Get back to the office! But why?

This should be about stopping the spread of this awful virus. If people can work from home let them. My daughter, niece and her partner all work from home and all work longer hours because they are by the phone when they would have been commuting. Who wants to be squashed onto a train or bus for up to two hours a day, when you can be at home safe.
This government has an agenda with everything and it isn’t our welfare.

Dish = Diss tsk !!

Oopsminty

What is concerning is that many of these jobs that can be done from home could be done from abroad. Cheaper staff. We've seen it with call centres. Is this why British employers are reluctant to re-open offices? It isn't just coffee shops that will suffer either.

Found an article from early August which shows just how behind Europe we are.

Only 34% of UK employees have gone back to the office, lagging behind the rest of Europe which averages 68%, AlphaWise, the research arm of US bank Morgan Stanley, has found.

*In particular, Germany, Italy and Spain have seen return rates of around three-quarters, while France leads the way on 83%.*

I’m not sure you can blame the companies fully. You just have to glance at mumsnet to see how many are complaining about work asking them back.

Well if so many people are working from home there is even less reason to build the horrendously expensive HS2 which is desecrating our countryside. What a white elephant!

Galaxy

How on earth does people who can work from home working from home affect the drivers nurses etc, I am a key worker it is better for me if people who can work from home. Why on earth would I care whether Bob down the street works from his home or gets on a train.

I don’t know about nurses, but if the commuting population along with Bob down the road works from home instead of getting the train, there soon won’t be a train. Then there won’t be any trains. Then there won’t be any train drivers or station staff, because there won’t be any stations.
Then everybody will moan about the volume of traffic on the roads , apart from those who don’t have a car - perhaps they can no longer afford one as train driver dad or mum was made redundant from their job with the railways.
This thread has gone round in circles, sensible and valid comments about the complex interdependent nature of the economy or the practical implications of housing/ broadband/ computer access/MH and isolation are simply ignored in favour of the “Well I think everybody should work from home” type of comment.

Oops minty
You have made a very good point. Working from home has it’s positives but could actually backfire. Once office space is no longer available due to lack of use, what’s stopping employers using the cheapest labour anywhere in the world.
I think office workers should be returning to work if only part time. We should be thinking about the economy as a whole and other people who will most definitely lose their jobs if office workers continue to stay home permanently.

MawB2 exactly ??

I love cheese's comment along the lines of 'people pretending' speaks to how I understand what is happening.

Otherwise known as the psychology of denial.

And, I have to admit, some hours of the day I find myself doing it too, i.e. acting as if Covid doesn't exist (not doing anything stupid but just wanted to forget for a while that it does)

On the whole I think it is probably too much for the human brain to cope with.

And so I end up just living day to day, doing the things I usually do, making lists, doing the cleaning and preparing for the worst...

Am I depressed? Yes, probably. At the moment four days before schools go back here, I'm emotionally exhausted having been home schooling a teenager since March.

I hope it goes well, but I've got a plan b in case we need to home school again.

How about re-introducing local bus services and "slow" trains? I've actually used trains more since I gave up working full-time. I used to drive to and from work every day, but now I have time to use my over-60s Railcard to make long-distance journeys and visit places for days out.

Change will happen and it needs managing. Some people will take advantage of change.

Gwyneth

Oops minty
You have made a very good point. Working from home has it’s positives but could actually backfire. Once office space is no longer available due to lack of use, what’s stopping employers using the cheapest labour anywhere in the world.
I think office workers should be returning to work if only part time. We should be thinking about the economy as a whole and other people who will most definitely lose their jobs if office workers continue to stay home permanently.

Because the cheapest labour in the world isn't necessarily up to the job.

Gwyneth

Oops minty
You have made a very good point. Working from home has it’s positives but could actually backfire. Once office space is no longer available due to lack of use, what’s stopping employers using the cheapest labour anywhere in the world.
I think office workers should be returning to work if only part time. We should be thinking about the economy as a whole and other people who will most definitely lose their jobs if office workers continue to stay home permanently.

Do you mean the economy as a whole or the population as a whole? I'm afraid I don't think this government has ever given a flying fig about those in insecure employment or on low pay.

This is a huge time of opportunity and learning to adjust to a new way of life for many of us. It will undoubtedly take a bit of adjustment and gradual acceptance but, in the end, it may be an improvement all round. I don't want a return to workplace until the school situation has been in operation for a while just in case any lockdowns occur and childcare has to be readjusted again.

I’ve saved loads since not going into Costa, although my friends are going again, I don’t feel safe to yet.

I’m used to coffee and toast at home now and the habit I created and the forced change of habit due to the virus upon me it’s hard to imagine me going back in there, I will one day but when I feel ready to.

A lot of the Costas etc in London near the offices in Liverpool Street are closed Saturdays so I’m guessing it’s the shops like that that must be suffering. Also the clothes shops in those areas offered for office staff.

The government scared us into submission and keeps going on about a second wave, then telling us to eat out, go to school go back to the office and expects everyone to forget the fear it created,

No positive statistics from wearing masks and well done for doing this.

twinnytwin letters from insurance companies and banks have been cut and pasted for years, long before covid 19 appeared on the scene.

As regards dealing with banks etc I would imagine that there were thousands of people in the same position as you were during lockdown so I don't think that working from home can be blamed entirely.

You mention self employed art teachers with no money coming in. I don't see how people working from home affects them. The art schools will re-open soon and, provided they were self employed prior to 05/04/2019 there was the govt scheme, provided that they qualified.

Perhaps someone could explain what all these hundreds of thousands of office workers do each day that makes it necessary for them to be in an office?

Actually mayb most people on this thread are saying that they think people should do what suits individuals and companies. It is actually those who are saying back to the office who are calling those who home work lazy or saying they are in some way letting down the key workers.

Lots of people working in offices are doing quite mundane tasks.

I don't mean that to be derogatory ... I was one of them for a while!

I worked in a very large government office in my home town

It was actually one of the best jobs I ever had. But it was more because of the people I worked with.

Evening shift which was mainly filled with students earning some extra cash.

My eldest daughter is now working there and she is desperate to go back for many reasons. But for now she is just working one day a week.

So many friends are made via work and she just misses the camaraderie and the escape from home. Not that she's unhappy at home! Hard to explain. There are a couple of good articles in The Guardian explaining pros and cons.

www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jul/14/end-of-the-office-the-quiet-grinding-loneliness-of-working-from-home

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/18/working-from-home-is-a-luxury-many-renters-in-the-uk-can-ill-afford

It will work for some but not all

But if this is the way it's going we will have to adapt.

Perhaps someone could explain what all these hundreds of thousands of office workers do each day that makes it necessary for them to be in an office?
You'd be surprised at the didlfferent number of jobs. Canary Wharf alone employs enough office workers to fill the towns of Colchester or Cheltenham. The number of jobs advertised on the DLR and in the rags on the tube spells it out.

But the question was "what makes it necessary for them to be in an office?"

Why is hot desking any different from taking your laptop and working 20 or 30 miles (or further) away? What is the nature of the work which makes it necessary to be within a specific office?

Three of my four have been WFH during this pandemic. I doubt very much their jobs could be offshored, due to their particular skills and knowledge. Two will be at their place of work part of the time, from next month.

The third has been told by her LA employer that they have no plans to bring anyone back into the office and in fact, prepandemic had already disposed of half of their offices and were encouraging WFH where possible. She was working seven long days a week to start with, trying to keep people safe and that task won’t be stopping any time soon. She was working until almost midnight last week, dealing with a big local outbreak of the virus that had been announced, so that people who had to attend their workplace would be protected the next morning.

My fourth child is a hospital doctor, obviously not WFH.

I really resent the implication that people WFH are mainly loafers.

I doubt very much their jobs could be offshored, due to their particular skills and knowledge.

That's what I was trying to say.

Galaxy

Actually mayb most people on this thread are saying that they think people should do what suits individuals and companies. It is actually those who are saying back to the office who are calling those who home work lazy or saying they are in some way letting down the key workers.

Are they?
I thought they were saying that the thousands of workers whose jobs are co-dependent on office etc workers going back to their place of business are at risk , and that includes independent shops, shoe menders, dry cleaners, sandwich bars, newsagents, “mini- markets”, office cleaners, caretaking staff, taxi drivers and rail and bus staff.

I really resent the implication that people WFH are mainly loafers.

I can't blame you for resenting it.

It's actually very easy to monitor the work and output of people working at home, especially if they use a computer most of the time. Computers anywhere in the world can be set up on a network and a network manager can take control of the screen to "spy" on what people are doing.

If a project needs to be completed and deadlines need to be met, somebody will notice soon enough if they aren't.

growstuff

*I doubt very much their jobs could be offshored, due to their particular skills and knowledge.*

That's what I was trying to say.

Not true, Growstuff
UNISYS looked into this some years ago and the dealbreaker was not the capabilities of the staff but (at the tine) internet speeds.
That would not be a problem these days.

MawB2

Galaxy

Actually mayb most people on this thread are saying that they think people should do what suits individuals and companies. It is actually those who are saying back to the office who are calling those who home work lazy or saying they are in some way letting down the key workers.

Are they?
I thought they were saying that the thousands of workers whose jobs are co-dependent on office etc workers going back to their place of business are at risk , and that includes independent shops, shoe menders, dry cleaners, sandwich bars, newsagents, “mini- markets”, office cleaners, caretaking staff, taxi drivers and rail and bus staff.

Some people are and I don't think anybody is denying it. However, change is happening anyway. Market forces may very well drive the jobs out to the suburbs, where people are living and working. Some people will have more time and money, both of which could be spent in different areas and, possibly, in different ways.