To ask what all these work from home jobs involve?

[MissCharlotteBartlett]

I'm reading about people who've "worked from home for years"
And people who have started working from home during COVID and are hoping to continue to do so from here on in.
What do you do? PreCOVID I never saw any WFH vacancies advertised. When DH requested to WFH sometimes his bosses had an attack of the vapours.

So what jobs can you do from your spare room?

Software sales, all done online and with virtual meetings/demos

I have worked from home at least 1/2 days per week prior to Covid but we realised following Covid that actually we could do the majority of our work from home if push comes to shove and it does save travelling/office expenses etc.

I work in CS in the education side of things and spend a lot of time in meetings in schools. Meetings which were done via Skype/Teams during Covid and essentially were fine. I do miss the human aspect and relationship building you get face to face though!

@MissCharlotteBartlett

Thanks for replies - very interesting.

I've not worked in an office since I had DC (16 years) so there have obviously been lots of changes.

I became a nanny so I could take DC with me sometimes. I'd like to return to the office to be with people - is this going to be a thing of the past?

Even though were apart, I still speak to my colleagues quite a lot, between the daily team calls, Skype messaging and phone calls. Even if the messaging or calls are initially about work, they go on to be about the normal every day things we would talk about when in the office together.

R&D for a big company, but we mainly organise research done externally.

Software developer. Could never step foot in an office again. Surprises me somewhat how so many people are amazed that at a vast majority of jobs are possible from home. Maybe it’s more of a generational thing.

@onemouseplace

Those who wfh fully and want to continue - do you all have a dedicated office/ spare room you can work from without being disturbed?

No, I work at the dining room table, always have done. We are both working from home now and both work from there.

At the end of the day, my laptop is off and put in the rucksack, nothing visible for work at all after that. My office is my rucksack, as I never need to print any documents.

I work I. Compliance, so lots of policy writing, audits and training creation/delivery.

I spend about half my time on conference calls via Skype or Teams and the rest of the time on documentation and emails.

I'm a business analyst and I work with users in the UK and development teams around the world.

Academic at a university. Pre-COVID i wfh 2 days a week ( more out of term time).
I've been wfh full time since March and teaching online but I'll be doing some on campus teaching from sept.

do you all have a dedicated office/ spare room you can work from without being disturbed?

I have a study with lockable doors. Although DH has been wfh too so we've had to share it since March. If I'm not in the study I'm in the kitchen

I think you need to put the question on it's head. Why do people need to go to a desk in a central location? Generally office jobs are information processing - whether creating something, performing analysis, managing progress, etc. its all based on documents and people communicating.

It used to be because the communications and documents were only in one place, or subsequently available locally that it needed people together.

We now have the technology that effective businesses have made their documents electronic and accessible everywhere, communication packages are much richer in facilities and most importantly, people can access everything they could in an office at home.

The three things that are typically outstanding are i) Training and integrating new staff (long term, not short term inductions); ii) social interactions that build teams and allow informal discussions that often produce strong ideas to gain approval; and iii) people management of ineffective people needing higher levels of management skill.

But the core roles very infrequently needed to be based in a central office, it was just the norm and momentum.

Software engineer. I can do all of my job from home. I work with barcode scanners so my employer had to send some to my home at the beginning of lockdown but once I had the equipment it's been easy. My boss and I were saying we actually talk to each other more when we are working from home! People can't just barge in and interrupt you etc.

Engineering designer. At least 60% of my work can be done from a home office. We already had a quiet work space as both of us wfh for flexibility. It wasn't common pre Covid but will definitely continue. However if I'd had young DC or been working on the kitchen table it would have been much more difficult.

I think there was a trust barrier in a lot of organisations and experience has now shown that most people do get on with the job. Teams and Zoom came along just in time to make collaboration possible.

The thing now will be to put flexibility in place so teams can operate both from home and workplace and hopefully a win-win so most people are where it works best for them. We are already starting to struggle with meetings where half are dialling in and half are in a meeting room, some IT/audio help is needed.

The problem is for everyone who works well at home avoiding commuting time/expense, you have another moaning about their heating bill or not having the right chair. It's not one size fits all either way.

Manage a team of clinical educators. I'm usually on the road quite a lot, but have managed to get by with Zoom and a lot of Slack.

I'm a Dr
Pre Covid I obviously assumed you cannot be a Dr from home
And you can't entirely. You do need to examine people and interact face to face for some things
However it turns out that quite a bit of it can be done from home. A lot of people really prefer telephone and video consultations and even online and for some things they are very time efficient for the Dr and the patient.
I didn't want to do it but once I had got used to it I was surprised how good an interaction you can have on a video consultation and for patients it avoids parking, travelling, waiting. rooms and time off work as well as reducing Covid risk.
There should be more available appts due to increased efficiency (at the moment there is a backlog and cleaning issues etc but long term it should mean more time with patients if less is spent travelling and less missed or late appts due to traffic, parking issues etc.

If you can wfh some days as a Dr then surely you can in an office job?
People really need to check their assumptions

Criminal Investigations. Civil Service. With exception of actual arrest and property /evidence storage - most investigation is digital desk based - which can be done from home in exactly the same way as from an office - prosecution files now all digital so no need for printing/ paper file prep. (and therefore no security issues at home).

Our office has actually now been taken over by parts of the business that do need to be there but need more space for social distancing and we will now be entirely home based with a very small 2 person office for essential use.

I manage a a project in the cultural sector. I would have lots of face to face meetings normally but doing on teams or zoom. However a lot of what I do is about making and maintaining relationships with organisations and partners this is harder digitally. I also work as a creative practitioner this can involve lots of workshop delivery and facilitation with communities, families etc. So I've done none of this since March.

Client ops manager in a professional services firm. Most of my colleagues are in other offices / countries anyway so other than f2f meetings (of which there are none atm obvs) everything I do I can do anywhere provided I have a PC/Skype etc. I really miss my team though so I'm going to hopefully aim for a day or two in the office each week once feasible.

@Theld I've had 4 telephone appointments with my GPs since lockdown. Much quicker than sitting in the practice and waiting an hour.

Nhs clinical staff. Always worked a bit from home writing reports etc, dramatically more so since hot desking introduced. Then in pandemic we had video consultations so been at home aside from any people I see via video then want to see in person so do a home visit.
Post would never be advertised as home working but alot is

Another software developer. WFH has made very little difference. I don’t really miss the office.

I'm a software developer and have wfh since having my first DD 19 years ago.

When the children were smaller and I could not work and look after them at the same time, I fitted my hours in when they were asleep / at nursery / DH being at home / some help from parents. I went into work half a day a week. I was not on front line support, ie was not answering the phone to customers, so could be flexible about exactly when I worked.

I was grateful to the company for allowing me to do that, but I did take a big wages hit as they basically decided I didn't need pay rises and I couldn't leave.

In recent years, even before covid19, wfh has become much more common in my profession. For the last 4 years I have worked for a company where everyone wfh. Pre covid we went into the office 1 day a week. Now we have daily meetings via Zoom.

Now that the children are older I work more normal office hours, but I am there in case of emergency and it is easier to fit in appointments, school plays etc.

I am glad wfh is more common as it is a game changer, especially for primary carers, as you gain the commute time back and it can depending on circumstances save on childcare. From the employer's point of view, it saves on office costs and it is easier for employees to work late when needed.

Some people say they are less productive wfh but I find the opposite, I suppose it depends on the job. You do need to be disciplined but I regard it as a privilege and don't take the piss.

I'm a senior scientist. The lab scientists have been going in to work in the lab but anyone who is doing an office based job has been at home. I can't wait to get back to see my team again but we won't be back FT for a long time. I did a bit of WFH prepandemic and will probably go back to a mix eventually.

Distance tutor/lecturer: I had face to face group tutorials once a month pre-Covid, now almost exclusively online.