Work from home if you can should stay in place, surely?

[Ninefeettall]

Just thinking about June 21st and Boris said as recently as yesterday or the day before that 'Work from home if you can' will be scrapped from 21 June. Surely if the Indian variant is a problem (which we don't know for sure yet) then this is a really, really, really easy win? 'If you can' doesn't have to include people who need to be in the office for mental health reasons or who can't work properly from home, but there are vast numbers of young, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated office workers who have now been working from home for a year, doing their jobs perfectly well if not better who could just keep doing that and not add to the commuters or office workers spreading the variant about.

Another good thing is that a move to more entrenched WFH will eventually mean that London firms will be able to start paying comparable wages to businesses outside London as a London bonus won't make sense any more. This will mean companies outside London can attract the same sort of calibre of candidate and London will start to lose its dominance in the national economy for the benefit of smaller towns and locales.

Dh goes to our local town when he wants lunch, wfh.
If he drives to work he will usually take something home made.
Surely each person's locatality gets the boost instead of their work place?
I don't wfh and I take a lunch with me.
People wfh who can should at the moment.

I've been back in the office a couple of days a week since 29th March. So sue me 🤷

Surely each person's locatality gets the boost instead of their work place?

It’s fairly obvious the spend isn’t equivalent. So a net loss for the economy overall.

Lots of people never left the office though and plenty went back in July 2020. There is damage done to plenty by staying at home so they are not simple issues. It is fine for women with children and nice houses but many people don't live like that and need to be in an office all day.

@Adarajames

I’ve got a job that will be permanent work from home. I’m really happy about it as I’ve not been able to work before due to disabilities and limitations those cause, the fact that so many more roles are now available to work from home means for the first time I can actually do some regular work, and that’s doing wonders for my mental health and feeling like I have a use in the world

That's a good point, I'd argue firms should have considered wfh options in cases like yours before now but even if they did presumably you'd have been the odd one out, dialling into meetings etc, now it's a level playing field? This is win win as should drive up the quality of the workforce for companies too.

The economy doesn’t lose out overall. It readjusts. So money which was frittered on train fares, coffees and sandwiches is now spent on home improvements - probably the very things people didn’t feel they could afford before due to commuting costs.

The economy doesn’t lose out overall.

It does. Everyone’s keen to tell us how much money they’re saving.

However it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Ultimately it will suit both government and eventually employers to get people back. It’ll take a while though.

I popped to the office for the first time in about 6 months last week. I was surprised how busy the city was. My building was all but empty but the city itself was bustling- even with the shocking weather and not able to sit inside. I don't think an increase in blended working is going to cause a mass shutting of cafes, as someone else said, I think it'll adjust. As it always does, businesses will innovate.

It is interesting to think about train travel though, we need to do something to overhaul public transport in this country because it hasn't been particularly efficient or value for money in many areas of the country for a very long time. I hope this does cause a shake up tbh.

Yeah, fuck minimum wage retail workers and fuck public transport - who needs breathable air? - the key thing is that you can now afford a new kitchen I'd get it done now, though, because it might not be so affordable once you realise that people aren't going to pay SE/London salaries for remote workers for ever.

However it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Ultimately it will suit both government and eventually employers to get people back.

I know of a few government departments that have already made permanent changes to their flexible working policies to more easily enable blended working.

My husband's company have emailed and said nobody will be back in the office until Nov '22.

I know of a few government departments that have already made permanent changes to their flexible working policies to more easily enable blended working.

I agree that it might work better for public sector.

However I also think some employers are moving too soon on this. It’s one thing to get behind wfh in a pandemic situation when service expectations are lower and everyone’s doing the same. But if competitors and analogous industries go back to the office, it will be increasingly untenable for those trying to pursue wholesale wfh.

@Hardbackwriter have you ever travelled on a rammed train at rush hour, standing for an hour? I don’t call that living. A certain amount of saving is good for us all. And no, I don’t hold my job just because I live in the SE. I am highly skilled and can do it remotely. I always could, I just wasn’t allowed to before. Someone with no experience couldn’t work at the same level. They may replace me one day but by then I will have piled extra cash into my pension!!

Yes I agree that widespread WFH is a game changer for some people with disabilities. Apart from permanent mobility disabilities there are a lot of ongoing health conditions which might make you occasionally unable to commute but not unable to work on a computer/phone.

And a male colleague of mine recently sat through a training session while cuddling a very small drowsy baby while his DW had a bath. He couldn’t have done that if he’d been in the office.

I do worry about the practicalities of meetings when we’re half WFO half WFH though. It seems more intrusive to be taking part in a Teams call at your desk than it does to be talking to a collegue, and actually if we needed to have an extended conversation in person we’d normally walk away to a breakout booth, especially if there’s an element of privacy needed. I guess we’d need more breakout booths, but that means we lose the double-screen setup. I’ve got colleagues all over the UK and the world who I’m much more connected to than I was in 2019, so I’m reluctant to lose that which we’ve gained. Can we find a way to hang onto those gains while reclaiming in-person connections?.

@rooarsome

My husband's company have emailed and said nobody will be back in the office until Nov '22.

That's ridiculous. I'll be looking for a new job if my company does that.

have you ever travelled on a rammed train at rush hour, standing for an hour? I don’t call that living.

I have, and it's miserable, but I don't think "so who cares if the public transport sector collapses" is the best next step for fairly obvious reasons.

The issue most articles on it raise including in the Financial Times is if people can do the work from home in Herts or their holiday home in Ullapool they could as easily outsource some roles at a fifth of the pay to India. So the problem could be that jobs are lost from the UK if the "talent pool" becomes the world.

Also women get siloed at home accepting the poisoned chalice of home working ( I would have loved it with 3 children under 4 whilst working full time and commuting 2 hours a day into London) whilst men rush back and get all the better jobs and promotions. Or men expect women to clean the house just because they are working from home and assume that home worker can do all kinds of stuff domestically even though she is on calls without much of a break all day.

@Ninefeettall

I can't fathom why Boris would even consider lifting this (aside from his mates owning the office buildings) if there's any risk at all. It's this huge, totally free measure that he's currently planning on abandoning.

You've hit the nail on the head with your bracketed statement.

Also women get siloed at home accepting the poisoned chalice of home working ( I would have loved it with 3 children under 4 whilst working full time and commuting 2 hours a day into London) whilst men rush back and get all the better jobs and promotions.

Yes, this is a real worry. The danger is that wfh sounds great for women, but seriously disadvantages them in the long run.

Service standards don’t have to drop. I can’t think of anyone I’ve contacted at work in the last 14 months who’s said “it’ll take longer for me to do that because pandemic”.

I’m sure there are some areas where there are genuine issues or increased workload leading to delays, but not in my completely standard office job, everyone’s just doing what they’d normally do only at their kitchen tables (or their mum’s kitchen table if they’re supporting an elderly relative, that’s another advantage of remote working) .

[quote TorringtonDean]@Hardbackwriter have you ever travelled on a rammed train at rush hour, standing for an hour? I don’t call that living. A certain amount of saving is good for us all. And no, I don’t hold my job just because I live in the SE. I am highly skilled and can do it remotely. I always could, I just wasn’t allowed to before. Someone with no experience couldn’t work at the same level. They may replace me one day but by then I will have piled extra cash into my pension!![/quote]
Yes, for five years... It wasn't brilliant but it also allowed me to get to work, so it's one reason why I don't really want the trains (and tube) to collapse. DH gets the train daily and his day is now considerably longer because the 'temporary' timetable has reduced the number of trains, but I guess his commute doesn't matter, just yours? We deliberately moved to a situation where we could almost exclusively use public transport as a deliberate environmental choice and I think I'm allowed to be sad that it's becoming less viable to do this. I also don't want my children to live in a world where there's no public transport and the air gets less and less breathable as rich people stay at home and poor people drive around in vans all day to deliver them things.

You've hit the nail on the head with your bracketed statement.

Many pension funds are well exposed to commercial property. It would have huge ramifications for a large amount of ordinary people if the sector collapses. Another reason why government will be encouraging people back.

If it suits a company of course they can permanently keep wfh but I personally don't know anyone still wfh, I went back February, dp after Easter and last of friends ho back this Monday. Wfh doesn't work for all businesses or suit all people especially those in shared accommodation

@Hardbackwriter I don’t stop your hubby slogging into town just because I don’t go in myself. The temporary timetable is/was due to covid to stop people travelling and to stop staff spreading the virus. If in future some of us stay home then the rest can probably get a seat.

Will my job go to someone in India? Unlikely, particularly with the way Covid has hit that country.