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Post by Jon on Oct 6, 2021 18:41:07 GMT
I’m not talking about Hybrid working but those who will work fully or near fully from home. People working from home are not going to make London or any major city into ghost towns and keep in mind, not everyone has the luxury of home offices. |
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Post by lynette on Oct 6, 2021 20:38:06 GMT
I’m not talking about Hybrid working but those who will work fully or near fully from home. People working from home are not going to make London or any major city into ghost towns and keep in mind, not everyone has the luxury of home offices. Parts of the city of London are empty. |
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Post by londonpostie on Oct 6, 2021 20:46:02 GMT
Furlough finished at the weekend.
11 weeks 'til Christmas, not a lot of fun lunching in the back garden atm, missing the xmas/Friday after-work drinks, lets see where we are in January ... I don't think anyone has a clue what happens next. Fingers crossed it's not a new variant
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Post by hairspray57 on Oct 6, 2021 21:21:28 GMT
People working from home are not going to make London or any major city into ghost towns and keep in mind, not everyone has the luxury of home offices. Parts of the city of London are empty. That’s why I think they should be a 2% tax per day working from home. So 10% extra on income tax if you want to work from five days a week. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2021 22:18:24 GMT
People working from home are not going to make London or any major city into ghost towns and keep in mind, not everyone has the luxury of home offices. Parts of the city of London are empty. Not anymore they aren't. Except on Fridays, when they always were anyway. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2021 22:19:35 GMT
Parts of the city of London are empty. That’s why I think they should be a 2% tax per day working from home. So 10% extra on income tax if you want to work from five days a week. That is a sure fire way to not get yourself elected by anyone, never mind discriminatory against many people whose health conditions mean working from home is by far their best option! |
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Post by vdcni on Oct 6, 2021 22:21:02 GMT
People working from home are not going to make London or any major city into ghost towns and keep in mind, not everyone has the luxury of home offices. Parts of the city of London are empty. No they are not. They might be quieter on some days than others but they aren't empty. |
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Post by vdcni on Oct 6, 2021 22:23:42 GMT
I've only been going back since the beginning of September once or twice a week max and so far have managed a team lunch, a department bowling night, two lunchtime trips to the pub with colleagues, a company pride event and a Bake Off Competition. That doesn't even count the charity volunteering day. And that's from a company that I never classed as particularly social pre-pandemic, a good 40-50% of people probably only ever went to the Christmas Party as their one social of the year. There's also regular team catch ups on Zoom still happening. Yes not every company will do the same but then they might find people respond by finding somewhere that does. It's not hard to still be social in a hybrid environment, it just becomes a bit less spontaneous. I’m not talking about Hybrid working but those who will work fully or near fully from home. Fair enough but who is actually doing that. I have 20 odd clients across a variety of sectors and none of them are operating a complete work from home policy people. Do you have stats for how much that is happening? |
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Post by vdcni on Oct 6, 2021 22:25:14 GMT
Parts of the city of London are empty. That’s why I think they should be a 2% tax per day working from home. So 10% extra on income tax if you want to work from five days a week. [br Can you give a reason why people who are paying for heating, broadband etc while working from home should be taxed more? |
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Post by hairspray57 on Oct 6, 2021 22:50:59 GMT
That’s why I think they should be a 2% tax per day working from home. So 10% extra on income tax if you want to work from five days a week. [br Can you give a reason why people who are paying for heating, broadband etc while working from home should be taxed more? To compensate for the jobs that are being or will be lost due less people commuting into city and town centres. |
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Post by vdcni on Oct 6, 2021 22:56:36 GMT
[br Can you give a reason why people who are paying for heating, broadband etc while working from home should be taxed more? To compensate for the jobs that are being or will be lost due less people commuting into city and town centres. And the jobs that will be created in local high streets are nothing I suppose. I spend a hell of a lot more locally to me now that I don't commute. That's irrelevant to you though apparently. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2021 22:56:41 GMT
[br Can you give a reason why people who are paying for heating, broadband etc while working from home should be taxed more? To compensate for the jobs that are being or will be lost due less people commuting into city and town centres. You do know that balances out - coffee shops local to where people live will be busier, for example. Near me certainly is! But you are in any event ignoring the fact that at least 9 out of 10 companies will move to no more than hybrid working, so the cities will still be busy, just more spread out across the week. Certainly London is getting back to feeling nearly as busy as it did pre-pandemic, especially on Thursday evenings. |
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Post by Jon on Oct 6, 2021 23:48:52 GMT
You do know that balances out - coffee shops local to where people live will be busier, for example. Near me certainly is! But you are in any event ignoring the fact that at least 9 out of 10 companies will move to no more than hybrid working, so the cities will still be busy, just more spread out across the week. Certainly London is getting back to feeling nearly as busy as it did pre-pandemic, especially on Thursday evenings. I remember there were articles last year saying 'Is London/New York/any major capital city finished?' and rolling my eyes because it was pure hyperbole. These places have survived wars, social upheaval and various outbreaks for thousands of years and probably be around for centuries to come. Will be the same, no it won't but no city ever remains the same. |
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Post by Phantom of London on Oct 7, 2021 0:34:17 GMT
With the pandemic and people working from home the press circulation slumped big time, so much so they’re weren’t obligated to publish their circulation figures anymore. So the press (some might say the establishment) so they’re all to happy to get people back behind their screens in their office, they certainly want to get people away from the kitchen table, as commuting is when people mostly buy newspapers.
Also coupled with loss of lucrative advertising such as theatre, flights and cruises etc.
The press took a massive hit.
Also with Covid it highlighted how quickly print media was out of date, people being moribund by the pandemic wanted news that was right now, not hours old.
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Post by NeilVHughes on Oct 7, 2021 6:01:14 GMT
The hybrid model is here to stay, the office will be an interactive space and home the productive place, have been back to the office now and my productivity is a fraction of what I achieve at home but the interaction and social element more than makes up for it.
My aim is to get into the office at least once a week primarily on a Thursday when we have a Team meeting and because of this Thursday has become my Friday where I now book Thursday nights as my primary Theatre night and then fill around that.
Another change is that I now book for the other weeknight evenings much closer to the date as I want to align a Theatre visit with being on the office thereby saving on transport costs.
I have lost that fear of missing out which drove me to always book ahead, nowadays except for the few must sees I am relaxed enough to let the Theatre Gods decide closer to the time and the 4 show weeks will now definitely be the exception rather than the rule.
Will likely settle into two show weeks routine going forward and rarely visit the Theatre at the weekend.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2021 8:50:35 GMT
[br Can you give a reason why people who are paying for heating, broadband etc while working from home should be taxed more? To compensate for the jobs that are being or will be lost due less people commuting into city and town centres. People who work from home don't spend all day in bed working on their laptops. They do the same sorts of things they'd do in the office, except they're doing it in their own town instead of in someone else's town.
And what about people who don't commute any meaningful distance? If you live and work in the same town do you get taxed for working in one building but not for working in another building that could be as close as next door? What about people whose work is intrinsically home-based, such as running a bed and breakfast? What about working in someone else's home?
If you're going to tax anyone according to where they work (and you really shouldn't, because taxing people more for where they work — something that's mainly their employer's decision to make — would be incredibly stupid) then surely it would be better to tax people more for going in to an office. The more you think about offices the more ridiculously inefficient they become. They waste space: everyone is dividing their time between two buildings, one of which is sitting there idle and unused while they're in the other. They waste time, in the need to travel between home and work. They waste the transport budget: our roads and railways have to be designed to cope with the rush hour loading as everyone tries to travel at the same time and then that capacity is underused and wasted for the rest of the week. Why shouldn't people be taxed more for doing things the worst way imaginable?
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Post by hairspray57 on Oct 7, 2021 9:09:35 GMT
The worse is phoning a company and then being told they can’t help you because the person answering a phone is working from home and is not allowed to access the database. That just gives the impression of laziness.
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Post by vdcni on Oct 7, 2021 9:13:51 GMT
Well if they're telling the truth that's a badly run company. If they're lying then complain.
But if it is the former then I don't see how it's a sign of laziness from the employee.
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Post by hairspray57 on Oct 7, 2021 9:29:08 GMT
Well if they're telling the truth that's a badly run company. If they're lying then complain. But if it is the former then I don't see how it's a sign of laziness from the employee. Because the employee has chosen to work from home. |
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Post by vdcni on Oct 7, 2021 9:42:02 GMT
Have they, is their office open, what is the capacity?
Even before the pandemic my company downsized to an office which couldn't quite fit the entire staff. With social distancing we're currently at half capacity so there's no chance we can all come in.
Their company has had 18 months to figure out what to do to create the best customer experience and hasn't bothered. Sounds like the company has been lazy to me.
I know in the early days of the pandemic a lot of companies with off shore call centres had this problem as there wasn't the right security set up to let people work from home but within the UK they should have figured it out by now.
Personally I haven't experienced any problems like this, even going through my house purchase there were no issues with data not being available.
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Post by sfsusan on Oct 7, 2021 10:02:57 GMT
Because the employee has chosen to work from home. Even if the employee has chosen to work from home, the employer allows it and needs to provide the tools needed for them to do so. As said above, the company has had plenty of time to figure it out. Or if someone absolutely can't adequately do their job from home, don't allow it. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2021 10:06:11 GMT
Well if they're telling the truth that's a badly run company. If they're lying then complain. But if it is the former then I don't see how it's a sign of laziness from the employee. Because the employee has chosen to work from home. Seriously? You think a company would pay staff to work from home knowing that they wouldn't be able to do the work they were being paid for? Is this your first visit to Earth?
There may have been a few teething troubles when people first started to work from home. There certainly were when I started working from home around a decade ago, but most of that was because our offices were being shut down completely and all the servers were being moved into a datacentre so there was a period of a day or so when everything was switched off. But no company is going to consider that to be a viable long-term strategy. You only work from home if your job can be done from home, just as you only work in an office if your job can be done from an office.
This is fun and all, but if you're going to make up objections to home working at least try to make them plausible.
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Post by hairspray57 on Oct 7, 2021 10:22:34 GMT
Because the employee has chosen to work from home. Seriously? You think a company would pay staff to work from home knowing that they wouldn't be able to do the work they were being paid for? Is this your first visit to Earth?
There may have been a few teething troubles when people first started to work from home. There certainly were when I started working from home around a decade ago, but most of that was because our offices were being shut down completely and all the servers were being moved into a datacentre so there was a period of a day or so when everything was switched off. But no company is going to consider that to be a viable long-term strategy. You only work from home if your job can be done from home, just as you only work in an office if your job can be done from an office.
This is fun and all, but if you're going to make up objections to home working at least try to make them plausible.
It happens plenty of times in the public sector atm. Whole departments working from home with no access to the sensitive databases. |
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Post by Jon on Oct 7, 2021 10:24:00 GMT
Seriously? You think a company would pay staff to work from home knowing that they wouldn't be able to do the work they were being paid for? Is this your first visit to Earth? There may have been a few teething troubles when people first started to work from home. There certainly were when I started working from home around a decade ago, but most of that was because our offices were being shut down completely and all the servers were being moved into a datacentre so there was a period of a day or so when everything was switched off. But no company is going to consider that to be a viable long-term strategy. You only work from home if your job can be done from home, just as you only work in an office if your job can be done from an office. This is fun and all, but if you're going to make up objections to home working at least try to make them plausible. There is still value in collaborated working face to face which cannot be replicated remotely so I think companies will still have requirements where you need to be in the office for certain projects from time to time. |
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Post by lichtie on Oct 7, 2021 13:51:58 GMT
I have to a lot opf in-person interaction with younger colleagues to keep them on track. If you're having o do that every day one of you is doing hte job wrong though... Personally I'm 3 days in work 2 at home at the moment, and the work seem happy with that. And leaving aside the city of London, the big city centres I've been in over the last month are mostly back to buzzing - it's the return of the students that has made the biggest difference in terms of footfall.
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