London Weighting, would you pay it back to work from home?

[Jenasaurus]

Just been listening to LBC and they were discussing commuters who normally work in the city and are paid London weighting for doing so paying it back if they no longer work in the city but from home

I can see the logic as the expenses incurred would no longer be valid but if you are one of those affected would you be happy to do so or prefer to go back into the office to work.

London weighting should be abolished. It distorts the market and lured more people into the over crowded south east.
Nobody who works from home should be entitled to it

Interesting but who should pay for the set up of an office at home & increased electricity & heating use (in the winter).

"London weighting" is primarily tied to union roles. Postmen, teachers, nurses, cleaners - all still go out to work. Other reasons for higher London wages are due to an excess of jobs and skill levels. People won't take salary reductions in IT nor finance, they'll switch company instead; they would accept low/ zero wage rises, but only if that's the same across the industry. So, who will lose this weighting - a few admin assistants. Who still have higher rent or mortgage costs, because it isn't that easy to just move when you have 2 jobs (one of which might be outside the home), kids in school etc. The gain is a few £ that will get lost in overall balance sheets, or be given to higher-paid scarcer roles. I don't support making the lives of those few people harder and think it's a daft idea.

Yes I wouldn’t mind - it essentially all goes on my season ticket anyway after tax so it’s been nice to have the money over lockdown but I would understand if it was taken away if we were wfh permanently. I’m hoping we will maybe do a combo of wfh and office though but I am expecting no pay rises for a while due to company performance so maybe that will help level it out.

This society is only for another 12 months though, WFH is great for some but what about youngsters they need to learn from the more experienced so there is the possibility in 10 years time there will be a lesser trained workforce.

The Mr can work from home but his company prefer having people in, ideas, solutions, general go-forwardness progresses quicker and more inventively when people are together.

The FD at the company where I work is already making plans for this. The company is preparing for a raft of redundancies (I work in HR) and we are looking at utilising the break clause on our Central London building so we can all permanently work from home.

The long term strategy will be to replace those roles by not just recruiting from areas in the UK where wages are lower but also recruiting from Poland, Romania and India as remote working has been successful so there is no barrier on where people can work. Ironically Brexit will make it easier from a tax point of view. There are tons or job boards and recruitment agencies in these countries and they are gearing up for it in a big way in Eastern Europe. For example we are looking at hiring an accountant with a salary of 20-25k whereas if we were to recruit them in London we'd be looking at around the 60k mark with employers NI contributions on top of that.

We have been discussing moving out of London. We live in zone 3 in a (admittedly large) 2 bed garden flat rental which is very crowded with our 3 kids, we recently had a baby. We can’t afford to buy where we are as the stamp duty and deposit are way too much. A 3-4 bed is easily a million so as first time buyers we need around 150k up front for the deposit, stamp duty and fees.

If we moved back to the south west where we grew up we would have a 2 hour commute door to door which is not doable unless it’s 1-2 days a week... which might be acceptable now in post Covid world. DH has been wfh since early March and is not required to be back in the office until January at the absolute earliest. We could buy a 4-5 bed with a big garden for around 600 which we could just about get the deposit and tax together for. However, there is a massive risk that working from home culture won’t last and we will be completely stuffed in a couple of years with a long daily commute.

@joan04

The FD at the company where I work is already making plans for this. The company is preparing for a raft of redundancies (I work in HR) and we are looking at utilising the break clause on our Central London building so we can all permanently work from home.

The long term strategy will be to replace those roles by not just recruiting from areas in the UK where wages are lower but also recruiting from Poland, Romania and India as remote working has been successful so there is no barrier on where people can work. Ironically Brexit will make it easier from a tax point of view. There are tons or job boards and recruitment agencies in these countries and they are gearing up for it in a big way in Eastern Europe. For example we are looking at hiring an accountant with a salary of 20-25k whereas if we were to recruit them in London we'd be looking at around the 60k mark with employers NI contributions on top of that.

This really saddens me !!!! I personally can't wait to go back to the office but I am sure a majority of companies will outsource work

not sure

@joan04

The FD at the company where I work is already making plans for this. The company is preparing for a raft of redundancies (I work in HR) and we are looking at utilising the break clause on our Central London building so we can all permanently work from home.

The long term strategy will be to replace those roles by not just recruiting from areas in the UK where wages are lower but also recruiting from Poland, Romania and India as remote working has been successful so there is no barrier on where people can work. Ironically Brexit will make it easier from a tax point of view. There are tons or job boards and recruitment agencies in these countries and they are gearing up for it in a big way in Eastern Europe. For example we are looking at hiring an accountant with a salary of 20-25k whereas if we were to recruit them in London we'd be looking at around the 60k mark with employers NI contributions on top of that.

I think this will be quite a common approach, and it'll come as quite a shock to a lot of people who think that your job being offshored is something for the low-skilled to worry about, not them. Someone points this out on every MN thread about permanent WFH and it gets ignored in a sea of posts about how amazing it is to WFH because it makes it easier to do the school run.

@Hardbackwriter luckily I work for a company that wfh permantely does not work and to be honest I don't want to do it

Tbh I think it's quite industry/job specific. Lots of family & friends wfh the majority of the time including myself before Covid. Those roles could have been outsourced before but they haven't been. Our payroll is outsourced as it was in my previous company but never abroad.

I think a lot of companies will go to 2/3 days a week from home & maybe some smaller hubs instead of 1 central office.

I don't think we should be rejoicing in or pushing for permanent full time working from home. I like working from home but I am in a different phase of my life. Even so, there is a grey area and I'd prefer a situation of working from home and a weekly trip or two to work on site. I can't imagine being a young new recruit and being happy wfh full-time. The offshore thing is worrying too.

I get LW but moved out of London a while back, I used to be in the office a couple of days a week so had to live in commutable distance (2 hours each way!). So my house was still expensive because of this. So I think I should still get London weighting. However I would give it up in exchange for a home working allowance to wfh full time permanently.

My DH’s company are discussing offering some staff to wfh full time without London weighting. It’s a small company and I doubt off shoring will be an issue for them. Other staff are now being encouraged back to central London office for 2 days a week. Plus they are seriously thinking of opening a small satellite office in Essex near where many staff live, which would allow staff to drive to work and would reduce commuting time for many. They are ready to exchange on this. I worry about the depopulation of city centres and it’s impact on social and cultural life too.

However I would give it up in exchange for a home working allowance to wfh full time permanently.

Why would you get a home working allowance? People don't usually get a commuting allowance or an office clothes allowance. Maybe it would happen in some (heavily unionised, public sector) places but it's naive to think that this would be at all widespread.

I worry about the depopulation of city centres and it’s impact on social and cultural life too.

Unfortunately this will be one of the legacies of Covid. Lots of industries support the traditional commute to work eg transport, lunch, drink after work, building maintenance, security, gyms, construction, even things like flowers in a foyer. There is a small coffee shop near me which has a queue everyday now for people who are wfh picking up a drink/sandwich so some money will transfer to other locations/local high streets if you still have one that is. However I can't see how it's not going to have a huge impact.

Google are still going ahead with their big office but 2 law firms will close offices so it will be a mixed bag.

I have given up my London weighting. Its no big deal. Its a gesture towards the additional costs of living in London, such as higher insurance, etc. I had it when I worked in "inner London". I now work in the "London fringe", where incidentally travel costs are far higher, and my oyster card is invalid. I still live in London though, so insurance, mortgage, etc is still higher than other places.

The London weighting doesn't make that much difference, and wasn't a factor in job hunting

My job has london weighting (we have a Yorkshire Office and a London one and the starting salaries are around 4-5k different) and thought about wfh for all of my 3 days. They said I would lose london weighting as I have to be in the office 30% of the time roughly (friends who work 5 days needs to be in 1.5 days) and it wasnt worth it

@Hardbackwriter. I think it depends on your industry. I’m in a low paid industry so these payments are important. My company does offer a hw allowance but I imagine it’s fairly small compared to LW, which is a fair amount of my overall salary.

I just worked out that my commute x2 days a week costs approx the same as my LW so I could give it up as long as any mandated travel into the office was expenses as I’m not based in office.

I think lots of the big banks etc are telling staff to go back most have leases with years left

I think this will be quite a common approach, and it'll come as quite a shock to a lot of people who think that your job being offshored is something for the low-skilled to worry about

Yes completely. Even part-time admin type roles can be outsourced for half the cost of your average UK salary, I don't think people realise what is going to happen over the next few years, it will be just as easy for a small family run business to hire someone in Romania or India as it will to hire someone in London, Basingstoke or Manchester. Sites like Toptal will make it easy for any company to do it and not even have to worry about the payroll side of things - once companies like Reed, Totaljobs, etc see what is happening they will follow. To think it won't affect you because you are working for a nice company is quite naive, there will be a massive marketing campaign and it will be directed at all organisations, when the owners and directors see the cost saving potential it will only go one way.

Someone points this out on every MN thread about permanent WFH and it gets ignored in a sea of posts about how amazing it is to WFH because it makes it easier to do the school run.

Yes it's a very middle class MN way of looking at things, being home all day with DP/DH and being able to potter around the house and garden without realising the long term consequences of what is going to happen after all this if they push for a permanent remote working status. Being in HR we are doing surveys to find out how people are getting on - at the beginning of it all the results were very much in favour of closing the office and remote working permanently, now word has got out about outsourcing it has swung back in the opposite direction. The problem is now that the wheels have been set in motion.