to think WFH is going to permanent for most who have switched?

[elmouno]

I was chatting with someone earlier and I said that most people currently working from home will be working from home now permanently. There will be no switch back to the offices in the city.

The other person disagreed and said people will have to go back. If they don't too much of the city economies will collapse which will affect the overall economy (i.e. no coffee, lunch, rail tickets, cleaners etc) that it would be catastrophic.

I'm guessing that businesses will be forced to change, but maybe not? Am I being unreasonable to assume that all the people now working from home will be doing so permanently?

Wfh is working well for people with enough space to work,who have established careers and already know their colleagues so able to collaborate well. Moving forward with new colleagues, inexperienced graduates and changes to practice etc not so good

I believe a mix and match approach works best with some flexibility

I hope we don't go back to the office 5 days a week! I'm on maternity leave and have been since last year so I have missed all of the working through lockdown etc. But my work have informed me that when I go back I will be working from home until next year like a lot of people, and also that reduced office time will be the new norm.

Not only has widespread WFH been demonstrably good for the environment which is a huge deal, not commuting will enormously benefit my work life balance and I'm honestly over the moon. It will change our family dynamic completely and for the better.

I hope most companies are sensible and progressive enough to keep the WFH change to at least half the week and the more the better, for jobs that can be done at home. With regards to industries suffering, you have to roll with the times. The economy overall will not suffer because people are buying less coffee; the average person will not suddenly turn to hoarding money because they don't have to commute 4 hours a day, it will still go back into the economy but just in different ways.

My husband is a desk head at a large Broking firm in the city and has told all his team to be back on the desk Monday morning. He is getting pressure from the directors above who want them back in the office. Him and his team have worked efficiently from home but it's been a nightmare when the WIFI goes down (which is often at the moment) 🙈 and i think they are missing the interaction with each other. They are used to taking out traders and socialising after a stressful day.

I work in local government and mine and my hubby’s places of work are looking to drastically downsize their office accommodation. My hubby is likely to be part of a six month trial.

I won’t be going back until Christmas and then I imagine I will ask to wfh 2 or 3 days a week (already do one). But I don’t want to do 5 days because I miss professional conversation in my subject area and actually need it for developing ideas and approaches. I also manage a small team and miss them a lot - it’s not quite the same on zoom.

I also don’t give much time to the woe is me city centres. For once market towns and villages with local services are thriving as there is a local demand. I would be very sad to see that decline again.

Nah, presenteeism is still going to be a huge part of office life, as will micro managing. Both are easier done in an office environment. But there might be an increase of those who wfh part of the week. They'll be in the minority though.

I’ve been given a pretty strong indication that I won’t be going back to the office. Always worked 50% from home anyway, so it was already tried and tested. I think we’ll have rooms we can book for when we really do need face to face time. I’m in L&D and we are having a big push on training people for effective remote working. Speaking to someone a week or so ago and they were saying the trains into London are still empty, but some do hope to be back in the new year.

It clearly depends on your job. I'm a CPN and can do 1, 2 at a push from home (reports, admin, phone calls), We have g been doing some telephone appointments but I'm old school. I don't like speaking on the phone anyway. I get a better rapport face to face, and also you. Get a clearer picture face to face e.g. are they clean and tidy, can they maintain eye contact.

I work in London with a diverse population. We use interpreters a lot, we can use 3 way telephone interpreters but it's confusing, I don't always know who's talking!

WFH has been demonstrably good for the environment
Not when transport services can't afford to operate due to fall in revenue. With the consequence that more people than ever will be reliant on their cars to get around.

Separately, it's all lovely that (generally) more affluent market towns and villages are thriving. Millions live in large towns and cities. What do people suggest happens to these people? Let them starve? Increase tax to pay for mass unemployment benefits and the increased demand on criminal justice services, mental health support, social services, etc? Or build and build and build vast numbers of new housing in the thriving market towns and villages for the rest of the population to move to?

They are used to taking out traders and socialising after a stressful day.
Classic city burnout route - self imposed stress - liver damage etc.

The 'shout out in the office' fans forget the number of times such a shout gets a host of not obviously wrong, but diversionary answers. A 'shout out' basically interrupts everyone, IM broadcast/mail broadcast allows people to chose when they respond.

Similar argument is the 'in the office I can just go ask' - sure, but if you're one of the people who continually get asked, those interruptions blow your day away - infuriating, especially when it's because the questioner is too idle to Google or its something they would know if they applied the grey cells. Why is your question more important than the job I'm trying to complete?

Countless times I've been on projects where I know that being on site means I get nothing done so end up catching up on the hotel in the evening or at weekends.

Wfh effectively means that you have to get organised - which is an additional efficiency gain

It's great for people at the end of their careers, with no further ambition. It's not good for anyone else or their employers.

I kind of agree with this, I’m wary of moving to another company to progress my career. But also, I got a promotion and significant pay rise during lockdown because my boss was impressed by the way I worked during lockdown and took on more responsibility. It’s a mixed bag.

My local train station has considerably more cars parked in it as the weeks are going on and some of my friends are back in the city.

I foresee possible big tax grabs on companies who close offices etc to keep staff wfh to increase profits. The government want people back in offices and I reckon they will penalise companies who prevent this]

Well that would be a very undemocratic way of making sure your cronies don't lose money, but little would surprise me about this government.

A very small part of my pension is in commercial property and only because I made the error of investing in it years ago and was then stopped from taking my money out of the fund years ago, and now when I decided to transfer my pension (shortly before lockdown) it has happened again. I am rubbish at timing! But I think they'll have to let me have my money sometime soon.

@SheepandCow I used the phrase demonstrably because it has already been shown objectively that there was a drop in carbon emissions. The transport point you raised is a complete what if as of right now - many people have jobs that could never be done from home. In my town public transport if overwhelmingly used by either people travelling to school or college or people going to labour jobs. It's not all about commuting to London.

With your other points, it seems to be the absolute worst case scenario for every aspect of people moving to WFH. The worst case scenario is very unlikely, as is the best case scenario. I'm very confused about how office workers working from home more would directly cause all of those negative events. I don't think anyone has the information necessary to extrapolate that from the current situation either.

Again, many jobs will never be WFH. If you're talking about people from "large towns and cities", what is the implication there? Why would they have no jobs because of people WFH more?

@maleficent53

I believe a mix and match approach works best with some flexibility

Agreed.

Slack is the only telecon software I've heard of that I haven't used.
Mostly use Teams & Zoom.

How do people schedule meetings in TEAMS? It's not obvious.
Also used Facetime, Skype, Whatsapp and a few others.

WFH is challenging for me.

How do people schedule meetings in TEAMS?

Do you also use Outlook ? If so, do you have the teams interface configured?

When I create a meeting in Outlook, I have the option to make it a Teams meeting. Teams meetings have a 'join' option when you look at your meeting schedule in Teams.

Yes @FinallyHere, that’s how I set up Teams meetings too

Many people travel an hour each way (paying for that) for really quite “ordinary” jobs, not big money. WFH is like a massive payrise - and 2 hours of your life back PER DAY. No early morning, long evenings... give that up because of a vaccine? No way!

Yep, I’m one of those people - ordinary job, long commute. So I like WFH!

Separately, it's all lovely that (generally) more affluent market towns and villages are thriving. Millions live in large towns and cities. What do people suggest happens to these people?

Bearing in mind that the majority of UK residents live in cities, aren't a lot of people who are wfh and spending locally instead simply doing it in a different area of the same city? Suburbs rather than city centres, in many cases.

I meant the many many people who work (but not necessarily live) in city centres. Facilities, maintenance, transport, etc. Will there be enough new jobs for them elsewhere?

@SheepandCow

You have a point. I think there will not be enough jobs but that was probably going to happen even without this. Hopefully it's not a race to the bottom (more people competing and bringing salaries down with them) and some sort of additional government support will be made for everyone. I think it's likely to be a race to the bottom first though before minds are changed, sadly. There has been far too much poverty porn on TV that has brainwashed people in to thinking that others aren't deserving of a decent life.

If you don't have the option configured in Outlook you might not be able to do that. In which case, setting up a calendar event in Teams a adding people, sets up a meeting. It's not obvious when you do it that a meeting has been arranged but it does it by default.
I usually check availability in Outlook then book in Teams.

God I hope not. Everyone I know haaaates it. The only people who seem to love it are those living out in the sticks with established careers, huge houses etc..

I'm young. I like living in a city. I don't want the suburban dream others seem to want. Being isolated from my friends with nothing to do but country walks and home improvement sounds like my worst nightmare.

I'm also early on in my career and working remotely means no one is teaching me anything anymore. I have no one to ask casual questions. I miss the social interaction and work friends. And I work much much longer hours at home. I am a slave to work. My boss thinks I am now available at all hours. If I don't respond to an email, he will call me whether that's 7am, 6pm or even 9pm or 10 pm. Everyone in my industry is having the same problem so I can't even quit and go somewhere else!!!

@managedmis

Yes, the coffee and sandwich shops in the City Centre will suffer, but I think there are likely to be far more coffee shop / work places where people can meet up, outside of the City centre

^

Yup. Cafes near me are now packed, everyone on a laptop, working. Way forward. In the suburbs

How about the people who don't live in suburbs?

You know, small towns, or even villages?

This WFH lark really shows up the have/have nots. I don't see how it's sustainable for everyone.