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Possible long-term consequence of the pandemic: working from home the norm for many

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Posted 4/13/2020 11:41 AM (GMT -5)
For many, now working from home, as opposed to driving to and from an office every day, is the new norm.

The article below investigates the possibilities that may come to be in the future, after eventual lifting of contact restrictions has occurred, and the question of permanently working from home becomes a serious issue for many businesses and individuals.

From the article:

" ... it looks increasingly as if the situation will not ever go back to how it was: many employees for companies who have sent all staff home are already starting to question why they had to go in to the office in the first place."

"Overall, working from home doesn’t change your day-to-day work, it just means you’ll be doing it from a different environment.”

“Millions of people will get the chance to experience days without long commutes, or the harsh inflexibility of not being able to stay close to home when a family member is sick … This might be a chance for a great reset in terms of how we work.”

But also

“I’ve worked 100% remote before,” said one tech industry worker who has been sent home, “and there comes a point where even an introvert would like to see another human.”

The article continues with examples of what specific companies are doing in this area right now, and addresses concerns over the likely need for increased bandwidth and other technical issues for homeworkers, should their numbers increase dramatically, especially if large numbers of sent-home schoolchildren are also now homeschooling, in effect, over the web.

It then closes with discussion of some of the apps out there that are available to assist in setting up company work-from-home arrangements.

Obviously, this would work only for occupations where it's feasible (plumbers and deliverymen will never work from home), and whether or not it comes to happen is, of course, still very hypothetical.

But it also may not be all that off-topic for this forum, since if one works from home, it would seem to be much easier to arrange PCa appointments and treatments, without having to clear time with an employer.

Arguably there would be some other pluses, such as less traffic to and from a workplace resulting in less pollution, fewer accidents, lower insurance rates, etc. A significant drop in the spread of (and need to treat) communicable diseases spread in offices., etc. And more.

And what happens when companies realize they can save considerable money by not having to heat buildings, run cafeterias, provide parking lots, etc., since their employees are all, or many of them, working from home now? Would savings suggest that it make sense for many of them to have only a work-at-home work force now?

Questions that many companies will need to address when we're on the other side of the pandemic.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/13/covid-19-could-cause-permanent-shift-towards-home-working
Posted 4/13/2020 11:52 AM (GMT -5)
I've been working from home, which has been just as productive as the office. I'm not sure what I'm going to say if they call us back to the office.
Posted 4/13/2020 12:45 PM (GMT -5)
81guy, I suspect you're correct: many businesses will make the business decision to have most of their work done from home, to save on rent, heat, etc. Many could rent a hotel meeting room once a week or so for face to face staff meetings that may be helpful.

In some areas, that might work nicely. In others, there is a level of collaboration that happens at random times in the workplace that makes things really hum. That loss of informal contact may well create losses of creativity that are impossible to quantify.

Personally, I have a production job: I really can't do my job from home. Others from my company are working well from home.
Posted 4/13/2020 1:16 PM (GMT -5)

I began my teaching career over 30 years ago now, in a historic three-story brick building that had been built in the early 1900s in a rural area of the Midwest.

My classroom was heated by steam radiators. I had one electrical outlet, a large chalkboard, a roller map, a globe, one overhead projector, an old film projector, and a supply of chalk. I taught ... they learned.

That was my beginning ... with 30 fifth graders packed into that room! Those were the days!

I would NEVER have foreseen "distance learning" and keeping in touch with my students through computers and the Chromebooks my school has now provided to every student --- as we "teach from home" --- while students "learn from home" --- "distance learning" is the new catch phrase.

None of this would have been possible, my first year of teaching --- when you were excited to get a new box of chalk or a new pencil sharpener in your classroom!

I'm a teacher --- and now, quite unexpectedly ---- WORKING FROM HOME!

Thought provoking topic, as always, 81GyGuy!

Cyclone - #Iowa State University
Posted 4/13/2020 2:27 PM (GMT -5)
53 years of working from home, wouldn't have it any other way. The regular trail peeps, my family and friends are enough in - person human contact for me. smile

You guys have to take up any slack, though....
Posted 4/13/2020 2:43 PM (GMT -5)
we're having 12-step meetings too via zoom. I live in a big area so our meetings attract addicts from all over the world. I can see theses meetings being a thing in the future because of convenience. not a replacement but in addition to physical meetings. online meetings would be helpful for addicts in remote areas
Posted 4/13/2020 3:47 PM (GMT -5)
There will definitely be a move to work from home my bet it will be mostly a hybrid situation where there will be shared workspace that folks will use when they need or want to come in. Seen this done where office has only room for 50 to 80% so saving on infrastructure expense. This situation will force exposure to this type of options
Cons are
Change of eviroment not always conducive to productivity
Family distractions
Loss of informal collaboration
Loss of technical support
Loss of access to company info or other support
Most of these cons can be compensated for but may require a change in work culture
It will be interesting

Also this will push further online purchades and other types of on line services

A concern is less socialization and loss of social skills which i think is already happening

Just my 2 cents
Posted 4/13/2020 5:11 PM (GMT -5)
I love it, but I work on spreadsheets and email all day. We have video stuff from time to time and team calls - though I'm in a team that is in two locations 1,000 miles apart.

Have been in an open office area for last 3 years with a couple of hundred people. Every time someone gets sick, it goes around no matter how much hand washing and Purell squirts I get.

At home, 10 minute walk through the empty school parking lot or the big cemetery in town every hour. I'm getting 13,000 - 15,000 steps a day, up from 7,000 I was getting in the office.

If I could choose, Mon-Wed-Fri at home
Tue - Thu in the office
It is only a 13 mile commute each way, but it's Jersey so feels like 40 each way
Posted 4/13/2020 8:20 PM (GMT -5)
All the work from home stuff is great but......I miss a coworker knocking on my door: "Hey wanna grab some lunch?
Posted 4/14/2020 9:24 AM (GMT -5)
Some jobs can be "worked from home" while some cannot. As halbert noted, production and factory jobs simply must be done at the worksite, as do the management jobs that go with them. In some parts of the country, there remains a lot of manufacturing and related processes. These folks have to go to work.

Other jobs are a mix. For the last 20 years, I've been CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of a manufacturing company. In the finance area, some of the folks are able to work from home, and these days, we require that. In my case, a high percentage of my tasks are still paper-based, and just need to be done from the office. It is fortunate for me that I've gone into semi-retirement, and only go to the office one week of the month. This past month, there were only two of us in the entire office area of the company, and we worked short days - get in, get done, get home.

Before this job, I was a management consultant. I worked for one of the major international accounting/consulting firms. They wanted to reduce their office space cost, so proposed the concept of "office hotels." In these arrangements, if a person was scheduled to be in the office that day, they reported to a check-in desk and were directed to a particular desk, which was theirs for the day. At the end of the day, they placed their work products into a file room and left. The next time back in the office, they checked in, took their files and went wherever their "desk for the day" was. Those of us who had any technical specialties or were involved in sales or practice management had a virtual revolt, refusing to even consider the hotel concept. We had offices full of reference material, most of it personally owned, that we couldn't store in a file drawer in some back room. Fortunately, the firm relented and established the office hotels for only traveling staff-level personnel who had few personal materials in the offices. The entire project only lasted a year or so, until they concluded that it just wasn't worth the aggravation. Maybe in a formal environment, where the same people are assigned to a location every day, more telework could make sense.

On the other hand, as a consultant, I worked on many team projects in which team members came from various offices. That was too long ago for virtual meeting apps to exist (cell phones were new), but we did have team meetings at various coffee shops and restaurants. It worked, and didn't require the firm to have an office nearby.
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