Work place after CoVID

The link below discusses how COVID has rapidly speeded up the work from home globally. Early in the ramp up of working from home it was done to maintain talent as workers sought greater flexibility. Now it is done as a real cost cutting measure as there will be that much less need for real estate, expensive real estate, utilities and other fixed facility costs. This also allows many workers to relocate from expensive living areas to lower cost living areas and retain their careers and higher paying jobs.
https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/work-at-home-after-covid-19-our-forecast
Many other reports are showing that worker productivity over all has increased. All this has issues for organizations buying expensive real estate to lend out, day care and schools, especially in areas where distances are greater and populations lower and education costs higher.
Bryce

I think you will be surprised how many companies/offices will return to onsite. Humans are social animals. Younger workers will demand it. Romance, mentoring, and upward mobility are important to them.

I will tell you from first hand experience it has not been good for the education system ..... Many kids can't concentrate at home and need to be around their peers ... Sad thing watching my 6 year old grandson go through this tough time ....

There are some downsides. I get mad at least once a week when someone I need to see or am depending on for something is "working from home". The line between working and screwing around can get pretty blurry.

Yes education and other not strictly for profit organizations and businesses will work to have on site but if you read that the main reason the for profit firms are embracing off site employees is to be able to save money and make more profit. That will drive the work related employment for many service based businesses which is the fastest growing sector in a consumer economy. Especially banking, insurance, record departments, etc. Just look at retail and the number of facility closings. Just in the last 6 months I know the deliveries just to our house of two are quadruple of what they were a year ago. I always felt shipping and handling were expensive but in reality not so bad, plus many are offering free shipping.
Having spent 37 years in education I would hope that we would spend the needed funds to have on site education and social interaction as it may be the only place that occurs with how divided we are politically and socially as the private sector driven for higher profit will choose the most profitable option.

Bryce

Many companies will see work-from-home as a cost cutting opportunity and move to keep it in place or even increase its use. It will be a short sighted move because over time they will see a decrease in productivity and effectiveness as person to person communication suffers, employees fail to develop positive working relationships with others, mentoring is lost, etc. As it begins to negatively impact their bottom line they will eventually recognize it as a failed experiment and return to the workplace model. I'm thinking this will take about 5 years.

people need to go back to working together in same workspace. It is so much better.

I hope it reduces rush hour traffic and road rage.

We're already seeing companies bail from office buildings. Big tech companies are paying small fortunes getting out of lease agreements on office buildings, especially in california

worked the last 12 of 22 years from home , used to go visit my desk once a week then once a month now it has been 7 months.

it definitely reduces the traffic , I have driven the Belt line in Madison WI a few times at 4:45-5:15 pm during Covid , 1/2 the traffic of the old days of stop and go nearly daily during this time. no I am doing 60 and getting passed

some things will go back to in office you have those people just have to be there to feel right.

but in large part the people who process paperwork and do the more mundane tasks , take phone calls , enter orders , give quotes , all those windowless offices or cube farms , those people will in large part be able to stay remote and not have to pay after school care or spend hundreds on gas a month.

even a majority of IT people will stay remote all but a day or two a week. with virtual servers they need one guy to watch the server room and go do physically resets when needed. much of that will go to CO-LOs or already have.

when you call hospitals all over the country I can tell you about 33% of the time the person you are talking to on the phone to get to the clinic or department isn't in the hospital any more. first they were moved to offsite offices in a lower rent area of the city often old strip malls converted to office space now many of them are at home.

If working from home is the new trend, I don't understand how new employees will get proper training.

They wont

Work from home---Get a gov't cheque,stay in your basement smoking dope and playing video games.

I enjoy less traffic but I also see a lot of people "Working from Cottage" and more to come if broadband improvements are made.

hey!

that's what Joe does!

Some businesses are willing to risk up to a 30% loss in productivity by stay at homers due to the company savings and all other benefits associated with the plan.

fixed it for ya

one thing for sure is the travel on vehicles is reduced and their replacements wont be like they were before, wonder when the car manufacture will see the light.
Office space has sure come to the chopping block

For most jobs there's nothing that can be learned in person that can't be learned virtually unless the wrong person was hired.



This could have very bad long term consequences though for many industries since consumption is significantly decreased most notably transportation and real estate and the associated maintenance expenses.

My wife works in insurance and all these big campuses that used to house insurance companies will be ghost towns if not all ready

I think we all need to come to grips with the fact that probably a majority of our younger and entering workforce actually like working from their homes more than dealing with auto expenses, parking fees, rush hour and all the extra costs dealing with travelling to work. That and businesses readily seeing the cost savings as well. Many are state that the rush to relocate in more rural environments for safety is the main reason, but also consider if I can buy a much lower cost residence, not travel and maintain my high income job or jobs why live where the cost of living is much higher? When most school districts that have hug financial shortfalls and start doing more distance learning then the are now it will increase the pace of working differently more.

Bryce

We've been banned from the office for over 7 months now. Some days I like working from home. some days I hate it. I have a "garden level" basement with 2 big windows so I can get plenty of natural light, I can't imagine what is must be for someone with just 4 walls, artificial light, and just the clicking of their 'puter keys. I told my new boss at the time, who was still remote half way across the country, that I hadn't signed up to be a "submariner" but that didn't carry any weight. We use a MS product called "Teams" to instant message, do telecoms, and even use as a phone system. I can't imagine how lonely it would be just to communicate with my colleagues via regular e-mail. My lunch breaks are shorter because there is no one to sit around a table and talk while eating, but I can get more easily distracted working from home. Maybe this is real future for a lot of non-hands on service and knowledge based employment and going upstream against the current is almost futile, but I think it sucks overall...

[quote=bblwi]I think we all need to come to grips real America.with the fact that probably a majority of our younger and entering workforce actually like working from their homes more than dealing with auto expenses, parking fees, rush hour and all the extra costs dealing with travelling to work. That and businesses readily seeing the cost savings as well. Many are state that the rush to relocate in more rural environments for safety is the main reason, but also consider if I can buy a much lower cost residence, not travel and maintain my high income job or jobs why live where the cost of living is much higher? When most school districts that have hug financial shortfalls and start doing more distance learning then the are now it will increase the pace of working differently

Great. Easier for the city dwellers to take over rural America. And everybody will be thankful for the new jobs it creates. Give me six month's of limited sunlight and subzero high temps that will keep the invaders at bay.

I can't wait till us concrete guys can work from home! I might never retire.

Hey man it really does feel like part time retirement.

The transportation issues are limiting.

We won't be getting teams till 2021 but have used it in the past and it's really nice.

I don't take a real lunch like I did when I was in the office. I walk into the kitchen and grab some food and walk back to the office.

I work with a good team and we'll drop in on one another. Some will even work will video skyping but I prefer to work quietly.

Training attendance is way up. Figure it's because folks want socialization.

What I dont understand is if it is easy for most jobs to be worked from home why werent they doing it before covid? Surely it has to cut costs for both employer and employee?

Sometimes it takes a real major event to change the paradigm. also administration and management in many places like the idea of the control and oversight they have or had when the workforce came to them and operated in their space. With fewer persons to manage, less managers as well. Updating tech equipment even frequently is far less costly then renting or owning square footage, paying for utilities and hiring the extra labor with benefits etc.
There are obviously persons who work much better from work stations away from home and in small groups or teams and they will need to find other employment options or have to adjust to the changing environment.

Bryce

Working remote is a skill that has to be learned. I was awful at it but have gotten much better.

A few lessons:

1. Treat it like work. Your brain has a hard time shifting into work mode if you are sitting in your underwear.
2. Have a stop time. Once I got more efficient, I would work all day and late into the night. You have to unplug.
3. Conversely, resist the urge to go into your shop, check something on your reloading bench and stay off Midway, F&T, etc websites. And TMan.
4. Get the right tools and technology.
5. Be accessible and responsive.

Once you get better at it, you will actually have more free time because of no commute, coffee chat distractions, etc.

I hope we keep it up.

This is one day a week for me. Two tops. However, I am likely working remote most of November because of deer season.

I think because it wasn’t realized until now. I’d look for lots of companies to abandon their high dollar fancy office leases now that they know they were pointless..........forever.

first of all who said they were getting anything like proper training when in the building.

second

documentation , online training apps and programs , the company I work for had recently invested in an online I.T. training called KnowB4 it trains employees on internet security issues and things to watch out for in email.

our CPR/CCR/AED training coming up is part online with an in person test.

where my wife recently started working nearly all the training was on the computer short safety videos followed by a multiple choice test.

webinars , recorded zoom meetings , and power points are taking much of the training over.

using applications like GoToMeeting to screen share a mentor can walk someone through an order taking or other on computer task

there are a number of services already that handle compliance with meeting employee training and documentation.

each year everyone including the janitor is required to take a short HIPPA compliance training and sign the document. for the past several years we are assigned this task through the payroll service the company uses if you don't complete the task you supervisor gets a list of who has yet to complete each day leading up to the deadline.

IAO improvise adapt overcome

things where a physicals product is being made will still have people in the building but the cube farm of administrative workers will be a few conference rooms for when a team needs to meet in person. everything else will be a rack or two int he server room

not sure if the greenies are noticing but without the massive number of people bumper to bumper for an hour morning and evening there is a huge reduction in fuel consumption.

more online less in person will get them much closer to their goals than any stupid eclectic car ever would.