To agree that colleagues moving out of London are doing the right thing

[disorganisedsecretsquirrel]

'Base office' is in South London. I have WFH for years so this is not about me...

Colleagues have been WFH since lockdown.. most had done at least one day a week at home for years ( because we have a sane boss ) .. then Covid happened and it became apparent to all that we had never 'needed' to be there..

Now our department (Civil Service) has closed our office. to us - to make room for those who have to see the public/ need to be in the office. So my colleagues have started to make moves.. we are a team of 16. So far, 2 have made offers on properties in Devon and Cornwall, 2 in Norfolk /Suffolk , 1 in the lakes (lucky bugger) and one to Sussex. (All previously in South London.

Our contracts have been changed to WFH (if we chose this) ..

AIBU to say that the government push to get 'everyone back in the office' does not reflect the reality of what people want.. mostly to do with the commute.. (cost of) and quality of life.. my lovely colleague going to Wales is swapping a 1 bed in Streatham for a 3 bed small holding for half the cost of her current mortgage . She has 2 kids that share a room and her and DH sleep on a sofa bed !

Great for your colleagues!

I think having the WFH become part of your contract is key. Keep hearing about swarms of people moving out of the city and I wonder if its a bit premature.

I'll be WFH for the foreseeable but its not a permanent thing (yet??) and most companies have tenancy agreements that landlords will not want to let them break. So it's hard to say if leaving London (or any other big city) is really a feasible thing for the average office worker yet.

And as others have said there are still lots of great things about living in a city. I reckon we need to see how everything goes over the next year to 18 months.

We aren’t going anywhere. We love the coutryside but we also love London and the culture it has to offer too so our perfect spot is the very edge of the capital.

Not everyone enjoys working from home, either - people are sociable creatures and DH, for example, has hated being locked away in the study on his own all day (large lovely room overlooking our beautiful garden).

Tbh, I also find all these big moves and dramatic changes to working patterns a little premature.

@Chicchicchicchiclana

You assume that everyone's dream is living in the countryside not London. I think you're quite wrong there.

Yes, this!

Contracts can be changed. 🤷‍♀️

So wfh now but who’s to say there won’t be a reshuffle, merging of depts, new boss, etc in a couple of years who says no to wfh. What will they do then?

LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett

I think making decisions on if people 'need' to be in the office at this point is incredibly short-sighted. You're essentially making a huge change in the way people collaborate and a huge change to how cultures develop in organisations on the basis of a six-month experiment.

I agree. I WFH and have done since 2008. Our juniors are all office based (with lots of things in place to manage this in terms of training and f2f interaction with others etc). They are currently at home and largely struggling with no space. They are either at their parents with limited space/competing for suitable space with parents or siblings, or in house shares or bedsits. In the future where will staff live at that stage in their careers that facilitates home working. Will they be even more shafted having to find bigger places to live with more expense?

We have a new intake of interns, apprentices and those on grad schemes each September. We have got people dedicated to sort out how this can work so they aren’t disadvantaged by being the ones who don’t already know the team and won’t have the advantages that offices give to those at that stage.

I understand established people individually rushing to wfh. I think managers need to do their jobs and manage taking this sort of thing into account.

Tbh, I also find all these big moves and dramatic changes to working patterns a little premature.

I tend to agree but then if you're paying a huge rent or stuck in a property too small it makes sense to re-evaluate.

Moved out of London now 15 years ago. Over that time had one or two days a week at home and the rest in London with three hours round commute. Life here in a rural area is good and we like the lifestyle schools and company. Many people who move out don’t t. They ,miss the city life where bars and all types of food are on tap and they loathe the quietness we love. Also where we live everyone knows everyone’s business which again not everyone likes. Strongly recommend the move, but not everyone is a country dweller by instinct.

But moving out of London doesn't necessarily have to mean countryside, you could go to the outer suburbs or other towns or the seaside.

I think this is all premature. In 2-3 years time things will be back to how they were before and the local villages will be full of overpriced half empty houses.

I also worked in financial services for ten years and was part of many a project to move 'low-value' work out of ' high-value' property. Totally makes sense - why on earth would you have someone data processing in the middle of London in some of the most expensive square footage in the world?

Except that a mixed economy depends on lots of people who work at lots of different levels. If you don't want London to become an oligarch's playground, people have to live, work and play there.

Don't get me wrong, it's brilliant that so many of the jobs we were told couldn't be done from home now clearly can. But this still has to be thought through very carefully.

@How2Help interesting the focus for the new intake is on not disadvantaging them - no one really seems to be grappling with 'we need to now rewrite everyone's job descriptions because they can't meet their current expectations with the new ways of working'. But that probably needs the HR bods to be in the office to have that conversation

It's excellent. And not what the government want. The push to go back to work is all because the big (tory) financiers with corporate offices being leased out - and other contracts related to the rather subservient hum of corporate lemmings - are now shaking in their boots at the prospect of this massive chunk of cash flow ebbing away. Of course they won't say that... But instead insinuate that the motivation is that we should all do what we can to save the city sandwich and coffee shops (which surround them)

There could definitely do with some levelling of the country so it isn’t so London focused but that needs to include salaries too, not just Londoners with London salaries buying up properties in cheaper bits of the country and pricing out locals of their own areas.

This!

I find it odd that the gov are pushing "us" back but lots of the public sector are not back.

Yeah, they’re totally doing the right thing until they want to move job. And then they’ll be going for a new job from a small holding in wales, and someone else will be applying for the job in - oh yes! - London, and guess who’ll get it? So as long as they’re happy doing that job forever and that their employee will always be reliably good and supportive, carry on!

Also, I think people will all think it’s a fabulous idea to move out of London until approx 1 October, when they suddenly won’t!

My oldest boy works for the civil service in the city centre and they are trying to get out of their lease and just have a drop in hub. They’ve realised that they can save tens of thousands of pounds a year. I can see there being a massive surplus of offices, because so many are able to work from home and it’s cheaper for the companies.

I don’t live in London, but I think it’s great that people can choose where they want to live rather than being shackled to a location.

If companies switch to a hybrid wfh 80/20 situation then I think that employee salaries should be raised across the board, to reflect the cost of energy etc.

Whilst if this wfh change becomes the norm it will impact on some sectors (sandwich shops and the like), I suspect the economy will strengthen in other areas.

Maybe an economy with less reliance on less skilled positions would be a good thing. Rather than some teens leaving school and working in a sandwich shop, it may be more the norm to do an apprenticeship in a trade which is booming due to offices converting into residential homes or similar.

Just musing here!

I am planning to move more rurally in a few years, a lifelong ambition but i expect ill now be permanently outbid by Londoners. A third of property transactions in the Highlands atm are people from England. Resentment will build if this continues or increases. Its a bit different if people are working directly in the local community, providing services or employment that are needed but not doing meetings remotely and pricing locals out of the market. We had fewer job opportunities and less money but our compensation was more space and fresh air, now i feel southerners will just leapfrog over us and act like theyve discovered the secret to happiness. Yes, i am feeling a bit bitter and twisted, feel as though i should have jumped a couple of years ago...

It will be interesting to see what happens to London weighting and allowances in salaries of people continue to work from home.

DS company used to outsource to wfh people in the UK to create 3d walk through architectural projects. Now they are done in Asia for a fraction of the price. I suspect with some workers this will happen the employer would be remiss not to consider this.

In the charity I worked for the turnaround in employees at head office was not good for continuity of long lead in times for events. We were forever getting e mails from staff saying I am leaving anyone who can meet at x bar for a farewell drink. They were young and chasing more money a better job elsewhere. When you up sticks and move to remote areas will this itch go away do you think?

@Wbeezer hopefully the flip side of that is that people in the Highlands will be able to apply for London jobs too, so things like "children moving away after uni because there are no jobs" will decrease.

IME London weighting didnt make much inroads into the cost of commuting into London.

But if people are no longer commuting or living in London surely it must go?

I wouldn't be keen to make any life changing decisions given how much uncertainty there is at the moment. Feels a bit premature. I'd be more minded to see how the next year plays out and then take a view.

I've lived and worked in London for a long time. I love the place so it's irrelevant for me. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and have no desire to go back there!

If the job is 100% remote, then yes usually the weighting would go, when there is a formal London weighting element to the salary.

When you just earn more for a London firm than the equivalent job pays in Scotland, then it is harder to cut salaries.