colleagues, go out at lunch and buy a sandwich packed in plastic, a drink in a plastic bottle etc.

Spend half the day listening to someone make their promotion case, email someone in India to do admin, phone someone in India to fix your computer remotely, send people sat two desks up an instant message/email so you have something on file.

Meanwhile the company is spending millions on these buildings that are too small to give everyone a desk. People need to live within an easy commute of big cities mAking housing there unaffordable for many.

Wouldn’t it be better for people of say they went into the office once a week or fortnight for a team collaboration day, then work from home where the commuting time could be spent with family and/or working. No need to live so close to cities so would spread out where people lived, take pressure off urban areas inc doctors, schools, roads. And cut down on a lot of pollution. People could live nearer to elderly parents to provide them with more support etc

Technology means o can share anything on my computer with anyone in the world. There’s really no need to be in office every day.

Aibu to think homeworing is the obvious way big office based companies like accountants and lawyers could drastically cut pollution, and have many other social benefits too.

Agreed. I could do 75% of my job without ever setting foot near my office. Most office based people could. Hell my senior manager appears to do 80% of her job without ever going near one of our buildings or indeed her staff

yep.

That sounds like a lonely and isolating existence. I’d miss all the office banter and the camaraderie.
Don’t forget all those individual homes would need to be heated in winter - companies would save on their energy bills whilst workers had to pay more.
And the lack of commute leads to a more sedentary lifestyle.

I don't have an office or a commute.

But tram/train/bus drivers and conductors, the people who sell the sandwiches, make the coffees, clean the offices etc, people who rely on the offices will presumably lose their non office based jobs?

I worked from home for 2.5 years. First, I don't really have room in my home to work, so it was incredibly difficult to get any separation between work and home life. Second, internet where I live (rurally) is poor and unreliable, which made some aspects of work difficult and frustrating. And third, it's lonely and leads to less efficient working than when you can just talk to someone/see what they're doing.

More flexible working (which is what I have now), may be a really good solution, but mostly home working does not work for everyone and has downsides for everyone.

There is some truth in this, however the vast majority of pollution is caused by animal agriculture so giving up eating animal products would be way more effective.

I do most of my work from home. I do sometimes miss being around other people but am definitely more productive this way, and things like WhatsApp groups make it a bit less lonely (colleagues are also out a lot or work from home).

I do have space for a proper separate office at home though and I can see that makes a a difference - I went in a lot more when it was a desk in the spare bedroom surrounded by laundry, and even more when it was working at a kitchen table in a one bed flat.

Flexible working with decent technology is the way forward. Our office now has a desk ratio of 1:3. Most new offices and refurbs spec similar or less.

I work as described in the OP and it works for me. I appreciate not everyone has the space to do it or the personality to suit it. The next best thing would be communal office space where you can choose a handy nearby location. So rather than slogging into a city to do a computer based job, you could go to a nearby shared space for the cost of the commute but you'd save time and pollution. You could even plan it so you go on the same day as friends.

Mass scale homeworking is not as easy as people think from a business perspective. It's not impossible but it does come with extra costs.

The first is providing IT equipment, you need to provide homeworkers with a safe working environment so not just a laptop. They need a computer, screen, desk and suitable chair. All of which have to be delivered and maintained so your in house IT now need to go to homes etc. for some maintenance tasks.

Bring your own device isn't suitable as you can't ensure people's personal computers are sufficiently secure, locked down to prevent information leakage or suitable for your business needs.

Homeworkers then complain about the fact that they have a personal computer plus they have to find space for a desk and work computer.

You then need to provide telephony and suitable secure internet access.

Videoconferencing is great up to a point but meetings are needed so you end up booking meeting spaces.

Unless you've got a very motivated team you spend more time ensuring people are effectively communicating with each other.

Finally from an HR perspective it becomes harder to enforce policies and opens up new challenges like people trying to look after children while they are meant to be working.

I've worked from home for over ten years mainly with remote teams and have had to bring in additional tools like screen and application recording and additional reporting to monitor productivity.

Homeworking works well for certain groups of workers but I can't see it being common for the majority of office workers for quite a long time as the business processes and culture aren't mature enough.

Well we already have to account for every 6 min of the day as does every accountant/lawyer I know. Hot dealing that seems to be very common amongst large firms means it’s difficult to have that banter you used to have.

We don’t have desk phones anymore. It’s all soft phones with headsets/mobiles.

We work across offices so eg I could be sat in Manchester working with someone from bristol. Everything is electronically filed.

Yes there might be down sides of not seeing colleagues but then depending on colleagues that could be an upside😂.

There could be weekly/fortnightly meetings so people would still see each other use trains etc but to a lesser extent.

The first is providing IT equipment, you need to provide homeworkers with a safe working environment so not just a laptop. They need a computer, screen, desk and suitable chair. All of which have to be delivered and maintained so your in house IT now need to go to homes etc. for some maintenance tasks.
Bring your own device isn't suitable as you can't ensure people's personal computers are sufficiently secure, locked down to prevent information leakage or suitable for your business needs.
Homeworkers then complain about the fact that they have a personal computer plus they have to find space for a desk and work computer.
You then need to provide telephony and suitable secure internet access.

All of this. I could work from home a couple of days a week but I don't want to. At work I'm in an office, with two monitors & secure Wifi. At home I'd be either on my little Mac Air or trying to cram a workstation into my small flat, using my home broadband.

Plus I live alone and I love it, I couldn't stand sharing my home with anyone else, but that does mean I want to get out & have company during the day, and getting to work is just as easy as getting to the nearest communal office space.

We try and work from home as much as possible. Unfortunately, that isn't as often as I'd like. We waste 2 hours of our own time commuting each day.

Security isn't an issue saw we have a work VPN and wired ethernet. Heating in the winter is an extra cost, but that is more than offset by the saving of two gallons of diesel a day.

Yes I agree OP. Even if everyone who currently works 5 days a week in an office and drives, spent one day a week at home, that would make a difference.

If everyone who drives their child to school every day walked one day, or part of the way, that would make a difference.

And if everyone who was about to replace their car bought a smaller, less polluting version, that would also help.

But people always have an excuse as to why it can't work.

Lots of concern over plastic bags, but if people drive gas guzzling Chelsea tractors, the plastic bag use is the least of their eco-sins, quite honestly.

Yes I agree OP. Even if everyone who currently works 5 days a week in an office and drives, spent one day a week at home, that would make a difference.
If everyone who drives their child to school every day walked one day, or part of the way, that would make a difference.
And if everyone who was about to replace their car bought a smaller, less polluting version, that would also help.

Absolutely. And if everyone went meat-free a couple of days a week that would help too.

So this child-free, non-driving veggie wants to keep going into work 5 days a week!

But if for your one day a week at home, the company has to provide a chair, screen and keyboard (as working off laptop doesn't meet DSA criteria), then that's doubling the amount of plastic required for every employee. Not so environmentally friendly, let alone the transport costs.

The problem is it's difficult to see what is the most environmentally friendly way to behave because I don't understand the environmental impact of all the extra chairs required: manufacturing (in China?), shipping and transport to each location. Whereas none of that is needed if you go into the office every day.

Might be a silly example, but I see it everywhere with the drive to reduce plastics. That's great in itself, but not if we simply move to over using something else. Eg Soap in an aluminium tin. Aluminium extraction requires a huge amount of energy to extract, luckily it's also relatively easy to recycle (compared to other metals), but each recycling step introduces more iron contamination which can be removed. Iron makes the aluminium less formable (amongst other things) so less useful. Recycling also uses energy. The price of aluminium is currently cheap due to Chinese dumping (yes, this isn't just an issue for steel), which then means more or it is used for cheap applications and the energy cost to the planet increases. Even a simple choice isn't!

You see I agree and don't get why it isn't a more mature area. Mainly as my dad was working from home over 30years ago for a big company.
They provided, computer, fax, mobile phone, answer phone and IDSN line as it was then. Upgrading to internet at a latter date, they claimed it was cheaper then running regional offices which they closed. My dad also had a company car.

So really don't get why as it's easier now with better internet and (which most people can access, rather then when we had to have an extra line installed. We had 3 at one point one phone, one fax, one ISDN) that most companies don't at lest do feliaxble working. Where you could work say 3-4 days a week at home.

And yes I suppose it made it easier from a child care point but mum was only fulltime when I was at high school. So as kids we needed minimum supervision, in fact we'd be the one's making his coffee for him and even lunch sometimes. The only advantage was there was an adult in the house in case of an emergency.

Wouldn’t it be better for people of say they went into the office once a week or fortnight for a team collaboration day, then work from home where the commuting time could be spent with family and/or working.

This would require paying people well enough to provide them with an office space at home.

You get to these big offices, usually in pollution filled cities, massive buildings, usually hot dealing so no where near your colleagues, go out at lunch and buy a sandwich packed in plastic, a drink in a plastic bottle etc

Surely if you buy a sandwich packed in plastic and a drink in a plastic bottle rather than bringing a sandwich and a flask, that is your own (irresponsible) decision. People who make those decisions usually aren't too responsible about the decisions they make at home either. My workplace actively rewards people who bring their own mugs for buying coffee in; otherwise I wouldn't buy there.

No need to live so close to cities so would spread out where people lived, take pressure off urban areas inc doctors, schools, roads

Surely spreading the population out would mean people would be using cars more to access shops, doctors, schools etc? The beauty of a city is, it is easier to keep things accessible by public transport.

We live in a city.. Hardly ever use the car, didn't have one for the first 15 years of our marriage. BIL lives in a lovely village. No regular bus service as not economically viable, everything has to be accessed by car from grocery shopping to dentists.

Only reason we bought a car was because elderly relatives who needed help insisted on not living in cities. Totally get why it was nicer for them, but can't see what good it did the air quality.

Cities could be a lot less polluted if more people left the car at home when at all possible. The city I live in now has far worse air quality than the much larger city I went to uni in: it's about attitudes and car use. Here, using public transport is seen as somehow only for the poor, that you wouldn't want to rub shoulders with the kind of people you might meet on the bus; back there attitudes were far less classist.

Most people I know who wfh just sit with their lap top at the dining room table.

Most offices have no where to store lunch. No fridges, health and safety crap not even a kettle. Canteens are full of packaging.

Yes agreed.

How many who worked from home would be tempted to save childcare fees by trying to work and care for their child, managing neither satisfactorily I wonder?

@Lifeover