State of the Market

[biergarten]

Ex-colleague from when I was a permie at a bank, he worked at this bank for 17 years. He was offered redundancy and took it, bringing home more than 100k. He got a job at another bank after 3 months (3 months by choice as he went on holiday for 2 months).

Same thing happened at a local authority where I was a junior permie at the start of my career. Big organisational restructure, they offered voluntary redundancy to all employees who had been there at least 2 years (I hadn't). The redundancy package agreed with the unions was 2.7 months of salary for every year of service. Ludicrous!

is he getting a similar/better salary in the new bank?

[northernladuk]

It’s like Facebook paying £149m (7 years worth of rent) to break the lease on its 8 storey London office 18 years early.

I would have thought there’d be some way to sublet it and minimise their losses but I guess it’s chump change for FB, they’re 100% sure they won’t need it in the foreseeable future and they don’t want to be messing about with a non-core activity like property.
https://fortune.com/2023/09/26/meta-...brid-work/amp/

They could but the buildings owner will know this so ban them from subletting so they can pocket 149m and then re-let it immediately. Letting tenants sub let offices is likely to not end well so can understand why the contract might not allow it.

[JustKeepSwimming]

They could but the buildings owner will know this so ban them from subletting so they can pocket 149m and then re-let it immediately. Letting tenants sub let offices is likely to not end well so can understand why the contract might not allow it.

Well that's going to bite them in the arse. The property value relies on it's rent. It would have guarantee high rent for 18 years if it allowed sub letting. Now it will have relet at a significantly lower rent lowering the value.

[eek]

Well that's going to bite them in the arse. The property value relies on it's rent. It would have guarantee high rent for 18 years if it allowed sub letting. Now it will have relet at a significantly lower rent lowering the value.

I'm sure the £149m will more than make up for the difference in valuation if the rent was lowered...

[JustKeepSwimming]

I'm sure the £149m will more than make up for the difference in valuation if the rent was lowered...

Not really. It's like when shopping centres lose their anchor stores. Even if the breakup fee is sizeable, the medium-long term damage is often fatal.

Santander is another big tenant at Triton Square, they are packing up and moving to Milton Keynes.

As always, stock price trend is a pretty good indicator, British Land isn't looking great.

[DrewG]

When they can't find a single role, how on earth multiple roles are feasible?

That's why you make hay while the sun is shining. When one role ends, you're still in contract with the other. When one role pisses you off, you leave and work on your other while fishing for the next one.

Don't let your house set on fire THEN try to look for insurance.

[sreed]

Santander is another big tenant at Triton Square, they are packing up and moving to Milton Keynes.

I thought Santander ops have been MK based for a while now. I'd no idea they still had a big office in Euston.

Apparently they're even shedding office space at their mega office in MK, were looking for a tenant to offload one whole floor of 65k sqft a few months ago. They previously already leased out another 65k sqft floor to a We-Work type of flexible offices outfit.

That adds up to almost a third of the total office space they acquired for their MK hub back in 2019.
https://www.costar.com/article/11321...a-headquarters

As someone whose idea of work until early 2020 was being in a city/town-centre office Monday to Thursday/Friday It's just fascinating to see how traditional office buildings are going out of fashion and demand.

[JustKeepSwimming]

I thought Santander ops have been MK based for a while now. I'd no idea they still had a big office in Euston.

Apparently they're even shedding office space at their mega office in MK, were looking for a tenant to offload one whole floor of 65k sqft a few months ago. They previously already leased out another 65k sqft floor to a We-Work type of flexible offices outfit.

That adds up to almost a third of the total office space they acquired for their MK hub back in 2019.
https://www.costar.com/article/11321...a-headquarters

As someone whose idea of work until early 2020 was being in a city/town-centre office Monday to Thursday/Friday It's just fascinating to see how traditional office buildings are going out of fashion and demand.

Covid definitely screwed up their occupancy models. Santander had a lot of legacy offices due to expansion and acquisitions. The new MK office was designed to shut down most other offices. They had/have a few in London, they probably might keep some presence but the word was all senior managers and operations were to move to MK.

i believe santander formal hybrid policy is 2 days. If they did their planing for the office on say 3.5 days (sick, holiday etc) then yeah its going to turn out too big.

If the MK university takes off MK could become a little hotbed of fintech.

The old MK office is still there right next door, 1970s style I think. Believe its protected so have no idea what they are going to do with such a massive building relatively unfit for modern office spaces.

[GJABS]

That's why you make hay while the sun is shining. When one role ends, you're still in contract with the other. When one role pisses you off, you leave and work on your other while fishing for the next one.

In order to do two contracts at the same time, don't you have to be really good? As in able to output work at twice the speed that the "average" contractor (if there is such a thing) is able to do. i.e. do in 20 hours per week the same amount of work as a regular worker is able to do in 40 such that in your 40-hour working week you are outputting two contract's worth of work instead of one?

[JustKeepSwimming]

In order to do two contracts at the same time, don't you have to be really good? As in able to output work at twice the speed that the "average" contractor (if there is such a thing) is able to do. i.e. do in 20 hours per week the same amount of work as a regular worker is able to do in 40 such that in your 40-hour working week you are outputting two contract's worth of work instead of one?

Hand on heart, you work 40 hours a week? I think studies show that 3 hours a day is 'unproductive' on average.

Then you add that workers aren't all equal (I've done work in an hour that has taken permies a full day). Also in many roles it's results that count not hours worked to achieve them and often the target setter has little idea how long something takes.

Then you get the whole BS jobs, jobs that aren't real jobs but just exist because no one has worked out they aren't really jobs, or jobs that could be done by 1 person rather than 10.

Then you have meetings where you are told to attend because 'It might be useful' when it absolutely is not.

Of course there are gigs that are balls to the wall 40 hours a week, they are rarity and it's only ego and pride that stops people from admitting it.