Time to tackle the rentier economy.

Varian
That's exactly what my step daughter is doing. She will save £500 per month.

Google and Microsoft are expecting that their workforce will work from home for at least a year.
If you can save on expensive office space, why not?
The workers also save on commuting costs. The world is changing, for sure.

GrannyGravy13

I for one hope that people will return to work in London because at the moment the city looks like a ghost town.

Many small businesses rely on commuters, whether they are cafes, dry cleaners, independent book stores and stationary shops along with the coffee shops on the Stations.

That's what some towns have looked like for years. It's about time the economy was redistributed. Much as I used to like the bustle of London, it's self-imploded.

There are so many far more pleasant places to live.

Whilst I somewhat agree growstuff London is the Capital City, it attracts millions of tourists each year along with investors.

I do not think it can be allowed to implode.

All things must change. London is primarily a workplace and home to millions. The tourists will return when it's safe to do so and it might actually be more pleasant than it has been over the last few years.

I'd rather that companies moved their HQs to Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol or wherever with smaller hubs of workspaces in some of the smaller towns which have suffered most over the last few decades.

I'd like to see transport infrastructure reflect the new places of work and not all radiate out of London.

London can and will look after itself, but there's no doubt there will be change.

BTW London is already losing post-Brexit investment and jobs to EU big cities. It really is going to have to adapt.

Liam Halligan: 'Home Truths'

A review here:

youngmoneyblog.co.uk/home-truths-book-review-housing/

Os it worth signing this?

campaigns.shelter.org.uk/make-sure-government-commits-building-social-housing/thank-you?share=node/104&sid=139719

IS! not Os.

I think it’s way beyond time that the London wealth was redistributed around the country .

I for one couldn’t care less if the city of London looked like a ghost town . My town has looked like that for decades .

MaizieD

Liam Halligan: 'Home Truths'

A review here:

youngmoneyblog.co.uk/home-truths-book-review-housing/

Thank you Maizie. Somebody lent me a copy, so I didn't have it to hand.

J52

Google and Microsoft are expecting that their workforce will work from home for at least a year.
If you can save on expensive office space, why not?
The workers also save on commuting costs. The world is changing, for sure.

Many of those that have been working from home are now being recalled to work once again from company offices.

Employers are finding that where office staff have to collaborate with each other then working individually from home is simply not efficient or effective. By example to the foregoing, where two workers have to collaborate, then one may work starting early morning at home while the other may decide to commence work in the late afternoons and work on into the evenings.

The above can be in inevitable due to personal family and child care commitments at home, but where the two employees are collaborating it can have a heavy impact on the efficiency and productivity output of a business.

The above was our companies experience of home working during the lockdown and also the experience of many other businesses. We also found that employees very much missed the "office life" and camaraderie that surrounds working in a group. That simply cannot be recreated at home with all the distractions that effect trying to work from there.

Grandad that may be your experience but it is not the experience of many. I know of a number of companies who have given up their offices completely after lockdown. Manylarge companies have realised home work is much more productive for themselves and their employees. The impact on the environment, childcare, the cost of renting offices particularly in London etc. I am nearly everyone I know are financially and time wise much better off. We need to be a creative in the way we work.

Galaxy in regard to your post @07:29 today, office staff working from home are certainly not as productive as those that work from a dedicated office. That is our businesses experience and that of very many other companies throughout the lockdown. Emailing and messaging others cannot replace the practicality of actually talking to a work colleague when collaboration is required. When staff are in the office all at the same time, collaboration is at its highest efficiency.

An example of the poor conditions that can be created by people working from home was demonstrated with my wife a few weeks back. She was on the phone to an employment agency as our business wished to recruit an additional cleaner. However, while trying to give details to the person on the other end of the phone children could be heard screaming and shouting in the background.

Although no doubt the person was doing her best to accommodate my wife and our business as a potential customer it meant that things had to be restated several times and the person on the other end of the phone had to leave the conversation at one point.

Not a good business acumen for that company obviously and that is why staff are being brought back into their workplace offices

Working from home does not necessarily mean flexi time. One of our DSs has been working from home since Lockdown, but has to strictly keep to his Office hours. This is noted via his computer.
The other DS works for a global tech company and always works from home, sometimes in the middle of the night due to world time differences. Lockdown has meant that he can’t travel of course, but he’s never been so busy.

No in many companies they are not, in yours they have been. In my experience it tends to be larger modern companies who have access to technology. So they wouldn't be emailing colleagues they would be talking face to face via zoom etc. DH is at a senior level in a company managing housing projects involving budgets of millions. They have worked completely productively at home since March. In fact they moved their workforce to home working earlier than most as they were ahead of the game in protecting their workforce. I have nothing but admiration for the way they have handled it.
Yes I have had a couple of conversations interrupted by children during lockdown but this is due to some years not being back at school not because of homeworking. Those interruptions have given me an insight into the home lives of some I work with ( not my direct team) and have helped strengthen relationships. I heard an article on R4 the other day saying those insights helpsl you to get to know people you work with in a different way. It depends on your approach.
My brother in law, works at senior level in science and research, he is saving £700 per month on commuting and is in my view a much more functioning employee (not because of the money!). Yhe benefits to the environment and to peoples quality of life have been considerable. I have no skin in this gain as the majority of my job is normally public facing but the 'office part' of my job I will continue to do from home, it is much more efficient for the company.

Crikey that was an epic post and we are probably derailing the thread

It's an interesting 'derail', Galaxy. As retiree I like its insights into how WFH is functioning.
How long ago was it that we were being told that technology would make working in offices redundant? Inertia seemed to stymie that notion but covid has forced that change.

Like gillybob, I don't shed any tears over the desert of central London. The place has been like a leech, sucking the blood from the regions for many years. Our local town is so dead that even the Poundsaver shop couldn't stay viable (that was before covid hit)

It would be so easy to solve too MazieD but of course they won’t .

Just STOP anymore big businesses from setting up or expanding in the capital and STOP building more homes. STOP investing in more infrastructure which is just feeding the beast and encouraging more overpopulation and greed .

Instead they would do well to offer incentives to companies to set up /expand outside the wealthy belt and even better incentives to set up/expand in the poorer areas such as here in the North East .

They could do all of these things but they won’t . Of course they won’t they need to keep the wealth all in one place .

Meant to add that Our high street is almost non existent now MazieD . All the big names long gone.

I think they need to rethink high streets completely, I couldn't tell you the last time I shopped on a high street. We seem to have created a culture where shopping is seen as a pastime ( aimed predominately at women I would say) and I dont think that's a great concept. I cant tell you how much time I have now I am not popping to the shop to get something. I obviously spend it productively on GN .
High streets probably need to refocus on leisure or residential, I cant see what else will rescue them.

Very interesting link MaisieD

J52, in regard to your post @08:11 today, many companies inclueding our own had to allow staff working from home to adopt flexible time working. Children were not in School and child care facilities were also closed which necessitated the foregoing

Employers who were not shut down (such as our own) have had to allow staff to work when they could, which was often late evenings or very early mornings.

Should it be that all children restart school in September then working from home may become more efficient for some categories of office staff.

As it was we had eight admin staff working entirely from home, four Legal Secretaries working between the office and home on different days according to the work situation.

We are are all now back to fully working from the office and very glad to be back in that environment.

The assignment teams are normally out on the road but they have always carried out paperwork on phones, tablets or laptops from wherever they are working or from home or hotels when they arrive there on an evening.