If you can do your job from home then it can be done from India...

[Bewareoftheblob]

This is what my brother has been told by his employers. He works in a small office in a city centre and can work remotely. He admits that their efficiency, especially in terms of the quality of customer service, has been compromised by the team working from home.

They've all been told to go back to the office from mid September, which he is reluctant to do, mainly because he dislikes the commute and has enjoyed being at home with his wife and toddler.

When he (and, I think, some other team members) requested an extension to working from home, they were told in no uncertain terms to get back in to the office, and that they should be wary because 'if you can do your job from home, it can probably be done from India', which my brother has taken as a threat of redundancy.

They were also asked if they didn't feel guilty about the impact they were having on the economy and other people's livelihood - I assume they meant transport/Costa/Pret etc. They were asked to have more of a community spirit. It's a pretty informal place, not very 'corporate' which is why I assume it's been worded in this way!

What do you think? I'm torn to be honest, I totally understand why my brother wants to work from home, but whilst I don't think his company expressed themselves very well, I can see their point too.

So I suppose it's more are they being unreasonable rather than am I being unreasonable!

@Heffalooomia

Boris is just looking out for his rich mates who own commercial property in city centres It's very important that they are kept in the manner to which they have become accustomed

I think there is a lot of truth in this. But also remember many "ordinary" people's pension funds will be invested in commercial/retail property funds, which are collapsing in value around their ears.

The employer says they are not as productive. If he doesn't like it, he needs to quit so he can stay home with his wife and toddler.

How many men are really desperate to spend all day every day with a toddler? My guess is he just enjoys not having to commute (understandable) and being able to faff about at home for much of the day. The 'spending time with the family' is just a more respectable way of putting it.

Hardbackwriter

nice goady little post, but many cafes and workers around here HAVE made changes as it happens

I love that trying to keep a business afloat is called being "smug" and I am sorry that you are miffed about the WFH model becoming the new 'normal" but I am among the ones who are very very happy about it, most workers will benefit hugely.

@Worldgonecrazy

Most of the losers will be women. I dread to see a return to the promotion of the ‘50s housewife’ as aspirational, so women lose their financial independence to ensure there are more jobs for men.☹️

Why? Since when is WFH a male thing, and why would a change in the economy only (or mainly) affect women?

On the contrary, they would be the ones who benefit the most, if it was true that mothers were the ones in charge of wrap-around care or women were more likely to be doing admin office work.

Or they could just find a better way of working from home with more accountability and management

Yes, the combination of "jobs done from home can be done from India" and "we need to save coffee shops" suggest the company don't know why productivity is down and are "doing something" in the absence of business insights.

Outsourcing isn't practical for most smaller orgs. Larger companies have already done it (and reversed it in many cases). It works well for some use cases but by no means all.

I'd be more concerned that a company has reduced productivity and doesn't know why.

I'd be more concerned that a company has reduced productivity and doesn't know why.

They do know why. It's because employees are WFH. The brother himself admitted that they were working less efficiently in a WFH environment.

The important thing is 'He admits that their efficiency, especially in terms of the quality of customer service, has been compromised by the team working from home.'

Less efficient so perfectly understandable that they want them back to full efficiency!

The company is NBU. Working from home doesn’t suit their business, and they can’t have staff wanting to stay home just because they prefer it.

They took an office job, it’s time to get back to the office. It doesn’t matter what the employees feel because they’re not the ones running the company.

it's true

at my work they have just made some of our UK staff redundant as their jobs will now be done from another country with cheaper staff costs

it's really sad but ultimately it will happen in a lot of places if businesses think jobs can be done ok at home, they will just outsource to a country where it's cheaper to get them done!

the problem is the knock on impact as others have pointed out today in the press - it's all very well saying 'I'm alright jack, I don't fancy my commute, I like being at home' but you're not spending on the train fare, coffee at work, office space etc. and those people relying on that revenue may well lose their jobs. If they lose their jobs and don't find new ones, there is less tax revenue and less spending by them and it's a big knock on impact on the economy. What they are starting to see is those that stayed at home are not spending that money that they would have spent getting to work/being at work, at home or in local businesses as much as they would have done at work.

I don't think your brother should feel guilty about the not spending in coffee shops - but I think the point about jobs going to a different country is well made!

@RhymesWithOrange

Long term there won’t actually be any jobs.

I think this was the argument against the Spinning Jenny.

There will be jobs, just different ones, and ones we can't even imagine yet. Every early job my mum did (typist, switchboard operator, punchcard operative) no longer exists yet she was employed full time until she retired.

No it absolutely wasn't. Workers who had done long apprenticeships were suddenly without any work at all and in those days there was no social support of any kind. The Luddites are badly misrepresented and misunderstood because history was written by the victors as usual. Have a read of Lord Byron's passionate contemporary speech on the issue.

Could the "less efficiency" issue though not be solely down to working from home but a mixture of "working from home, looking after children full time when they would usually be at school or in other childcare options, plus worry and poor mental health due to covid risks particularly over lockdown plus poor internet service due to everyone wfh" etc....?

In which case he could make an argument for more flexibility of working even if not staying at home.

In my job i would say 80% can be done wfh all the time, however 99% can be done to the same efficiency mostly wfh and going into the office once or twice a month.

I definitely don't think most jobs that involve customer service can be done in India to the same level...depends on what you consider efficiency to mean! I have left service providers before because they made basic mistakes like putting my surname (or even house name) as my first name which a native English speaker wouldn't have done, which made even getting through their basic security checks to speak to someone a complete hassle!

Could the "less efficiency" issue though not be solely down to working from home but a mixture of "working from home, looking after children full time when they would usually be at school or in other childcare options, plus worry and poor mental health due to covid risks particularly over lockdown plus poor internet service due to everyone wfh" etc....?

Well, I'm sure he could think of any number of excuses.

But the fact is the company has said that efficiency has suffered and that is why they want staff back in the office. It's their call. He got the job on the understanding that it would be office based, so he can't demand to WFH just because he fancies a lie-in the morning.

I definitely don't think most jobs that involve customer service can be done in India to the same level...depends on what you consider efficiency to mean!

It's not just customer service jobs, and it's not just India.

It's interesting that so many here are insisting that their job can absolutely be done perfectly from home, but if you suggest that it could be done just as well from a home in Poland or Lithuania, then of course that would be completely out of the question!

but you're not spending on the train fare, coffee at work, office space etc. and those people relying on that revenue may well lose their jobs.

meanwhile, local coffee shops and food outlets, high street shops, local fitness and entertainment industries no one had time to use before hand , IT support, delivery companies, carpenters etc... are seeing a very welcome boost in their activity and revenue

This is not about not spending money, it's about spending money differently. Businesses will adapt - companies offering garden "workspace/shed/pods" have seen their numbers exploding for a start.

It's interesting that so many here are insisting that their job can absolutely be done perfectly from home, but if you suggest that it could be done just as well from a home in Poland or Lithuania, then of course that would be completely out of the question!

It is not, but there is a language and culture barrier that is very obvious.
Poland and Lithuania have always existed .. the same obstacles preventing businesses to outsource everything are the same today.

What is interesting is that it doesn't occur to you that English workers could on the other hand be employed remotely overseas - still cheaper than relocate them though!

It is not, but there is a language and culture barrier that is very obvious.

Not that obvious if, say, your job involves routine accounting or tech assistance.

Poland and Lithuania have always existed .. the same obstacles preventing businesses to outsource everything are the same today.

Equally, the tools that allow people to WFH have existed for some time. But just as this crisis has shown us that some jobs can be done just as well from home, so too it might show employers that if physical location is not important, then you might as well employ an efficient, fully-trained English speaker in a cheaper economy. Plenty of them about.

What is interesting is that it doesn't occur to you that English workers could on the other hand be employed remotely overseas - still cheaper than relocate them though!

It's not that it doesn't 'occur to me'. It's the fact that globally, Britain is a high-wage economy. There would be little incentive for a British person to work remotely for, say, an Indian company, as the wages would be much lower than what they could earn at home. Similarly, there would be little reason for an American company to employ a Brit, as they'd have to pay them the same if not more. It might work for those whose skills are in universal demand, but they are a small minority.

@FluffyKittensinabasket

We are also looking at a complete collapse of society. Your job being outsourced to India will be of no consequence in the upcoming global warming disasters, famine and wars. The person in India who has your job probably won’t hold onto it for very long.

Oh I do love a global apocalypse.

Things that involve a good level of cultural and linguistic fluency will be more difficult to outsource abroad. When I was working in the city in the 2000s the printers (used for listing documents) had outsourced copy typing to India. The standard was massively worse than our (admittedly excellent) in house night secretaries, but I'll accept that they were probably working with clunky typesetting software rather than word.

There's definitely been a move away from secretarial support and typing pools as most professional fee earners are now of the generation that would be quicker at typing than dictating and marking up corrections having had to type their own work since uni at the latest... Law firm secretaries have largely been replaced with paralegals plus a few senior PAs to do complex diary management (and in property, a fair amount of a paralegal role). I'd imagine the post rooms and archives have far fewer staff than 10 years ago, and massively fewer than 20-30 years ago!

Office roles have definitely changed over time, it's hardly a massive shock that the surrounding jobs will change too!

@IcedPurple

I definitely don't think most jobs that involve customer service can be done in India to the same level...depends on what you consider efficiency to mean!

It's not just customer service jobs, and it's not just India.

It's interesting that so many here are insisting that their job can absolutely be done perfectly from home, but if you suggest that it could be done just as well from a home in Poland or Lithuania, then of course that would be completely out of the question!

OK I’ll say it. It’s the language barrier. It’s draining and often unsuccessful trying to resolve a a problem with someone who is difficult to understand. Or who can only read off a script.

"Workers who had done long apprenticeships were suddenly without any work at all and in those days there was no social support of any kind."

@Hingeandbracket I was being slightly flippant but the point is the same. Jobs are made redundant by new tech, economic and geographic factors, environmental and social change.

You can't fight it, you have to adapt.

OK I’ll say it.
It’s the language barrier. It’s draining and often unsuccessful trying to resolve a a problem with someone who is difficult to understand. Or who can only read off a script.

I'm not saying all jobs can be outsourced, but many could be.

If the language barrier is so insurmountable, how is it that thousands of Indians, Poles and other nationalities work successfully in offices and other workplaces across Britain?

Why do you think companies backtracked and closed down their call centres in India and reopened in the UK?

It's also grossly untrue or naive to imagine that many companies willingly employ non-fluent English speakers that easily in the UK...

This country, as a whole, is really close-minded towards foreigners, and Brexit is only a very small part of it.

Deliver to where? How can city centres run a business delivering a cold £4 latte to a house in the suburbs?

Deliver to homes. They likely won't have any local businesses in the high street anymore. I know of several that have given up their shop and only work from home now, delivering their food.

Only the big corporations will be able to manage to stay on the high street, but why bother really? High streets should have changed already, they were going downhill before covid. Covid has just sped up the reality of what will happen. The high street won't become busy again, with tons of little shops and cafes open to spend your time for an entire day, gossiping to friends. It will likely become a housing estate. They killed the high street by introducing parking fees.

Delivery systems is the way food businesses should be going. Clothes businesses to bigger retail parks or online. More people will need to learn how to drive basically.

Why do you think companies backtracked and closed down their call centres in India and reopened in the UK?

I've repeatedly said that I'm not talking about call centres. You'd swear there was no other job to read some of these posts!

And just as many companies backtracked over having call centres in India, I wouldn't be surprised if many do the same about WFH sooner or later, no matter how much people talk of their sky-high 'productivity' here.

Your other two 'points' have nothing to do with anything I've written so I'll ignore.

Deliver to homes. They likely won't have any local businesses in the high street anymore. I know of several that have given up their shop and only work from home now, delivering their food.

A coffee costs a few quid. Add in a pastry and that's still probably not much more than a fiver. Going from home to home for a few quid a pop is not a viable business model. A cafe could not afford city centre rates deliving 3 quid coffees to homes in the suburbs. Plus, there are cafes in most high streets so why would anyone bother getting a cold styrofoam coffee delivered from Costa in the town centre?