Will we simply return to a presenteeism work culture?

It appears that we have forgotten that even as little as 100 years ago most people worked from home. Farmers worked at home, Shopkeepers, Innkeepers and Tradesmen lived at their premises. My Grandfather, a Stockbroker, worked from home on days when he was not at the Exchange. A Great-Uncle who owned a bronze foundry (his best known product stands in New York harbour) lived in his foundry complex. My husband, a lawyer, had a home office. So working at home is not precisely the novelty it seems today.

I am happy that dress codes are being challenged now.

Who needs to wear a suit and tie to an office where there is no customer interaction? Makes no sense.

The downside is that it will make running many public transport systems uneconomic. I have been up to London from the Oxford area a number of times recently, prime commuter territory. The trains are only half full with no difficulty getting a seat, compared with standing room only before the pandemic. The same with buses. Local buses are running noticeably with very few passengers.

Companies cannot continue to run at a loss, so we will see train and bus services cutback.

Yes there will be casualties if WFH becomes the norm. But there have been casualties from our current work model, and in my view they have been more serious ones.

Quichette you forget how many millions worked in factories and as domestic servants, also agricultural labourers, who would not have commuted any distance, it would have been limited to how far they could walk, but certainly did not work from home.

I would also not consider living over the shop as quite the same as working from home. The shop (or office) may have been part of the same building, but not part of the living accommodation and other people would have worked there with the business owner and gone home in th evening, when the owner would have locked the premises up and returned upstairs to his home.

I work for a charity which continued to operate fully throughout the pandemic, so have worked in the office 95% of the time for the last two years. I could easily work from home. My preference would be a 2/3 split with 2 days at home and 3 at work but our Manager prefers us to be in. There are legitimate reasons for this, much of my role is about information and contacts and I am the most senior person in the office. The downside is that I do get a fair few interruptions along the, “Do you know who I can speak to about…” The upside is the banter and relationships with colleagues, we are a fairly small team and get on well. I do wish I could split the week though.

The big advantage is that companies are able to hire remotely, meaning you don’t have to live in, for example, London. Very handy for me - I couldn’t do my current job if I had to be in the office full time, although I would like to be able to go down for a few days once a month.

The danger, though AmberSpyglass is that once companies realise that they do not need people to come into the office but they can work from home whereever they are, they will then start exporting jobs overseas.

Why employ highly qualified staff in the UK at UK rates of pay and social security charges, when you can find equally highly qualified people in India, or Eastern Europe, or anywhere else in the world where salaries are much lower and social security, HSE, leave, rdundancy terms etc are far less onerous or non-existent?

This has already been tried and tested Monica, and in many cases the decision to outsource work to countries where salaries are lower has been reversed.

Language, culture and time differences plus lack of 'local' knowledge, have proven to be problematic and lead to inefficiencies and customer frustration.

Better employment rights enshrined by law will safeguard that - the issue is that employers should offer a fair rate of pay and assoc. benefits. If they aren’t doing that then they’re the problem.

And not all jobs will be suitable for exporting overseas, either.

Besides, plenty of companies are offering zero hour contracts to UK staff already.

I work in an industry that for a long time has tried to switch to hiring younger people with no experience that they can pay far less. It’s been difficult at times, but there’s still a huge need for expertise and experience, especially at management level.

We have to stop assuming that companies will go for the cheapest option no matter if it’s actually a false economy and start demanding - as customers and voters - that employers offer better pay and support as the default option.

And of course, UBI would make a massive difference in offsetting all this anyway!

Managing offshore teams with different timezones, languages and work culture is another challenge by itself.

It may or not be worth it depending on the role.

You save money but the logistics can be a nightmare.

Quality may also suffer

Beswitched yes there was a problem with call centres, but highly technical work, where culture and accent do not come into it. Design engineers etc, most of whom will speak excellent English will be much easier to outsource to cheaper countries.

Companies have their bottom line as their top priority, not their employee needs. That’s not going to change no matter where they’re based.

M0nica

I disagree

Call centers and tech support - with some patience on both sides, the accent can be worked out.

Now, highly technical work ,especially if working with other people or the deliverable is expected in another country - communication is key.

My experience with offshore teams is:
1. They work their nights (our days) and their home life is destroyed
Not sustainable or realistic long term
2. They work their day (our night)
If any side there is a question, review, discussion, both have to stay really late/very early
And
Work takes way longer because you add a loop of 24 hours for the question to be answered and work to continue

If anybody in the UK is waiting for that piece, they will be impacted too

3. Quality is a big deal.
People hired offsite are usually contractors and cutting corners is very common.
Then the team onsite has to spend time on training (hoping management there will enforce the rules) or fix the issue themselves

M0nica

Beswitched yes there was a problem with call centres, but highly technical work, where culture and accent do not come into it. Design engineers etc, most of whom will speak excellent English will be much easier to outsource to cheaper countries.

Yes but there will still be logistical problems, difficulties aligning different systems of education and qualifications and, of course, employment rights legislation.

I was thinking in terms of highly paid professional self employed people, who can work anywhere. In DD's last job, she had colleagues who lived in Italy, Estonia, Scotland and who came into the office once a month for a couple of days. All spoke fluent and nearly accentless English and had studied or lived in this country at some point. The work they did was self contained. They might need to consult and talk to work colleagues, but the work was done, in their time to their pace providing they met all the deadlines.

For different reasons, DH has been working for a Danish company as a consultant for nearly ten years. By the time COVID came, visits to the company's office in Denmark and Germany had already almost ceased because of the ease of video conferencing. Now we have Zoom and Teams and it is even easier.

Cynical, moi?

Should be a wood burning stove. Open fires are so yesterday

M0nica

Should be a wood burning stove. Open fires are so yesterday

But wood burning stoves are very much out of fashion as being environmentally unfriendly .I think an open fire would be perfectly credible in the Home Counties.

Living in the Home Counties, I cannot remember when I last saw an open fire, apart from a gas one or in a pub. It must have been at least a decade ago. They are far more polluting than wood-burning stoves. They burn less efficiently, produce less heat and give off far more particulate matter.

The place where wood stoves are polluting and inappropriate are in big towns and cities where there incidence per acre is far higher than in rural areas and the air is already heavily polluted.

I really don’t get your point Monica - many of us in the country have open fires and to pick on this aspect of a topical cartoon seems to be labouring a point.

I was merely being flippant, but responded to your serious comment.