Will Workers Ever Return To The Office In The Numbers We Had Before?

[youngmafbog]

Johnson is still banging on about this, even though few civil servants are returning.

What did he expect? Months of scaring people witless to control them is not going to go away, couple that with the millions to bring it 'covid safe' why would a company entertain this?

Then the workers, commuting to London is a nightmare - I did it for quite a few years. 2.5 hours each way on top of a full working day and you have no life, and the cost was astronomical. Now you wouldn't be able to mix, probably be eventually forced into a face nappy to get a cuppa or go to the bog, huge queue for the lifs (they were bad enough anyway at peak times) Who would want to go back?

[Theland]

Not everybody has the room or facility to work from home.

[Prudie]

^ Good point - particularly the broadband speed required, not everyone has the superfast speeds many ABers claim to have.

[woofgang]

yup, its not all one way. If employers want this long term they will have to give as well as take.....there may also be the issue of business rate payable on residences where people WFH

[mushroom25]

looks like everyone's a winner with WFH. for the former office worker (designate), WFH saves their time, their money, their work/life balance; the company sees benefit in no corporate travel (meetings now zoomed) and a reduction in office rental. the environment sees a carbon reduction from the reduction in work related journeys.

yet one person's WFH utopia is another's summary redundancy. commuting (in one form or another) has been going on for over a century and in that time, a whole raft of support services have grown up to support the business of business. Office cleaners, HLV engineers, carpet layers, handymen, etc, not to mention coffee and sandwich shops, hairdressers, metro stores, pubs, etc that exist to service the daytime population of city workers. all of these people are now feeling the effects of WFH - or will be, once their furlough leave is terminated.

while the home workers are very much all right Jack with their new normal, is it a case of "tough luck baby" for those who no longer have a role in that new normal?

[Old_Geezer]

I can assure you I don't consider everyone a winner for the reasons I stated previously. I'd wouldn't consider an isolated WFH job unless desperate. Lack of human interaction is not good for anyone's mental health. If I had to be on my own at home because employers are not prepared to supply basic requirements then I may as well not bother taking such a "deal" and start my own business instead.

[10ClarionSt]

Will companies pay for the home broadband? They want people to work from home, so the company should pay for the broadband, or at least part of it.

[douglas9401]

I'm sure many would agree that the words 'office' and 'work' don't always belong together.
Especially once one moves up from entry level and can lord it over the plebs while demonstarting no real ability or even redeeming features, surviving on the graft of the proles.

Not bitter at all. :-)

[woofgang]

I think that sadly the office worker support services market will see a huge change but I don't think that that can or should mean that many people will return to the "old" normal. When society changes, then jobs change. We no longer have crossing sweepers and knocker uppers. Farriers and vets for working horses are much reduced as are chimney sweeps, coalmen, milkmen and so on.

[mushroom25]

// When society changes, then jobs change. //

yes, but in the past, change has been a gradually evolving affair. the new normal now has been thrust upon us, and the change arising is precipitous.

[woofgang]

well mostly yes. Wars precipitate acute change too. I agree that the speed of the change makes dealing with it more difficult but it doesn't mean that we don't have to.

[gulliver1]

Boris is now advising everyone to get back to work now , or face being Sacked,

[iluvmargie]

He says they could be 'at risk' of being sacked and they could if they don't go back. How much longer can this go on? We need to get back to some sort of normality. Some people are just using all this as an excuse to stay at home as it suits THEM better.

[gulliver1]

It is now official "Grant Shapps says it is now safe to go back to Work"
And he knows all abour Work.

[New Judge]

I still believe that those suggesting that WFH will be the new permanent normal are wrong. Both parties (employers and employees) have not properly thought this through. I used to manage teams across the UK where some team members were permanent home workers. Although it may have been expedient to have simply told people to work from home last March as a panic measure, in the long term it isn't quite as simple as that. Employers have responsibilities to their workers to provide them with a safe working environment. There's lots to this and for office workers that means proper office equipment such as desks, chairs etc. Their computing equipment should be DSE compliant and propping a laptop or tablet screen up against a toaster on the kitchen worktop will not do. There needs to be regular inspections of the workstations to ensure they remain compliant. There's a huge raft of compliance responsibilities and simply allowing a worker to work from home for prolonged periods does not remove them.

Workers themselves may not find the idea so attractive when the winter comes. No more popping out to the garden for a sit in the sunshine; winter heating bills will come as a shock to those unused to heating their homes during the day and they will find much of their saved travelling costs are eaten up by increased energy bills.

On top of that, many office jobs simply cannot be so productive with people isolated from their teams. Many jobs require collaboration and with the best will in the world that cannot be properly achieved remotely, whatever technology is available. People who think that companies are working as efficiently with their staff working at home should try to get in touch with some of them. They've had upwards of six months to get their backsides into gear. But every organisation you try to phone answers with "Because of Covid....." or "In these exceptional times we are very busy...." or "Because of the Coronavirus outbreak all our agents are very busy...". And so it goes on. And don't even try to contact the DVLA or Passport Office. If these arrangements are to become permanent they need to be improved and they show no signs of improving.

I'll give it 12-18 months tops. By then employers will realise that simply dumping their staff at home with a laptop simply will not do; employees will realise that WFH is not all it's cracked up to be; and most importantly customers being provided with a shoddy, third rate service "because of the Coronavirus outbreak" will have had enough (with many of them already at that point now).

[fiveleaves]

In the second half of the 18th century workers started moving from the countryside to the growing towns and cities. Pleas to these employees to go back to the farms appears not to worked.
The world of work is always changing. There was already a trend towards homeworking before Covid. Covid has simply accelerated the trend.

[bednobs]

not all employers are as crap as yours obviously was new judge. My employer has asked us to carry out DSE assessments (as we do when in the office) and have provided equipment where needed

[237SJ]

The reason that civil servants are not returning to work is because their wages are being paid by the pax payer. If they were in the private sector, they would have to go back to work or their customers would go elsewhere and they would lose their jobs.