Anyone surprised at how long they will be wfh?

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DH's company finally ordered some office equipment for the staff, delivery date in 8 wks time! He & I never expected to wfh this long & lots of our friends have been told they won't be going back till the NY.

Anyone else in the same boat?

I wonder if a lot of big call centres will choose to cut costs and have staff working from home in future

And while they're at it, why not cut costs even further by hiring English speaking staff in a lower wage country?

Ah, I just realised how my post could be read!

Yes, permanent work from home forever! I'm OK with it though!

Who thinks that in 5 yrs time the cost of travel for 2 days will be what it costs now for 5 🖐🏻

I wonder if we'll go back to journeys rather than dates on travelcards.

When I first started work (not that long ago as I'm not quite 40) the choice of multi-journey train ticket here was 10, or 30 journeys. Then it moved to 7 days, 28 days or 3 months - which was really annoying for people who worked 4 days or term-time because your ticket didn't roll over in the holidays as it was now dated. It was the same with the bus multi-ticket.

yeah until christmas probably later

I fucking hate it with a passion. I am utterly miserable, lonely, hate Teams, hate not leaving work and switching off - its always sitting there - miss my bike commute, no social interaction with my colleagues who are a decent lot. No creative collaboration or chance chats that lead to some inspiration or a new project.

What's the point in living like this

I'm assuming it will be some time into 2021 at the earliest.

Months rather than weeks. Rather grumpy as my home is not set up for 2 people wfh and 2 home schooling. We might have to order more desks and chairs, but don’t want to keep them in the long term. If we had known wfh was likely we would have bought a bigger house further out of London. Am seriously starting to think about moving to somewhere more rural and commuting to London maybe once a week or so.

We’ve been told that nobody is likely to be back in head office until late autumn at the earliest...unless they can provide a compelling reason to be there. And if we were a London HQ I would imagine it would be much later!

Sorry if I sound dense, but I don’t get it. Why these long estimates for wfh in the U.K. but not elsewhere? I mean, the virus isn’t going anywhere, is it? Do we not have to learn to live as safely as possible alongside it? I thought we were flattening the curve...

I thought the same. People being told they'll be WFH for a year! Why? An awful lot could change in that time. That sounds to me more like they plan to make the permanent change to WFH as there's no way that office managers have some sort of inside knowledge on virology that the rest of the population lacks.

Some people in my office have started going back already because they're bored with working from home. We've been told to wfh until at least June, but I reckon it will go on a bit longer than that.

I think the big thing is that a lot of employers have realised that work can be done from home in their sector and it isn't having a massive impact on productivity for some people who don't have caring responsibilties.

So, they're realising that they could cut their expensive office space and have more people WFH. It'll save a fortune for some companies. At some point though they'll have to set up proper WFH - childcare in place, proper chairs and set ups etc, like people had to show previous to this that they had a work space they could use. Not just the dining table and chucking rusks at the kids.

Also it'll future-proof them against any further lockdowns, bad weather, transport issues and the likes as well.

I saw the question why? we’ve been told that we are safer at home, not wanting to overload the public transport system and the office will feel very different with social distancing in place (staggered start times so less flexibility, masks in communal areas, very restricted lift service, one way staircases, likely back to allocates desks rather than hot desking in which case they don’t have enough desks).

Re UK vs elsewhere, I don’t know what the situation is in other countries.

We have been told today that it's indefinite and it's unlikely ever to go back to how it was - office working wise.

I am pleased. I miss my team a bit, but we see each other on Teams most days. No driving to work, no knackerdness at the end of each day - it's made me realise how skewed in favour of work my life was. I like the new normal in this respect.

like people had to show previous to this that they had a work space they could use

Anyone know what’s happened to this? It was called DSE assessments I think. Is the employer not liable for work related strain in exceptional circumstances?

I'm quite happy working from home but we've been told to prepare for going back into the office on a rota system from the beginning of June. I'd love to be at home until next year!

My office haven't set a date but said will be a while yet. I'm not surprised.

This will.make the market for housing in big cities crash as fewer people will need to live in the cities to work in them Not necessarily a bad thing and I say that as someone who needs to sell a London property

I think I'll be at home until Sept at the earliest ,. possibly later . I work 4 days a week and WFH 1 day a week anyway .
I don't like it all the time but would be fine with WFH 2-3 times a week . I'd like to.go in 1-2 times a week though. I really miss the collaborative aspect of several of us working on a project and being able to talk to each other as we all sit near each other

I'll be back full time in June, no doubt; I'm in a primary school

Our company isn't thinking of anyone going back into the office before September at the absolute earliest

We are at home for the foreseeable and we wont be rushing back. The expensive is not worth it when people can work from home.

We've not been told anything yet and won't have any news until 2nd June. Actually they did warn that it would be technical staff first and even them on a part time basis. But knowing the head of my department, he'll be looking to get everyone back asap. We were the last out, only after government forced us basically and I know he's generally not allowing wfh in normal situations, despite our company having made investments to enable it. I'd like to continue wfh couple of days a week even once the pandemic is over.

I’m absolutely happy to work from home, it’s the trying to look after a toddler at the same time that’s a massive ball ache.

My work has been making noises and apparently there is some sort of perspex on the desks. I think splitting us up into cubicles. I am not looking forward to going back at all with this. I fear that they want us in to keep an eye on us, but then we keep getting told how wonderful we are doing.

I'm hoping it can be dragged out a bit longer as I prefer working from home, but I really dont think we are trusted.