Work From Home (WFH) Thread

[kehlis]

Quote: Originally Posted by Majingir

It goes in hand with other industries too as they move away from the pandemic. Some companies are trying to do things the way they did before, but employees don't want things to stay the way they were before. They've gotten to see a different side of life or work and enjoy it better, so now it's on the company to try and change the way they do things or else employees will look elsewhere. Having to basically go back on what the company has said is basically admitting that the changing demands of employees is justified and change is needed.

I can agree with this but this isn’t what you said before.

You were talking about unemployment and things that aren’t relevant to us. I’m talking about people walking away from good salaries, good 401ks and good pensions.

[The Chef]

My company shut down our offices here about 6 months before covid so was already working from home and will continue to do so as long as I'm employed with them. There is a positive to it but after nearly 2 years of working from home exclusively its also become a bit isolating at this point.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Speedy]

Pre-covid...had to be in the office every day.

During covid...permanent WFH every day.

Post-covid...option to WFH every day (which I took), 2 days in/3 days off hybrid approach but both pending approval from the MGR.

My company also finally started using MS Teams so all the folks I need to contact frequenty in/out office can be reached via Teams, we can do quick screenshares, setup conference/video calls on the fly...that has made the option to WFH much easier and manageable for all involved.

[Jolly Roger]

Quote: Originally Posted by The Chef

My company shut down our offices here about 6 months before covid so was already working from home and will continue to do so as long as I'm employed with them. There is a positive to it but after nearly 2 years of working from home exclusively its also become a bit isolating at this point. Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Same! I'm getting kinda stir-crazy at home. I guess I should start doing more outside of work to get out of the house. I've probably gotten gas 4 or 5 times in the past year and a half, whereas before it was once a week. I had an 80-90 minute daily commute.

My company made the employees go back to the office full-time in July, but I'm a contractor and my department boss let us contractors stay home. But actually, a few of the employees are still at home as well because my boss lets them and the brass on the top floor don't even know who we are anyway, LOL. I have a feeling a lot of the department bosses are letting their people WFH some of the time. Like some others have said, requiring 100% office work doesn't make sense when the work can be done just as well remotely. I just hope there's a strong enough push back from the workforce that companies are forced to be reasonably flexible to stay competitive.

I wonder how things are in Japan, I've always heard their commitment to office culture would make even the USA look like a bunch of slackers, LOL.

[pietasterp]

This goes without saying (or should), but there's no 1 right solution for every type of industry. Some industries can easily work with a fully distributed workforce and permanent WFH, others can't, and most are somewhat in between. I think sweeping statements that you see all over (in print media, on TV, everywhere else) about how WFH is the future, or pre-COVID status quo will be back soon, or whatever, are all just reactionary. I've been in the workforce long enough to see a few work/office trends come and go, and none of them are ever the permanent revolution predicted.

All that having been said, this is obviously a new and unique situation, so how this all turns out is anyone's guess. I think most companies will settle on some kind of hybrid, but who knows?

The only thing that concerns me about people arguing vociferously for permanent WFH is that you have to be careful, because you may well convince the C-suite that you're entirely correct, and that your job can be done from anywhere. And once you've convinced them, how long before they come to the determination that "anywhere" can be Hyderabad or Bangladesh?

[KSUowls]

I think that's just the natural evolution of industry and economics. Outsourcing and offshoring of certain jobs very well could become the norm as they have for things like call-centers, but it will just push the local labor force into jobs that can't outsourced like that.

Also, while there might be some that can be pushed elsewhere today the vast majority of office jobs require a high level of effective communication in order to function properly. I don't mean this to be derogatory, but having to decipher heavily accented english from a Bangladesh citizen would be undesirable and inefficient for many businesses.


As a personal update. The recruiter who I was previously talking to indicated that only about 5% of the Atlanta market had committed to WFH post pandemic. A separate recruiter that I talked to a few days ago was of the same belief that I am where companies are going to have to adapt to some level of it if they want to hire and maintain talent. We'll see if this is just hopeless idealism or if we as a labor force ends up forcing that as the new norm.

[kehlis]

Quote: Originally Posted by pietasterp

This goes without saying (or should), but there's no 1 right solution for every type of industry. Some industries can easily work with a fully distributed workforce and permanent WFH, others can't, and most are somewhat in between. I think sweeping statements that you see all over (in print media, on TV, everywhere else) about how WFH is the future, or pre-COVID status quo will be back soon, or whatever, are all just reactionary. I've been in the workforce long enough to see a few work/office trends come and go, and none of them are ever the permanent revolution predicted. All that having been said, this is obviously a new and unique situation, so how this all turns out is anyone's guess. I think most companies will settle on some kind of hybrid, but who knows? The only thing that concerns me about people arguing vociferously for permanent WFH is that you have to be careful, because you may well convince the C-suite that you're entirely correct, and that your job can be done from anywhere. And once you've convinced them, how long before they come to the determination that "anywhere" can be Hyderabad or Bangladesh?

I think we'll see a heavy hybrid method for the next couple years but at some point we'll evolve back to where we were before.

There were a lot of jobs where working from home was allowed occasionally or when necessary so I don't think that will ever go away.


I will admit that I say that as a company who owns quite a few of our own buildings already so to justify the cost they will want people there.

For the companies who leased a majority of their spaces who see equal or better production from a work from home environment I could see a shift from them to safe the cost of physical environments.

[pietasterp]

Quote: Originally Posted by KSUowls

I think that's just the natural evolution of industry and economics. Outsourcing and offshoring of certain jobs very well could become the norm as they have for things like call-centers, but it will just push the local labor force into jobs that can't outsourced like that. Also, while there might be some that can be pushed elsewhere today the vast majority of office jobs require a high level of effective communication in order to function properly. I don't mean this to be derogatory, but having to decipher heavily accented english from a Bangladesh citizen would be undesirable and inefficient for many businesses.

I totally agree with you, KSUowls, but there is no indication that I've seen that suggests that (most) companies care at all whether their customers can effectively communicate with their employees. One would think a job like customer service or tech support, which is essentially 100% communication skills, wouldn't ever be outsourced, but those were among the first to go overseas. Once you've decided that not being able to understand your telephone workforce is okay (provided you save 85% on labor costs), the sky's the limit for what other jobs you can send abroad...

Quote: Originally Posted by kehlis

I think we'll see a heavy hybrid method for the next couple years but at some point we'll evolve back to where we were before. There were a lot of jobs where working from home was allowed occasionally or when necessary so I don't think that will ever go away. I will admit that I say that as a company who owns quite a few of our own buildings already so to justify the cost they will want people there. For the companies who leased a majority of their spaces who see equal or better production from a work from home environment I could see a shift from them to safe the cost of physical environments.

I would agree; this is what I think we'll settle on as well.