WFH/Lockdown/Future of office work

[PerfectStorm]

People have been saying a 100% remote gig is the dream for years, I wonder how many now still think that?

I know I don't

On the contrary - I'll do pretty much anything from home. Rather that than commuting in every day in a suit to sit with miserable office buggers even for a 'fun' gig

[WordIsBond]

Keeping it in Business/Contracts because I'm hoping for a sensible discussion on this (probably would have got a better response on a football forum but here goes anyway!)

Interesting discussion, thanks for starting it.

I always WFH, the most I'd want to go in would be a half a day a week for meetings. Which is fortunate since I currently have one client in North America and another in Asia. No objection to several days in a row to hammer out specs and contract terms, of course. But for doing the actual work, I want to be home.

But I don't give the same privilege to my employees. 1 day a week, if they want it. But we do see productivity loss when people can't look over each other's shoulder to look at code. You can screen share but it just isn't the same. We work as a team and split out tasks and I've got everyone from an apprentice to a guy with two decades of experience working on the same project and it just works better to be in the same room. I don't see that changing.

I might give a little more flexibility but I can't see us going beyond 40% WFH.

My Asian client has never been WFH for their employees and it doesn't sound like they'd consider changing. Their employees to whom I've talked hate the current situation, they miss going in to the office.

My North American client has had a 10% WFH policy, subject to manager's approval. North Americans are very individualistic, a lot of their employees are liking 100% WFH. Can't see that becoming the policy but I could see a relaxation of the 10%.

I think there are both cultural and personality aspects to this.

[cojak]

The Agileeesta's all say that co-location is the only way to work.

While that is the ideal and works for small companies, it just doesn't fly for big companies with out-sourced workers or global teams.

(I'm not disagreeing with the premise, just that we have to make distributed working work better.)

[Old Greg]

Previous to the pandemic, I've found WFH quite isolating, whereas now I'm fine with it. I think the main reason now is that (almost) everyone is WFH, so I'm not missing out on the project related chance conversations that happen when everyone else is working in the same office. I'd happily continue like this forever.

[wantacontract]

I love working from home. In fact I feel more motivated not having to do the commute. I don't suffer from cabin fever or not having human contact. For me 100 percent wfh is ideal. Working on global projects in the past I had gotten very used to wfh 100 percent.

[swamp]

Not sure about the WFH, but for those organisations that maintain standby emergency back office space, I could see them giving those sites up given that they are probably functioning OK with 100% WFH.

[uk contractor]

WFH for sure is going to make a lot of businesses wake up & understand they no longer need to maintain expensive to service office space & lots of job will eventually go away because of this. IT will benefit a lot near term as they offload jobs which can be WFH or virtualised.

[ladymuck]

Not all work can be completed from home - my SiL has had to go into her office every day, for example.

The WFH thing could risk creating a type of two-tier employment within companies. How you decide on equitability of employee benefits if one group of employees gets their home broadband and loads of kit paid for and no pesky commute and another has to go into the office every day?

[SussexSeagull]

My contract runs out at the end of June so it might not be a consideration (although it could be extended) but I would be extremely nervous about getting on a packed commuter train to London for a very long time.

Granted they might just find another contractor but when the restrictions start to ease the government are going to have to be fairly interventionist as while most companies will be fine, simply telling them they should only have essential people in the office will open he floodgates to managers who have delusions that their fiefdom is vital to the national interest.

[jayn200]

My contract runs out at the end of June so it might not be a consideration (although it could be extended) but I would be extremely nervous about getting on a packed commuter train to London for a very long time.

Granted they might just find another contractor but when the restrictions start to ease the government are going to have to be fairly interventionist as while most companies will be fine, simply telling them they should only have essential people in the office will open he floodgates to managers who have delusions that their fiefdom is vital to the national interest.

Yeah I mean if you're that scared just drive and pay the crazy costs associated with driving a car into central London. You gotta do what you feel comfortable with. Better than turning down work when the market will likely be tulip.