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.

My workplace is now debating the matter of where London ends. Everyone in the London office gets London weighting. But now working from home, if we move “out of London” from this point, we will lose that. It will not be revised otherwise. However, lots of people did commute from Kent or Essex or Sussex. But where is the boundary where London weighting still applies? You could move one street away, or indeed several miles closer to London, and lose that payment. There is the same issue for any new starters.

@anonm

Didn't Facebook say to workers if you work remotely, pay will be linked to your location? San Fran is ridiculous though, a family member was renting an $11,000 home (work was paying). The home was pretty average!

Yes I think they are saying they will offer slightly less if you live outside London. Mind it's still a great salary.

They are very well setup for remote working and have said staff can wfh till end of 2020 and even in 2021 - I doubt they will go back to 5 days in office. DP thinks he'll likely do 2/3 days in max.

I don’t think it’s so easy to offshore jobs. Companies would have done that already if they wanted to. Many companies have brought call centres and IT jobs back to the U.K.. Then there are time zone differences, language barriers, UK employment law, paying tax in different countries, industry regulators, GDPR, multiple currency payroll, training, difficulties doing criminal record checks and background checks on employees abroad etc.

In my place of work, you have to be a British citizen and have either security clearance or developed vetting. When I worked in banking, they wanted a five year employment history with references, a check of the fraud database and a DBS check. How would you do that with foreign workers or will these checks now be abandoned?

In the extreme scenario of automation and offshoring, the only jobs left would be the public sector, cleaners and trades like plumbing or electricians. Care work would remain. Retail workers could be largely automated. Children could be taught virtually with one teacher for a hundred pupils. The economy would be screwed. Time for universal basic income I suppose.

I would never be in a rush for employees to lose any sort of rights, allowances or weighing tbh. These things have been hard won, and shouldn't be given up because of temporary changes.

The 'everyone working from home with roles being outsourced' can only work for a few sectors and even then has a life span. Frozendaisy and others make the point about how younger people need to be around those more experienced to develop their skills and outlook.

It also requires excellent, totally reliable Broadband for everyone which isn't the case at the moment.

If we go down the everything outsourced abroad / automated route, I’m not sure how the government would be able to collect tax or pay benefits to most people who would be unemployed. And who would buy goods and services in the UK? Nobody would have any money.

Imagining life 20 years in the future. The high street is dead. Most goods are purchased via Amazon where the distribution centres are all automated. Or you go to your local supermarket where there are no cashiers and the shelves are replenished by robots. No banks left - everything is done online and all the back office jobs are outsourced abroad.

You go to your local hospital. The main reception desk is manned by volunteers. There are no receptionists in the outpatient clinics - you book yourself in on a screen. The letter your consultant dictates to your GP is done via digital dictation and emailed to your GP. That’s a reality at my local hospital. As GPs are only seeing 10% of patients face to face, GP services are largely outsourced abroad and you have a video consultation instead. The same could be done with routine hospital appointments.

Going out for a meal, you order and pay by an app, no waiters needed. The food is prepared by a robot chef and you collect when it’s done.

Teaching is all done via screens with one teacher for 100 pupils. Vehicles are driverless - no couriers, taxi drivers or lorry drivers.

I don’t think it’s so easy to offshore jobs. Companies would have done that already if they wanted to. Many companies have brought call centres and IT jobs back to the U.K.. Then there are time zone differences, language barriers, UK employment law, paying tax in different countries, industry regulators, GDPR, multiple currency payroll, training, difficulties doing criminal record checks and background checks on employees abroad etc.

Nevertheless it can be done and some big public sector companies, particularly those with an international footprint, have been managing to do all the things you list for sometime now with workforce and facilities scattered across the globe and a workforce with multiple nationalities.

Travel bans due to Covid may put the brake on it for a while ( HQ management finding it difficult to travel to keep an eye on what's going on elsewhere in the company) but don't underestimate the threat.

FWIW Criminal record/background checks acceptable to the UK authorities for employment in many roles can often be performed by foreign law enforcement agencies in the country of residence of the employee..

London weighting affects the price of housing here in addition to the eye-watering travel costs and it was never enough to cover the difference (as PPs say, it affects the price of many other items like insurance). It still won't be enough to cover the additional costs even if neither of us needs to commute in again on a regular basis.

At some point the telco companies are going to charge business or higher broadband rates to everyone WFH as consumer packages aren't supposed to be used for this. And a number of us are going to have to pay for faster broadband or fibre where it exists which will be quite costly.

notimagain - jobs at places like MoD, DSTL, Security Service and SIS are solely UK nationals.

If we get to the stage where almost all jobs are outsourced or automated, the UK is screwed. Funny that political parties never mention that. They’ll be no funding for any public services.

notimagain - jobs at places like MoD, DSTL, Security Service and SIS are solely UK nationals.

I appreciate that ( I've been involved with one of those organisations in a previous life so have a bit of insight), but I can assure you some other UK government departments will issue certain clearances and IDs based solely on vetting/criminal record checks done by non UK law enforcement agencies.

If we go down the everything outsourced abroad / automated route, I’m not sure how the government would be able to collect tax or pay benefits to most people who would be unemployed.
Most governments are made up of short termist wealthy people with shareholdings in the outsourcing companies - they don't care about the long term effects. The current regime is particularly bad but they are all at it.

Well I guess we are all doomed then! I look forward to a life of watching Netflix and living on UBI when nobody has jobs.

notimagain - I do believe you but where I work certainly does not employ non UK nationals.

A lot of our manufacturing jobs went overseas - why do people think clerical jobs can’t?
I am not in favour btw, very much against but as this thread shows, most people seem complacent about it, and cite barriers which aren’t barriers at all.

Seeing as the owners of London office blocks put pressure on the Tories to get office workers back to work, how will these same landlords react when all the banking jobs are outsourced abroad?

It’s all very well making office workers go back now to save local cafes and shops but what happens when all these jobs get outsourced and Canary Wharf and the City are empty anyway?

A lot of our manufacturing jobs went overseas - why do people think clerical jobs can’t?

I'm in a job where a lot is now done overseas. it's impossible to compete on price but the quality is nowhere near the same. And retailers dont want to send stuff back to the far east when it breaks or goes wrong and send to us to fix (which is a bit galling when we would have made a reliable product in the first place!)

@gonshite

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

The worker if they choose to work from home.

I think we are going to end up in massive unemployment, not just through job losses due to a downturn in the economy but because people don't seem to realise that, if they can do their work from home, many of their jobs can be done cheaper by farming them out overseas.

Employers will take advantage of this because their aim is to make more profit.

It will change the social culture of the country and our cities and towns will struggle even more. My cousin works for a national company that has an office in London and one in Newcastle. She and her husband live near London. They have both been working from home since the start of lockdown and say they have saved a lot of money on travel. However, her company have now announced they are closing their London office.

There will be some, not many, job losses and the rest of the staff will work from home. Once a month managers will attend a meeting at the Newcastle office. The company will save a lot of money on the rental of the London offices and staff salaries. They pay staff an amount towards their travel cards and will no longer do that, although they will pay the rail fare, second class, for managers to travel to Newcastle once a month.

She is delighted. I think it's a worrying development.

Time for universal basic income then. The only people will jobs will be public sector workers. Who will pay their salaries if no tax is being paid?

Yes I would, I live far enough away that London weighting is similar to my train season ticket, but the season ticket is paid from net pay so I’d be quids in.

If my place of work is home then my company would pay travel for the days I do go to the office (eg a couple of times a month).

My pay is higher to reflect higher London pay and higher costs of living or travel. It’s only fair if that is adjusted for to some extent.

Costs of home working are nothing compared to costs of working in an office (not just commuting but office clothes, shoes, coat, buying lunch sometimes, treats for team, car parking at station sometimes, lunches or drinks with colleagues etc etc)

Sorry all those saying all of the jobs will be outsourced it is bull .... what about traders etc ? Admins for the traders ... it won't happen we all need face to face contact .. given we have had some HR etc outsourced but to do it to all jobs is just crazy it was starting before covid !!

And all scaremongering no one knows what will happen in the future !