Remote working - this sums it up nicely

[BlasterBates]

It's on a company by company basis.

There are some companies who have done mostly remote working long before Covid who realised the cost savings on not having office space(s) were sufficient to cover any minor losses on productivity. These companies also often had and have people working in different time zones who had to do remote meetings with one another.

Indeed the last company I worked for had teams spread internationally. We had plenty of colleagues who we never actually met with whom we worked very effectively. Some colleagues chose to work completely remotely as they moved to a different part of the country and we had no problem working with them.

This was definitely a trend that has simply accelerated. I don't think companies will revert back to everyone being in the office.

The current company is expanding but they've shelved plans for new office space, so even when it's all over there won't be enough office space for everyone.

[NotAllThere]

Is there any evidence people are more productive or is it all anecdotal from people who want everyone to stay remote?

I have had a hell of a time getting responses for almost any query. Getting people to pay attention during teams calls is a real challenge. Every deliverable is late. People are continually inaccessible during work hours.

That's how it is when you work for a global company and the offices are all over the world. As for getting responses - try working with an outsourced team. Every query takes at least a day to get a response.

My current client spent millions on new offices for IT and other services. They're practially deserted now.

[Whorty]

Companies are going remote but not for most of the reasons he says.

It’s for the money. The cost savings they are making are huge. Why bother with offices when most workers are more productive and have to pay for their own electricity and broadband?

And let’s not forget not having to worry about canteen or toilet or cleaning facilities.

Most don’t actually give a toss about how workers work, they are keen to have software that tracks that workers are in front of their laptops, not whether they produce anything of quality.

It won’t be long before many people realise that they are living at their place of work rather than working from home.

This.

I've worked from home on and off since mid 90's when I was a consultant. It's fine for short periods, or the odd day prior to heading to client site, but I'd much prefer to be in the office. Keeping a separation between work and home life, for me anyway, is important.

[SueEllen]

This.

I've worked from home on and off since mid 90's when I was a consultant. It's fine for short periods, or the odd day prior to heading to client site, but I'd much prefer to be in the office. Keeping a separation between work and home life, for me anyway, is important.

The best way to do that is to be strict on your times. It helps if you have to do something that means you have to be away from your home at the end of the day.

[Whorty]

It will always be anecdotal if you report on your own company, but at our company we're a consultancy so we bill per hour. Billing hours are up due to less sick days, so management are happy. If we were to miss our goals then there would be senior management meetings where everyone would shout very loudly. Fortunately that isn't happening.

Same where I am at the moment - consultancy billing by the hour. We've run all our projects remotely since March (up til then we had guys on site in Dubai who finished the work in the UK). We've had a record year; end of Aug we had already surpassed 2019 revenue numbers.

[northernladuk]

This.

I've worked from home on and off since mid 90's when I was a consultant. It's fine for short periods, or the odd day prior to heading to client site, but I'd much prefer to be in the office. Keeping a separation between work and home life, for me anyway, is important.

Amen to this. My productivity went through the floor in the last few weeks. Really struggling with getting stuff done and just doing something else around the house. Started hot desking at various cafe's pubs and coffe chain shops a couple of day a week and I'm back to 100% and really look forward to my out of the house days.

IMO 100% working from home is going to bring as many problems to some people as it will solve for others. It's in no way the perfect answer to everything.

[TwoWolves]

Once the outsourcing really takes off people will cool on the idea of remote working.

Google has already started pushing a lot of work to Poland.

Management will always find a way to ruin everything that makes our lives better.

[Whorty]

Yep, I'm back to being a hub between Singapore and Florida.

ha ha, a few roles ago I had similar, I had teams in Melbourne/Sydney, UK, and Florida. Those were long days, but good fun

[BlasterBates]

That's how it is when you work for a global company and the offices are all over the world. As for getting responses - try working with an outsourced team. Every query takes at least a day to get a response.

My current client spent millions on new offices for IT and other services. They're practially deserted now.

It doesn't have to be like that. In the last company the "offshored resources" would respond immediately.

[eek]

It doesn't have to be like that. In the last company the "offshored resources" would respond immediately.

All depends on the SLA rules that the company use. Internal offshore resources are going to be fairly quick responding - outsourced to an external company and the only thing that will matter is SLAs being vaguely hit.