Get back to the office! But why?

Yes MawB2 you said it earlier loud and clear.
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.

MawB2

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.

But what if the people overseas don't have the skills? Obviously some jobs could be done anywhere in the world, but others couldn't because people don't have the specialised knowledge and skills. I gave the example of lawyers. Generally, only British-trained lawyers can operate in the UK (Scottish lawyers in Scotland). Obviously, people abroad could be trained in English law, but I doubt if many are. The lawyers themselves could choose to live abroad, but that's not really the same thing. They would almost certainly be paid the same, but just choose to have a home in another country.

Some people will have more time and money, both of which could be spent in different areas and, possibly, in different ways.
And we should be willing to celebrate the innovators and new entrepreneurs who will take us there. Progress is key.

Maybe SueDonim could give further examples.

Ellianne

^Some people will have more time and money, both of which could be spent in different areas and, possibly, in different ways.^
And we should be willing to celebrate the innovators and new entrepreneurs who will take us there. Progress is key.

Yes, it always is and there will be entrepreneurs looking for opportunities ... just as there were when pubs started doing takeaways during lockdown.

I would actually really like to see some statistics on where people are spending the money that they arent spending at the sandwich bars, Starbucks etc, if people are spending that locally then that may be a good thing. Perhaps it will be different businesses that flourish. It's also a terrible tactic, I am afraid no one will go back to the office if they prefer working from home, (and their company allows it) to save sandwich bars etc, it just doesnt work like that.

As has already been stated in this thread a job which has been carried out remotely from the main office for the last five months is a job that may well be an employment role that is very much under threat in the present economic situation.

An employee working from home can have cost savings to his employer by way of office space, lighting, heating etc if significant numbers are doing so. However, the real savings are to be had if those employment roles can be carried out overseas where wage and salary costs can be very much lower.

A job originally located at Canary Wharf but for the last five months has been carried out from someone's home in Basingstoke demonstrates it can just as easily be carried out remotely overseas.

Britain lost a substantial part of its manufacturing sector to lower cost countries and there has now been evidence given to employers that much office work could be transferred in the same manner. Those jobs may carry far higher skills than those in the lost manufacturing, but there is no reason why as education has greatly improved in many developing nations complex office role employment could not be met by those who reside in those developing nations.

Perhaps those that are now trying to persuade their employers that they can work unsupported at home rather than return to the office should be informing their employers of the need for them to return to those central offices so as to have readily available support and working collaboration of others.

Many should I feel think close on that when they state they do not wish to again take up the daily commute.

Each business will do what is best for itself, the employees will not be the ones deciding whether or not they continue working from home, their employers will make that decision.

Whether or not employees want to return to office based work will not be their decision to make, and they will not be to blame for any consequences for other businesses.

The jobs of the people working in coffee and sandwich shops will matter just as much as the steelworkers jobs, the miners jobs the typists and indeed, the lamplighters jobs.

That will not be fault of people who are currently working from home.

We and more particularly, the Government, need to think about how the country is going to react to the changes that are inevitably coming, not try to stop the changes, because that is impossible, as the Luddites discovered.

I think its more about mental health. We are social animals and working in a team can be very beneficial to humans in terms of creativity, mental health, teaching us tolerance, sharing work loads, generating friends and relationships, changes your perspective, encourages learning etc etc
All this talk about Starbucks is missing the point. We are not lab rats or boffins working from boxes in isolation & wrecking our bodies because its not ergonomically set up at home. Physios are very happy about the number of people who currently have tech necks.

But people will have more time for themselves and could spend that extra time on a hobby or interest, doing voluntary work, spending more time with their families or just meeting people in a pub local to where they live.

And perhaps those companies who dont take full advantage of wfh and pay sky high rents for city centre offices will be the ones who dont survive. Those who dont offer flexibility, those who dont embrace technology, those who are rigid in their approach, perhaps they will find their companies dont survive.

Well said Ilovecheese. Unless there's an autocratic takeover, no government can dictate where employers get employees to do their work. Throughout history, there are hundreds of jobs which have disappeared. Three which have disappeared in my lifetime are shorthand typist, telephonist and bank clerk (almost). Fifty years ago, thousands of people were employed in the UK as shipwrights, miners, steelworkers, etc.

Ilovecheese, in regard to your post @17:06 today, I very much agree with what you have stated in that post. However, there is an upside to all that is happening in our society due to the Covid crisis.

Many people now shop online rather than actually visiting town centre retail outlets. That change is bringing forward a large increase in employment opportunities in the transport and distribution industry as Tesco has demonstrated this week with the announcement of a twelve thousand permanent jobs increase in its own home delivery operation. Other supermarket chains are acting similar in their home delivery operations and Amazon are rapidly increasing employment roles in their distribution centres.

The above will counteract to some extent at least the loss of jobs in retail stores and the loss of jobs in offices if those jobs are transferred overseas or lost entirely due to the oncoming recession. The question is will those made redundant in the above be prepared to take on employment that will be shift based and manual in the transport and distribution industry?????

We are not lab rats or boffins working from boxes in isolation

Lab rats do need to go into the workplace to do their job. It's another job which is not possible to do at home except for report writing.

Grandad1948 I expect whether or not people who used to work in supermarkets will be able to take delivery jobs will depend on whether the hours are similar to their current hours. I don't want to make the assumption that all childcare or elderly care is the province of the women in a family but it often is.
Women often do jobs that allow them to fulfil their other responsibilities and are not always their first choice of occupation. Therefore it is not always as simple as making a choice between working in a shop and driving a van.

Natasha76 You are absolutely right about human beings but will an employer prioritise their employees mental well being or their profit margins.

My step daughter loves it. She's not very sociable so this suits her fine. Not only that but in a few weeks time she is moving out of a 3 bed flat in London to a 3 bed house in Essex and saving herself £500 a month.

growstuff

Maybe SueDonim could give further examples.

Local knowledge. My dd’s job involves her having a lot of local knowledge about the area she covers, without which it would be impossible to implement the requirements she has to put in place.

We in Scotland outside of the Central Belt have had experience of what happens when you remove jobs from local areas, such as police called to a supermarket armed robbery being sent to an address in Glasgow instead of Aberdeen, because each city has a road of the same name.

As I think I said, both my sons will be in their workplaces PT from Sept but they both did some WFH anyway. They both have a condition that could make CV very serious I’d they caught it, so reducing their time in contact with others both at work and on public transport is sensible.

I can see people using the law to take employers to court on discrimination grounds if people are forced into unsafe offices.

At the moment it is still the school holidays. My daughter would usually manage the long holiday with a mixture of taking time off work, holiday clubs and me as a minder. She has lost too much work this year to take time off, being self employed so it would be without pay, there are no holiday clubs this year for my grandson and so I have been looking after him despite the possible risk to my other half who is over 70.

I can stop working from home and go back to the office when the grandson is back at school. WFH has worked well mainly because we are a close knit team with very clear roles. I just dislike seeing all my household jobs waiting for me every time I move from my desk. I like a distinct difference between home and work.

I think that some of you are forgetting the changes that have taken place in the work place since we were young.

When I first lived in London there was a department store in Ken High Street (I forget the name - not Barkers) where sales money was put into little objects, which were then attached to overhead cables and sent whizzing around the building. No tills on the shop floor. The sales person gave you a bill and you went to a central position to collect your goods and change.

When I went into articles, early seventies, small firm, we used Olivetti add listing machines and trial balances were done on large sheets of lined paper. I moved to a different firm where the weekly wages for the staff on the Grosvenor estate were paid in cash. Someone from our office used to work out the wages, work out the precise number of different value notes and coins that were required. The front of the wage packets were completed by hand and the money stuffed into them.

In the early 80s I went to one of the top 3 firms which had one large room, climate controlled, for the computers which were lined up along the walls with large reels spinning on the front. I worked in a specialist department that was responsible for the financial affairs of the partners. There was a book-keeper who kept enormous ledgers by hand. Shortly after I arrived, a separate computer was built for us. It was about the size of a packing case.

Some years later, now living in Suffolk I had an interview with a man in his late 70s who ran the accounts department of a small firm of solicitors. He was keeping annual accounts records. I asked when/if the firm was going to be computerised. The answer was that they weren't and they advised clients, when asked, not to do so because it was a waste of money and computers when purchased weren't used.

Time flies. For those of you that don't know, there is something called the cloud. People working in a wide range of employments can access their employers' software, provided they have the right access codes and passwords.
I have a young friend here who works, from home, in the HR department of AmEx. Sometimes she goes to their Paris office.

Nearly every thing is on line to enable people to carry out their work efficiently. There is software for architects, to enable them to draw up plans. I use accounting and taxation software. I can access HMRC's website to research their technical manuals if I want to.

I have a few clients who are pyschotherapists and they do some work, by phone.

There are many ways in which businesses, large and small can communicate. People do not need to be in an office in a city which can be miles away from home.

When I commuted from Suffolk to London, I spent 5 hours per day on travel. This meant that we couldn't go to the cinema in the evening or to see friends, apart from at weekends.

I can remember my father when he commuted from Basildon in Essex to Gower Street in London. Sometimes, especially if a train was late, he would come into the house and his first words were "switch that row off". I was probably listening to Radio Luxemburg whilst doing my homework.

As others have said, there are many benefits to be gained from not commuting, one of the most important being time spent with family and friends. How many of you have small grandchildren who are in bed before a parent gets home from work?

The government is trying to threaten people with losing their jobs if they don’t go to work in the office. This doesn’t follow. Many of the jobs which have been shipped overseas such as call centres just require people to work from a script. Professionals such as lawyers, finance managers, property management etc do need knowledge of the local market, technical qualifications, possible occasional meetings with clients, site visits etc. Some health service jobs are being done from home with the increase in telephone consultations, but there still will be a need for face to face meetings. Surely it doesn’t have to be all or nothing - people can wfh for 3 days and go in for meetings or site visits on 2. , do split shifts with colleagues to help social distancing. if we end up having to wear masks in offices, even more reason to wfh when possible.

Not only that but in a few weeks time she is moving out of a 3 bed flat in London to a 3 bed house in Essex and saving herself £500 a month.
Yes, Meryl, our daughter sold her house in London in 2 days just after lockdown was lifted. She had 24 viewers. Admittedly it is in a leafy part of London, on a tube line, but the main reason was it had a purpose built home office in the garden with toilet.

I must say, it’s been years since I’ve had to phone a call centre and it has been abroad. Everywhere seems to have brought them back to the UK. This past couple of months is when all my insurances renew and I’ve had bank & HMRC dealings as well. All UK-based, or at least, appeared to be, to go by accents.

SuDonim Yes, firms seem to be using the fact that their call centres are in the UK as a positive marketing tool.

DS2 has worked his socks off during lockdown. He has established his home office and keeps office hours - or more. As he is frequently in contact with colleagues on line or by phone, he couldn't, even if he wanted to, skive off for a long lunch. Not having to commute has saved him around 3 hours each day and his work/life balance has benefited to the extent that he has improved his fitness level by running and cycling. It would have been more difficult if the boys had been younger and needed supervision, but they are old enough to know that 'dad must not be disturbed when he's at work'.
If I was to advise the PM on how to get more people back into their offices, one measure would be to drastically reduce the cost of commuting which becomes more ruinous with every increase in rail fares.

The best policy, surely, would to be to drastically reduce commuting which is so bad for the environment, and for health and mental health.