To think that office life/daily commuting may change forever

[scotlandg]

Basically just wondered if ppl think they will become more home based or will be expected to go in daily. My husband is London based but has been able to do his from home since lockdown. He previously did one day a week at home. I am just wondering if ppl think home working will stay or all drop away in time? Thank you

We have always been able to do a mix of WFH and the office but some did it more than others.

I think after this it will be much of the same but with a bit more WFH than previously.

I really hope so, the amount of bullshit meetings and stuff has reduced too. I get more done.

I do miss some of my lovely colleagues and the human side, but workwise I am happier at home.

WFH will continue in my work place and skeleton staff when we do see people face to face. I will struggle a lot as I live alone. I moved for work and don’t have local friends. I did do activities like choir and meet-up but I can’t see them coming back any time soon. I’m worried.

I think more working from home is inevitable and a good thing for the environment and family life.
However, I wonder what impact it will have in careers that are people facing. Traditionally teaching jobs are popular with young parents because of the holidays and childcare. If there are opportunities in office jobs for compressed working and wfh, it means these jobs will become more popular with parents and I think there will be fewer numbers going into teaching and nursing.

it's awful for people living in cramped or shared housing.

A lot of stuff that both DH and I have online meetings about for work (different areas) is bound by security/confidentiality considerations. It's OK for us as we have the room and bandwidth to both be online and in secure areas at the same time. A fair number of our colleagues in London/Edinburgh are young and flatshare - they can't guarantee privacy/confidentiality/security/bandwidth in a multi-occupancy property. They're the ones who need priority access to office space/facilities when/if they open up again.

I'm worried about too much WFH. I need contact with my team to be productive and I struggle using Teams, I can't read people properly. I also can't train graduates properly when I'm not physically with them, so I worry about entry level positions into our industry if we can't bring people in as easily as we could before.

If employees can work efficiently from home. I expect that more companies will look to downsize their offices or relocate

However, there is a downside to this. Some jobs can be off shored to non European countries where wages are considerably cheaper.

So be careful what you wish for, because it has already happened to myself once already !

@labyrinthloafer mine is the complete opposite. More bullshit meetings filling the gaps because no one is travelling between meetings. And taking what would have been commute time for calls so no time saving there either.

And no where to hide because you’re never out seeing clients! And I don’t mean hiding from doing work, I mean hiding away to get actual work done instead of being on calls all the time.

I wonder what sectors of society this will actually affect.
is there a class element to it?
even if we dislike such generalisations, at the very least, economic background will factor into this somehow.

how many low income jobs can be done from home?

it possibly won't be altering the way many people work at all, going forward.
key workers, warehouse, retail, hospitality, food, leisure, beauty,......all typically perceived as 'low pay'.
and some higher paid.....surgeons, vets, etc.

I'm wondering if most mumsnetters are in the office-class, managerial, recruiting sector....
it seems very common here.
im wfh too, although self employed. artist.
hanging on to my income like its a piece of dental floss blowing in the wind....

Some colleagues are quids in, as they get paid a London-weighted salary, but are now relocating to cheaper parts of the country (still on the same salary) and will only travel once a week.

They should enjoy that while it lasts, as it certainly won't be the case forever. Many jobs will also be outsourced because it's cheaper if a job doesn't demand a physical presence. I'd be nervous if my company was selling off physical office space to be honest. Also where there are geographical wage differences eg north vs south those will dissapear if location isn't an issue. London weighting can also be taken away with renegotiation of a contract due to the way it's calculated.

I wonder the same as @Lilybet1980

I don't mind working from home and my job can be done from anywhere, but long term I'd prefer more of a 50/50 split than permanent WFH. I miss my colleagues and it's more difficult getting to know new people over skype/zoom. I miss conversations that start of randomly and end up with some really good ideas! I miss team lunches and after work drinks.

I think WFH does have definite advantages and I love the idea of reduced traffic on the roads etc, but I'm not sure I trust a lot of companies to effectively look after employees mental health and wellbeing from home. I hope I'm wrong tho.

At my civil service workplace, they are ripping out the old assigned desks we all had and replacing with hot desking hubs and breakout areas. You will be able to book a desk by the hour. I think it’ll be go in one day a week for meetings, printing, to use specific secret software etc if you need to.

I agree a lot of jobs will go even after a period of WFH. i think it’s almost inevitable.

Some organisations would have learnt that jobs can be carried out just as effectively at home. Some would have found that actually, there is a reason to maintaining an office, but I think one good thing that might come out of this shitshow is a greater appreciation of flexible working and how if a company has a good attitude towards it, employees will, in general, be more productive and work within sensible boundaries.

Plus reduced pollution from thousands of unnecessary journeys is always a good thing.

People working from home, whilst may be great, will help to further decimate the city centres. There are sooo many independent sandwich and coffee shops / food trucks i see that were once bustling are now dead.
The city centre used to be packed at lunch time and now those shops are empty. The only people i see frequenting the town are teenagers and people in their 20s. I presume this gang of the population would normally either be studying or actually working part time in bars/restaurants and shops, but they now have nothing to do.

I do think some jobs will be outsourced abroad. My old bank outsourced IT and a large swathe of digital banking to India. Another financial services firm had outsourced secretarial roles to Poland. EY and PWC were ahead of the curve, I saw then advertising virtual PA jobs a couple of years ago. PAs would WFH and go into the office one day per week.

Civil service roles in my Department can only be filled by British citizens with security clearance so not worried about my job being outsourced abroad. Parts of military training and education are being outsourced but those roles will be moved to say Babcock and will still be only for British citizens with SC. I imagine the T&Cs will be worse then the civil service though. Could be wrong.

I don't think many companies fully understand the true implication on GDPR processes (which have seemed to have gone out of the window in the current climate), their health and safety, insurance obligations etc if the majority of its staff are predomiantly working from home on a permanent basis. There is far more to consider than just how much rent could be saved on doing away with the physical office.

At my civil service workplace, they are ripping out the old assigned desks we all had and replacing with hot desking hubs and breakout areas. You will be able to book a desk by the hour. I think it’ll be go in one day a week for meetings, printing, to use specific secret software etc if you need to

Kind of goes against the point of not passing around the ketchup bottle at you family bbq and children being assigned their own stationary in clear plastic wallets at named desks whilst in school.

@BoingBoingyBoing I agree. I think eventually we will reach a situation where people have more flexibility to work in a way that suits them. So for some that will be in the office every day, for others it might be wfh 9 days out of 10. Obviously this isn’t possible for all jobs but I think this will have demonstrated that many more roles can be performed from home than previously thought.

@pennylane83 what GDPR issues do you speak of exactly? I work in GDPR and my whole organisation is working remotely, systems like Microsoft 365 make it completely possible to work compliantly remotely. I wouldn't have signed off on it otherwise!

DH was already WFH two days a week. He hasn’t been to the office since March. He IS working though. I don’t see him during the day except when I take him a coffee or he comes downstairs to get some lunch. His season ticket was around £1700 a year so he’s saving on that. Plus the cost of dry cleaning and occasionally replacing his suits.

He isn’t missing out on exercise - in fact he’s exercising more because he can either grab half an hour on the running machine during lunchtime OR directly after finishing work Instead of the hour commute each way.

In fact, he actually works a bit more this way as he used to be in the office 9.00 to 4.15, now he Is at his desk 7.30 some mornings and always but 8 and finishes between 4 and 5 depending on “meetings”.

It works really well for him but he does have a very strong work ethic and is definitely working... I know some people would be too easily distracted. Also helps that youngest DC is old enough not to bother Dad during working hours.

I'm civil service and we have been told that this will be the way forward from now on, we will be in the office once a week max once this is over and we will have to book a desk in advance.
They are currently getting everyone a desk, chair and pc set up delivered to their homes so we don't have to work off laptops forever.
I love my office and colleagues I'm finding it very difficult to think this is my future, its so depressing.

@pennylane83

At my civil service workplace, they are ripping out the old assigned desks we all had and replacing with hot desking hubs and breakout areas. You will be able to book a desk by the hour. I think it’ll be go in one day a week for meetings, printing, to use specific secret software etc if you need to

Kind of goes against the point of not passing around the ketchup bottle at you family bbq and children being assigned their own stationary in clear plastic wallets at named desks whilst in school.

I thought exactly the same thing. I read that hot desking was being binned as a big infection risk.

My employer provides regular mandatory security courses & puts the emphasis on the employee
Plus encryption, numerous password protection etc
We also had the "how to set up your desk course" from health & safety before the lock down
I believe that most things are covered

I could easily continue forever to do my job from home

However, I agree that training new starters would be difficult. The training manual doesn't account for every scenario that we encounter

I miss the office
I’d like to go back as I was before, WFH 2 days per week and in the office 3 days. I’m so sick of doing everything in the same building and my routine has gone out of the window so I am just not looking after myself at the mo!