Working from home

[Kendhni]

So what are peoples thoughts on all this working from home?

In my own case I have now been working from home for the last 6 months (the company I work for had the foresight to go into lockdown over a week before the government got its cogs to mesh). Normally we were allowed up to 2 days per week of home working, I was always a fan of keeping my home life and work life separate so liked going into the office and the feel of coming home .... but overall I am now sold on the work from home principle ... I somehow feel like I have gained at least 2 hours a day.

Additional money savings include the ability to drop Julie off in the town (or pick her up) or take the dogs down to the vets (normally that would have been £7 each way using taxis - or a bit more for the animal taxi). Normally I do about 12,000 miles per year but in the last 6 months I have put less than 1000 miles on my car (and 200 of those was visiting the inlaws once).

I think the governments of this world have a huge opportunity and should be encouraging those that can, to work from home. This could help mitigate many socio-economic issues at the minute such as over crowding on public transport, overcrowding on the road infrastructure, high costs of business rents, traffic pollution, industrial pollution, child care availability, cost of child care etc. etc. Several large businesses have already said they are moving to 100% home working, others have even offered cash incentives to their staff to do so.

One downside is that there will be some loss of revenue to those who rely on the morning/evening commute. However it is within their power to resolve this ... one of my neighbours who used to own a coffee shop has now moved to a mobile van and he reckons his turnover this year is going to be significantly higher than last year (and that was with him not working for 16 weeks) and his profits even better. Another entrepreneurial young lad has set up a business delivering lifes necessities like milk, bread, fruit vegetables and even ready made meals - slightly more expensive than the supermarkets, but only by a few pence.

I have no faith though that any government will have the foresight to look into this opportunity.

[david63]

As I am not working any more basically this does not affect me but I can see some of the positives (not sure that Julie will see it as a positive having you around all the time though )

The one thing that does concern me is that there are some people that will become isolated and loose any form of social contact - they will end up spending their whole lives on a computer. How this will affect society in the long run I don't know but I doubt that it will be for the better. There are enough mental health problems around at the moment without adding to them.

[Manoverboard]

It is surely up to individual companies to consider this as an option rather than the Governmment, had comrade Corbyn got in and Nationalised everything in sight then of course that would have been the way of doing things.

At the basic level the cost of providing and maintaining office space, for example, is massive so home working is on the surface a good idea but for me there is a major downside and that is social exclusion. Day to day contact with our fellows is important for our mental health, Covid is clearly demonstrating this so home working for short periods and only for those who have adequate space and are mentally able to deal with it is a good plan but otherwise less so..

[Kendhni]

As I am not working any more basically this does not affect me but I can see some of the positives (not sure that Julie will see it as a positive having you around all the time though )

She can always pay me to go into the office

The one thing that does concern me is that there are some people that will become isolated and loose any form of social contact - they will end up spending their whole lives on a computer. How this will affect society in the long run I don't know but I doubt that it will be for the better. There are enough mental health problems around at the moment without adding to them.

Agreed and I know that is something the company I work for is taking very seriously. At the minute we have some colleagues living in shared accommodation with limited space or working while lying on their bed with a laptop. To try to mitigate this the company have set up online social meetings that anyone can join (work talk not allowed), plus all sorts of other activities and cash incentives encouraging people to get out and about (safely). I should also add that the Management and HR teams do a round-robin check on every employee every week.

[Kendhni]

It is surely up to individual companies to consider this as an option rather than the Governmment,

Not when the government is making statements threatening workers that they risk redundancy if they do not get back into the office. I also think it needs governmental intervention because it is a change in the ethos and some companies will need reassurances on legal, tax and liability positions.

had comrade Corbyn got in and Nationalised everything in sight then of course that would have been the way of doing things.

I am not sure what your point is???? You could replace 'Corbyn' with any real, alive, dead or mythical name and the sentence would have held the exact same relevance ... none!!!

At the basic level the cost of providing and maintaining office space, for example, is massive so home working is on the surface a good idea but for me there is a major downside and that is social exclusion. Day to day contact with our fellows is important for our mental health, Covid is clearly demonstrating this so home working for short periods and only for those who have adequate space and are mentally able to deal with it is a good plan but otherwise less so..

Agreed - see my response to David

[barney]

I worked from home in my business prior to calling it a day.
I had a home office detached from the house so clients could visit without disturbing the home.
It worked extremely well for me and my staff.
The fact that I actually had to leave the house helped

I have a friend who worked from home for an IT company and he suffered quite badly will depression due to isolation.
So like most things, it’s horses for courses.

A major downside is the loss of business that relied on commuters.

My son is quite senior in Kent Police and they have recently decided to close the police headquarters and sell it for development.
As you can imagine, it’s a huge site.
The existing staff will be dispersed across the county with the Chief and his team relocating to the new nick at Northfleet.
My son will attend the office as necessary as will his team.
Working from home has proven successful and will save millions.
The running cost of headquarters is about £3million a year and it needs about £25million spent on it due to cuts in their budget of 30%
The site is being split between various developers for yet another huge housing estate, the money going to the police.

So, as on most things, there are winners and losers.
If you asked the lovely Italian family who have run the sandwich bar at Embankment Underground for three generations, they would definitely say it’s not so good.
They have gone from a thriving business supporting their families to nothing in a few short months.

[towny44]

I imagine that working from home will become a major part of working life for many in the future, Ken has highlighted many of the advantages, and reducing office space and saving on rent will be very attractive to many companies. My two sons both now work from home, the eldest has for a number of years as a sales rep, the difference at present is that visiting his clients is not currently permitted, and strangely this has not seriously affected sales, and is a massive company saving on expenses. The younger one's home working is due to covid, and its quite likely that it will continue as a major part, with only 3 or 4 days a month spent in the office in future.
But for major cities this is going to result in big problems, with smaller offices and lower rates these cities will struggle with meeting their budget demands, in addition to the reduction in the service sector, as cafes, restaurants, sandwich shops and the ancillary office service sectors contract.
Life is going to be very different post covid for many reasons.

[Meg 50]

another problem is new members of staff have no one to show them the ropes etc.


JD and her partner are both working from home - and has been since a couple of weeks before lockdown.
saves on their season tickets etc.

At the moment they are in Greece on their hols - and should they have to isolate/quarantine on their return it matters not since they are working from home anyway. We have offered to deliver food parcels, but they have managed to book at Tesco slot for the day after their return, so no probs from that either

[david63]

I worked from home in my business prior to calling it a day.
I had a home office detached from the house so clients could visit without disturbing the home.
It worked extremely well for me and my staff.
The fact that I actually had to leave the house helped

I think that there is probably a big difference with what you did Barney and what many employees are doing.

Firstly it was your own business, and many self employed work from home. You were also meeting clients so you did have some social contact and you had, I am sure, been in a working environment at some point in your life so you had the skills to interact with others.

The way things are going due to Covid there some who will be doing most of their coursework from home and then going into employment working from home and never meet another person. It is bad enough these days to get a teenager to string three words together coherently without making it worse.

Out of interest does anyone know what the potential percentage of the workforce could work from home? There are many jobs where it is not possible so my guess would be around 25% - 30%

[Kendhni]

another problem is new members of staff have no one to show them the ropes etc.

I would have put that well up my list of concerns, but the head of HR was telling me that we have onboarded 5 new employees, in our office alone, since lockdown - I am ashamed to say that I did not know this nor have I been in touch with any of them (so I must make the effort).

[Kendhni]

Life is going to be very different post covid for many reasons.

Nail ... head ... firmly walloped.
As long as we use it as an opportunity for improvement and not just expect to retain the status quo.

[Kendhni]

Out of interest does anyone know what the potential percentage of the workforce could work from home? There are many jobs where it is not possible so my guess would be around 25% - 30%

A very interesting question. The only figures I have seen are from America and different reports seem to focus on between 35% and 45% - I think the lower of these was talking about jobs that could be fully done from home whereas the upper related to those were the majority of the job could be done from home ... but once people sort out new personal/work balances I think that could actually creep up a little.

[towny44]

Life is going to be very different post covid for many reasons.

Nail ... head ... firmly walloped.
As long as we use it as an opportunity for improvement and not just expect to retain the status quo.

How do you propose that any govt can square the circle of how to use home working as an opportunity whilst trying to provide job opportunities in a depression when so many sectors are shedding jobs at an alarming rate, which will put massive pressure on the welfare state just to support the unemployed, never mind finding new blue sky opportunities?

[Kendhni]

Life is going to be very different post covid for many reasons.

Nail ... head ... firmly walloped.
As long as we use it as an opportunity for improvement and not just expect to retain the status quo.

How do you propose that any govt can square the circle of how to use home working as an opportunity whilst trying to provide job opportunities in a depression when so many sectors are shedding jobs at an alarming rate, which will put massive pressure on the welfare state just to support the unemployed, never mind finding new blue sky opportunities?

A very good question. I highlighted some of the possibilities in my earlier post. By reducing congestion that frees up the need for some infrastructure products (which could be a bad side since that would hit construction but frees up a lot of public cash, but reduces pollution, which reduces the amount of work we need to do), on the other hand (and some countries are already doing this) commercial premises are being converted into residential (providing much needed housing, and being a plus to construction).

I think what I am saying is that there will be a lot of opportunities for both the public and private sector to be realised. I don;t think we have even started scraping the surface to determine what these are.

[Manoverboard]

But surely, Towny, you know that the Welfare State's Bank has a bottomless pit of money
.

[towny44]

Ken, the main problem you are not addressing is that the treasury is in an even worse position than 2010 when Liam Byrne said there was no money left. All your hinted proposals would need govt investment at a time when we will struggle to provide a lifeline support to the unemployed and failing businesses.

[barney]

I find it interesting that some say they will go to the office once or twice a month.
Why would any employer retain an office at expense if it was so little used ?

[Manoverboard]

I find it interesting that some say they will go to the office once or twice a month.
Why would any employer retain an office at expense if it was so little used ?

Because 200 employees, say, could go 10 at the time with just the head honcho being full time ... in a much smaller office than wot they have presently got ?

[david63]

I wonder how long it will be before someone comes up with working from home being a change of use of your property so you will need planning permission, increase in house insurance, require public liability insurance, change to business rates from council tax etc.?

[towny44]

I find it interesting that some say they will go to the office once or twice a month.
Why would any employer retain an office at expense if it was so little used ?

My youngest son explained that his firm will reduce office space, for mainly home workers, to one large multi use office, with docking stations so that depts can gather at the same time for their day in the office. This will enable the firm to reduce overall office space whilst still enabling depts to work together occasionally.

[david63]

What I can also see happening is "rent an office for a day" or "office share" so companies do not actually have their own premises. However that would lead to another problem, which is not insurmountable, of where would you house all your computer equipment?

[Manoverboard]

Computer equipment need not be on the premises at the moment of course ... easy to resolve.

[Kendhni]

Ken, the main problem you are not addressing is that the treasury is in an even worse position than 2010 when Liam Byrne said there was no money left. All your hinted proposals would need govt investment at a time when we will struggle to provide a lifeline support to the unemployed and failing businesses.

You will get no argument from me on that one. There is no simple solution, we have to expect tax rises and benefit reductions. One possible thought, if the government could get more civil servants working from home then it frees up office space to the point where some of its buildings could be sold or repurposed (so that they do not have to buy or build more office space).

[Onelife]

I have no grounds to back this up but while working from home is an option during Covid l'm less inclined to believe this will work long term. When Covid is behind us there is going to have to be an awful lot of trust on behalf of the employer that their employees have the same work ethic as they would in a 9 till 5 working office environment.

I'm not getting into any discussions about this but please feel free to explain why this might not be the case.

[Kendhni]

What I can also see happening is "rent an office for a day" or "office share" so companies do not actually have their own premises. However that would lead to another problem, which is not insurmountable, of where would you house all your computer equipment?

I am seeing this style of office springing up all over the place (I am aware of 3 different such companies within a 5 mile radius of my house). Basically they provide you with a desk, chair, cabling and wifi and you hot desk either in an office for one, or a much larger office containing random people working for random companies. The latter of these options would be a problem for us since we have very high security requirements (some of which have been relaxed a bit to facilitate offprem work). I suppose this is good for mental health and those that need to be in with others.


Some companies already insist on hot desking internally. At the end of the day you must leave your desk 100% clear (apart from keyboard mouse and monitor(s). Next day you simply grab whichever desk is free (a friend of mine tells me that his office does not allow an employee to use the same desk 2 days running - although I got the impression this was not enforced).