Reply to: WFH/Lockdown/Future of office work

[WordIsBond]

Will anybody smart work in banking if they must attend an office four or five days per working week? I know I won't, let alone the fact that the salaries are rubbish these days.

Whether there is any relationship between your working future and the working future of "anybody smart" is something that a Scottish jury would no doubt rule, "Unproven."

Evidence?

WordIsBond's comments may apply to banking, but banking isn't the future.

I hate to break it to you, but green future or not, people are still going to want to earn money, save it, invest it, borrow it, etc. There will always be institutions that facilitate that. That is the future.

Those institutions will always be extremely security conscious, and many regulations will always force them to be so, because they will be in a fiduciary relationship with the public. That is even more so because in Western societies we have become incredibly risk averse compared to our grandparents and great grandparents. That is the future.

They will not be sending staff home with access to sensitive data or to systems that deal with sensitive data. The future is likely to be more risk averse, not less.

Because those institutions will be dealing with relatively large sums of money, they will be in a position to pay more than many other employers/clients for the labour / services they need. Thus, there will always be people, many of them quite "smart", maybe even intelligent, who will be attracted to the opportunity, just like they are today, even if means going to work in an office.

If you were "smart" you would recognise that what you see as something to be avoided, others will see as an opportunity. Because not everyone values the same things in the same ways, and it has nothing to do with intelligence.

[Old Greg]

WordIsBond's comments may apply to banking, but banking isn't the future. There's been an over reliance on finance for tax over the years and I don't see the continuing into the future. Major economic changes seem to be occurring and more in the pipeline. There is no way otherwise to reach the aggressive UK climate change targets.

Will anybody smart work in banking if they must attend an office four or five days per working week? I know I won't, let alone the fact that the salaries are rubbish these days.

The climate change targets won't be met.

[rogerfederer]

I think this is very much the case. Would have thought risk experts would be happy with companies working from several site to spread risk though?

Also having dabbled in Digital Media they were very keen on getting everyone together so I can't see them adopting WFH as a default.

WordIsBond's comments may apply to banking, but banking isn't the future. There's been an over reliance on finance for tax over the years and I don't see the continuing into the future. Major economic changes seem to be occurring and more in the pipeline. There is no way otherwise to reach the aggressive UK climate change targets.

Will anybody smart work in banking if they must attend an office four or five days per working week? I know I won't, let alone the fact that the salaries are rubbish these days.

[SussexSeagull]

Some risk departments are in full-scale panic mode these days.

I don't want to be specific about risks in a public forum, no need to give bad actors any ideas they haven't already had. There are things being done at home right now that will not be long term. Smaller satellite offices, maybe, but WFH won't be a universal thing in the banking world. Just not happening.

An office of 7000 might become an office of 1000 and 10 offices of 200 and 50 offices of 50, with 1500 people working from home. But you won't see all 7000, or even half of them, working from home.

Jes Staley was not talking about sending people home, he was talking about satellite offices. Before he starts sending people home to work permanently he's going to end up in some serious conversations with his Information Risk Management team, and they'll win that argument. In fact, it's pretty much a racing certainty that those conversations have already happened with CEOs in every major bank.

We may see a lot more WFH in other industries but I'll guess not so much in banking.

I think this is very much the case. Would have thought risk experts would be happy with companies working from several site to spread risk though?

Also having dabbled in Digital Media they were very keen on getting everyone together so I can't see them adopting WFH as a default.

[northernladuk]

Pornhub Premium has been free for a few weeks now. Keep up!

When you get back in to the office after lockdown

[LondonManc]

Treatment of RSI will become a boom industry.

Pornhub Premium has been free for a few weeks now. Keep up!

[ladymuck]

How is working in a shared office space like WeWork different from working from a flat share you just moved in?

Maybe a flat share will not have a beer on tap.

But number of strangers listening in or looking at your laptop may be similar.

The whole WFH thing on a larger scale would only work if businesses paid enough so that people can afford a home with separate secure office room and security.

I take it you've not used one. I have never flat shared and barely tolerated living with my ex so I have no idea if using a co-working space is exactly the same as sharing a flat. I'm going to hazard a guess that in a co-working space people will have washed, won't play death metal while you're talking to a client, won't stream stuff that saps all the broadband bandwidth, and the milk never runs out.

1. Not all have beer on tap. They do tend to have tea / coffee / snacks though in varying quantities and quality, some fully free, some paid for. You do your research.

2. You do not have people staring over your laptop. There is generally plenty of space and people naturally gravitate to sit away from each other. Only when it gets really busy could there be a chance of sitting next to a random. In our social distancing future, that's going to be very unlikely. I guess in your flat sharing scenario you are working from your bedroom to mitigate this, as using communal space for work would prevent your flat mate(s) from using them as they wish.

3. If you're worried about being listened to on a particular call, most places will have phone booths or meeting rooms you can use - you just mention at reception you need to make a confidential call and most will accommodate you. If you're super paranoid, Regus will let you book your own soul-free white box of a room with poor wifi and no heating (some of the many reasons why I no longer use them). Another tip is to use a level of volume just below inside voice level when on the phone. See #2 for flat mate workaround, bearing in mind they may sit outside your bedroom door listening in.

4. Not everyone wants to have a dedicated home working space and actually LIKE (shocking, I know) travelling to a different location to work as it gives them a better routine and home/work separation. A co-working space 10 mins away compared to a 2 hour commute is a no-brainer. Your suggestion that people will need to move home or reconfigure their homes and install additional security, at their company's expense, if home working is to be a thing is simply unreasonable.

[northernladuk]

How is working in a shared office space like WeWork different from working from a flat share you just moved in?

Well at least we've got stupid question of the day out of the way early.

[elsergiovolador]

How is working in a shared office space like WeWork different from working from a flat share you just moved in?

Maybe a flat share will not have a beer on tap.

But number of strangers listening in or looking at your laptop may be similar.

The whole WFH thing on a larger scale would only work if businesses paid enough so that people can afford a home with separate secure office room and security.

[Old Greg]

I think the likes of we work and the smaller independent co-working spaces could do well. I tend not to use we work or Regus if I can find an independent when I'm working from a non-home, non-client office location. They're great and are often located in parts of towns that are a bit more interesting making the lunchtime forage for food more fun.

I imagine the incumbents have some pretty brutal rent commitments.

[ladymuck]

I think the likes of we work and the smaller independent co-working spaces could do well. I tend not to use we work or Regus if I can find an independent when I'm working from a non-home, non-client office location. They're great and are often located in parts of towns that are a bit more interesting making the lunchtime forage for food more fun.

[Old Greg]

An extension of logic from this situation isn't much of a leap: Inside job forces car tyre factory to close after GBP500k theft - Liverpool Echo

In addition, as KinooOrKinog states, not everyone is geared up to WFH anyway. Too many dining tables being used as desks at the moment.

Treatment of RSI will become a boom industry.

[LondonManc]

Some risk departments are in full-scale panic mode these days.

I don't want to be specific about risks in a public forum, no need to give bad actors any ideas they haven't already had. There are things being done at home right now that will not be long term. Smaller satellite offices, maybe, but WFH won't be a universal thing in the banking world. Just not happening.

An office of 7000 might become an office of 1000 and 10 offices of 200 and 50 offices of 50, with 1500 people working from home. But you won't see all 7000, or even half of them, working from home.

Jes Staley was not talking about sending people home, he was talking about satellite offices. Before he starts sending people home to work permanently he's going to end up in some serious conversations with his Information Risk Management team, and they'll win that argument. In fact, it's pretty much a racing certainty that those conversations have already happened with CEOs in every major bank.

We may see a lot more WFH in other industries but I'll guess not so much in banking.

An extension of logic from this situation isn't much of a leap: Inside job forces car tyre factory to close after GBP500k theft - Liverpool Echo

In addition, as KinooOrKinog states, not everyone is geared up to WFH anyway. Too many dining tables being used as desks at the moment.

[WordIsBond]

Some risk departments are in full-scale panic mode these days.

I don't want to be specific about risks in a public forum, no need to give bad actors any ideas they haven't already had. There are things being done at home right now that will not be long term. Smaller satellite offices, maybe, but WFH won't be a universal thing in the banking world. Just not happening.

An office of 7000 might become an office of 1000 and 10 offices of 200 and 50 offices of 50, with 1500 people working from home. But you won't see all 7000, or even half of them, working from home.

Jes Staley was not talking about sending people home, he was talking about satellite offices. Before he starts sending people home to work permanently he's going to end up in some serious conversations with his Information Risk Management team, and they'll win that argument. In fact, it's pretty much a racing certainty that those conversations have already happened with CEOs in every major bank.

We may see a lot more WFH in other industries but I'll guess not so much in banking.

[KinooOrKinog]

I'd expect that where high streets have been hit by closures, many could be reappropriated as satellite offices. There's no way managers would go for complete remote work and there's no way that a business could go completely remote. Too much documentation and paper work is still needed these days.

And just because the work can be done at home doesn't mean it can be done in everyone's home. One of my colleagues lives in a flat share so I don't imagine sitting in his bedroom on a laptop is a good long term solution for him.