Excellent thread and he got out of the putrid corpse once known as GOP in 2018.
But iirc the Hatch Act does not apply to the POTUS. So it is even worse than it first appears - all his federal underlings are the ones who have possibly broken the law by staging this event for him.
Sickening.
What's far worse is the American political media's collective decision that no one cares about the blatant law breaking - despite spending considerable time and effort looking at possible Dem violations of the Hatch Act. The same Sunday Show presenters demanding that Dem admin memebers be investigated and prosecuted for a tweet that possibly maybe violated the act are shrugging their shoulders at the Trump admins 4 day orgy of blatant violations.
I can't think of a more important POTUS election in my lifetime than this one.
Americans will be deciding whether they want to continue living in a functioning presidential democracy or a Trump family monarchy. If he gets four more years the republic is finished as a law abiding democracy imho.
One of his children will be on the ballot in 2024 and the election process will have been so rigged that they will win.
Personally, I find I work far better at an office than at home. I get far too easily distracted at home.
Which is why many people want to work at home - so they can do other things while being paid to work.
Britain's long-hours culture is partly to blame for one of the worst productivity levels of comparable countries. It's no coincidence that the US and UK are the two countries reporting the highest happiness with home working ; these are the two western countries where people's mental health and family lives have been most impacted by the long-hours culture - as well as the gradual erosion of rights at the workplace more broadly.
Levels of familiy breakdown and mental illness are lower almost throughout continental Europe.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
Look forward to resisting employers installing webcam, VPN and keyboard monitors and other technological means to check you are constantly working. Of course, some already have these in the office.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
The problem is that we're still expected to take measures to stop the spread of the virus. We've been told that informal chats in the kitchen are banned when the office reopens. And our office will be at about a third of its normal capacity. I don't see the point of going in unless most of my team would be there too.
Until we reach a point where we've either been vaccinated or we've decided not to worry about COVID-19, going to the office seems a bit pointless to me. I appreciate that having somewhere else to work is a good thing for some, and I'm glad that my work are taking steps to make it an option. But I don't see the point of going to the office just for the sake of doing it.
Personally, I find I work far better at an office than at home. I get far too easily distracted at home.
Which is why many people want to work at home - so they can do other things while being paid to work.
It really depends what you’re paid for, if it’s outputs then how long you are working each day is mainly irrelevant, if you are input driven then it’s really which is the most effective environment to delver the required volume. As others have said we may see a rebirth of local Internet cafes as places to wfh in if home is unsuitable.
Commuting whether by public transport or car can be tedious of course but I think long term it does get you out and seeing people (random people especially if using bus ,tube or train) and that, without realising it, keeps us human. Not sure stuck at home all week every week (even if you go out at 5 after the end of the working day) is great for long term mental health. Ultimately businesses and individuals will decide what works best though not government .However government should not be looking to put barriers in place of working in the office like face mask wearing (when no need) in either the work place or on public transport.
Digital technology has revolutionised work and shopping. All the virus did was to accelerate an established trend. We are not going back.
The genie is uncorked. The government is trying the equivalent of promoting horses and carts in the era of the motor car.
Instead of trying to reinstate an analogue world it should be helping people transition.
None of that answers the point. Many (most?) people at school and university tend to got to a library to work even if they have adequate workspace in their rooms and don’t need the books in the library. There is a reason for this.
Poor accommodation.
In my case, in my final year, a well furnished set of rooms (separate bedroom) in a grade 1 listed building. Try again.
Lucky you, you’re in a minority I suggest. Sometimes it’s good to get out of the house. And do you know what, that’s still aloud. The wonderful thing is that you’re not obliged to commute for hours every day.
No I'm not, actually. Poor accomodation is not the reason why people like a change of context in which to work. Ask some of them.
You are just overstating a case. It would be terrible to have to walk 50 miles over broken glass to work every day, but it does not follow that being locked in a small metal box for the rest of one's life would improve matters.
The problem is the government is telling us that we all have to go back to physical commutes and all the bullshit that entails. It needs to butt out.
If it pans out the same as quarantine policy, after a few weeks of telling everyone to go back to work, we'll suddenly be told to stay at home.
Last two days' figures for newly unquarantined Portugal, +399, +401, compared to quarantined on the same day Austria +328, +229. Populations both around 9-10 million; multiply by six or seven to scale up and the rate is in the same ballpark as in the UK.
Meanwhile this is a good map showing distribution of cases within countries:
And helpful for my impending trip. In France on the outward the only areas of concern are Paris and the South, and I wont be going anywhere near those. Southern Germany now looks a little worse than London, but again it'll be in the cities whereas I'll be in a hillside small town. The Tirol looks a bit dicky but I'll just be driving through and have no reason to get out of the car (except to fill up on some of the cheapest fuel in Europe). The Italian Alps looks very safe, and on the return I have ditched the stopover in Switzerland following the latest decision (despite new swiss cases yesterday being just 340) and will come back up the western side of Germany.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Governments have done no planning that they have shared with the public for how to live with the virus in the medium term. They did a belated lockdown and then unlockdown. The last significant review was in May, I think.
By living with the virus, I mean how to go about something approaching normal life while keeping the epidemic in check.
The only planned control appears to be a vaccine that may prove effective some time next year. There is at least one winter to get through first and it will be grim.
I can understand the purpose of demanding people go back to work in offices to save ancillary services. But by putting people on buses, trains and inside mechanically ventilated offices we could be accelerating our way to a second wave, which would be even more catastrophic.
Johnson is a lucky politician. Maybe he is confident that a second wave can't happen on his watch.
Pleased to see the general reaction on here. I think the government has got used to being able to tell people what to do during the pandemic - stay at home, wash your hands - but people will not be told how to spend their own money. If they want to spend it on doing improvements to their own homes, making them more energy efficient and perhaps more pleasant to work in, let them. Telling them to spend huge sums commuting and buying sandwiches and meals in city centres won't work.
I don't mind them telling me what they'd like me to do, since I can still tell them to get stuffed if I want.
The real impact of Brexit couldn't have come at a better time for the government to hide or deny it but not at a worse time for us to suffer it.
It's a good lead and raises a serious issue - but is over-focused on the issue of commuting. My small town has zero reliance on commuting yet the retail sector is in the same difficulty and many shopkeepers are saying they can get to Xmas but may go under before next summer. The loss of the front end of the summer season, coupled with people's continuing reluctance to be out and about and the many who have now discovered easy and hassle-free online shopping, has critically hit footfall.
I haven't been over to Ventnor this trip, but the shops in Ryde and Newport seemed reasonably busy. Definitely an autumnal feel for August though, and a short holiday season.
The scooters seem to be here in force, despite no official rally. Its like Boomer quadrophenia.
I haven't heard a single one, yet, although usually they dont make it down here on the rideout until afternoon. Officially, it's cancelled as you say.
Things were busy a couple of weeks back, but the loss of the first part of the summer season hit businesses hard (their compensation, such as it is, being based of course on year-round data so not great for seasonal businesses). But the recent weather has been diabolical and as you say autumn has arrived, leaving the remaining visitors trudging around miserably in wind and rain.
I don't think a true assessment of WFH can be done until the schools are back. It's a bit unspoken in our office but I think 'productivity' has declined since the onset of covid. Whether that is specifically due to WFH or other demotivating factors like theatres/football grounds being empty, holidays cancelled I don't know.
Governments have done no planning that they have shared with the public for how to live with the virus in the medium term. They did a belated lockdown and then unlockdown. The last significant review was in May, I think.
By living with the virus, I mean how to go about something approaching normal life while keeping the epidemic in check.
The only planned control appears to be a vaccine that may prove effective some time next year. There is at least one winter to get through first and it will be grim.
I can understand the purpose of demanding people go back to work in offices to save ancillary services. But by putting people on buses, trains and inside mechanically ventilated offices we could be accelerating our way to a second wave, which would be even more catastrophic.
Johnson is a lucky politician. Maybe he is confident that a second wave can't happen on his watch.
It's all just so much uncoordinated, mindless flapping. This week it's all panic about sandwich shops. Next week, if and when cases really start to take off, it'll be forcing everyone to wear masks everywhere. When that doesn't work, it'll be back to working from home and not using public transport if you have to. Then we'll be back in bloody April again.
Governments have done no planning that they have shared with the public for how to live with the virus in the medium term. They did a belated lockdown and then unlockdown. The last significant review was in May, I think.
By living with the virus, I mean how to go about something approaching normal life while keeping the epidemic in check.
The only planned control appears to be a vaccine that may prove effective some time next year. There is at least one winter to get through first and it will be grim.
I can understand the purpose of demanding people go back to work in offices to save ancillary services. But by putting people on buses, trains and inside mechanically ventilated offices we could be accelerating our way to a second wave, which would be even more catastrophic.
Johnson is a lucky politician. Maybe he is confident that a second wave can't happen on his watch.
It'll be interesting to see whether Nicola's longer view of preparing for a WFH society pushes Boris into yet another change of direction....
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
Nonsense. If there really is a WFH revolution, cities and towns won't be competing on proximity to London anymore, it will be on crime, livability, beauty, amenities, surrounding countryside, airports, and price. That will level up the North.
I agree, though people might also start thinking about the weather as well, in which case Scotland and the north are screwed.
*gloriously sunny Devon gives a big smug wave*
I can see across the Bristol Channel to North Devon from Castell Mexicanpete. Is that you I see waving?
There is a new fraud opportunity especially in sectors (mostly tax payer funded) where people get non-jobs in admin/sending pointless emails/non-job creation schemes etc. on the basis of their CV in which they have risen up the ranks doing similar non-jobs in the past, and are appointed to the new jobs by the same sorts of non-job people.
The fraud, now that WFH is the norm and there are limitless reasons for avoiding any particular commitment to time and place (got a cough etc), is to have multiple such full time non-jobs simultaneously.
Personally, I find I work far better at an office than at home. I get far too easily distracted at home.
Same here, I find it harder to remain focused and get motivated. I also like to separate my work like and home life - I don't want the former to intrude on the latter.
Interesting that we have people simultaneously saying that the government shouldn't tell people what to do, but also need to embrace (and presumably therefore encourage, ie tell people what to do) home working for society.
Personally, I find I work far better at an office than at home. I get far too easily distracted at home.
One of the other challenges we face is that we don't have large houses. Two people working from home with kids in fairly cramped conditions - certainly true for many of my generation - is no picnic. However it should be up to employers to decide what works best not the government and it's newfound thirst for central planning.
Should it be up to employers? It sounds reasonable but suppose that accidentally adds a degree of institutional racism is it still a good idea?
But perhaps different unintended consequences will cancel each other out. The preference for large homes discriminates against urban workers but the need for fast broadband works against folk in big houses out in the sticks.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
Look forward to resisting employers installing webcam, VPN and keyboard monitors and other technological means to check you are constantly working. Of course, some already have these in the office.
And if you resist all that they will say: ok, we are exercising so little control over you you can't be an employee, you must be a subcontractor, with all the security and protection that gives you in a brave new post brexit world.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
The problem is that we're still expected to take measures to stop the spread of the virus. We've been told that informal chats in the kitchen are banned when the office reopens. And our office will be at about a third of its normal capacity. I don't see the point of going in unless most of my team would be there too.
Until we reach a point where we've either been vaccinated or we've decided not to worry about COVID-19, going to the office seems a bit pointless to me. I appreciate that having somewhere else to work is a good thing for some, and I'm glad that my work are taking steps to make it an option. But I don't see the point of going to the office just for the sake of doing it.
This is a fairer point, in that if you cannot properly go back what's the point, and in fact there may be harm, and I certainly don't think it can be rushed even though I think the revolutionaries, as with all revolutions, are getting carried away in their fervour. I'm inherently suspicious of epiphanies, which is how some are reacting.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
They are the coal miners of the 21st Century.
The interesting thing is, I don't get the sense that the Left are particularly keen on going into bat for them.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
Look forward to resisting employers installing webcam, VPN and keyboard monitors and other technological means to check you are constantly working. Of course, some already have these in the office.
And if you resist all that they will say: ok, we are exercising so little control over you you can't be an employee, you must be a subcontractor, with all the security and protection that gives you in a brave new post brexit world.
On Tuesday I am doing an online exam and the protocol appears to involve allowing remote access to my PC, the footage from the webcam trained on me doing the exam, and also downloading an App into my phone which has to be positioned the other side of the room sending pictures of me sitting at my PC back to the invigilator.
In time some employers will surely be looking at steps in this direction - indeed for work that involves logging via an office IT system (for example call centre WFH) the technology is already there.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
One significant downside is the invasion of family life by work. Who can now object to getting work emails at 2300? WFH can be quite exploitative.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
Nonsense. If there really is a WFH revolution, cities and towns won't be competing on proximity to London anymore, it will be on crime, livability, beauty, amenities, surrounding countryside, airports, and price. That will level up the North.
I agree, though people might also start thinking about the weather as well, in which case Scotland and the north are screwed.
*gloriously sunny Devon gives a big smug wave*
I can see across the Bristol Channel to North Devon from Castell Mexicanpete. Is that you I see waving?
Nah, north Devon is somewhat less cheery and inviting than the south. I think the curvature of the Earth has come between us...
Personally, I find I work far better at an office than at home. I get far too easily distracted at home.
One of the other challenges we face is that we don't have large houses. Two people working from home with kids in fairly cramped conditions - certainly true for many of my generation - is no picnic. However it should be up to employers to decide what works best not the government and it's newfound thirst for central planning.
Should it be up to employers? It sounds reasonable but suppose that accidentally adds a degree of institutional racism is it still a good idea?
But perhaps different unintended consequences will cancel each other out. The preference for large homes discriminates against urban workers but the need for fast broadband works against folk in big houses out in the sticks.
Not just racial discrimination, it means there is a property qualification for getting a white collar job. 19th century stuff. I absolutely get the out cry against commuting, but people are not thinking the unintended consequences through.
Out in the sticks broadband starved big houses is a pretty negligible and shrinking demographic. I am broadcasting to you from the middle of Dartmoor and I have a choice of 15mbps landline and good 4g.
There is a new fraud opportunity especially in sectors (mostly tax payer funded) where people get non-jobs in admin/sending pointless emails/non-job creation schemes etc. on the basis of their CV in which they have risen up the ranks doing similar non-jobs in the past, and are appointed to the new jobs by the same sorts of non-job people.
The fraud, now that WFH is the norm and there are limitless reasons for avoiding any particular commitment to time and place (got a cough etc), is to have multiple such full time non-jobs simultaneously.
I've spent the last few decades working for global megacorps. If you think bureaucracy and apparently pointless emails and meetings are confined to the public sector, you are hugely mistaken.
Nonsense. If there really is a WFH revolution, cities and towns won't be competing on proximity to London anymore, it will be on crime, livability, beauty, amenities, surrounding countryside, airports, and price. That will level up the North.
I agree, though people might also start thinking about the weather as well, in which case Scotland and the north are screwed.
*gloriously sunny Devon gives a big smug wave*
I can see across the Bristol Channel to North Devon from Castell Mexicanpete. Is that you I see waving?
Nah, north Devon is somewhat less cheery and inviting than the south. I think the curvature of the Earth has come between us...
I thought that the earth was still flat round your way?
JohnL - There are occasions when government may need to protect employees from employers but if both parties are happy with an arrangement government interfering is just silly.
kle4 - Of course we are free to ignore government but I'd still prefer it if they didn't try to 'nudge' us on silly things anyway.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
One significant downside is the invasion of family life by work. Who can now object to getting work emails at 2300? WFH can be quite exploitative.
Indeed. I am right now doing some unpaid overtime. Ironic since I am (not alone on pb) being made redundant!
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
One significant downside is the invasion of family life by work. Who can now object to getting work emails at 2300? WFH can be quite exploitative.
Actually, I think one of the benefits for the employer of people working from home is that workers are more likely to be able to respond to quick moving situations. Now, as you say that can be problematic, but personally I don't mind answering an email if I'm logged on. My availability is certainly better now that I'm not worried about making sure I'm out of the office to catch the 16:30 out of Waterloo.
Also, I think I work better now that I'm not being woken up by my alarm every morning to get to the station early enough to have a comfortable (standing) journey to work.
There is a new fraud opportunity especially in sectors (mostly tax payer funded) where people get non-jobs in admin/sending pointless emails/non-job creation schemes etc. on the basis of their CV in which they have risen up the ranks doing similar non-jobs in the past, and are appointed to the new jobs by the same sorts of non-job people.
The fraud, now that WFH is the norm and there are limitless reasons for avoiding any particular commitment to time and place (got a cough etc), is to have multiple such full time non-jobs simultaneously.
I've spent the last few decades working for global megacorps. If you think bureaucracy and apparently pointless emails and meetings are confined to the public sector, you are hugely mistaken.
Perhaps the opportunity for this fraud knows no boundaries of geography or sector. I have a feeling that some people are going to give it a try. It beats work, and makes a change from cold calling people about Windows, pension schemes, household surveys and Amazon Prime.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
One significant downside is the invasion of family life by work. Who can now object to getting work emails at 2300? WFH can be quite exploitative.
This is true, but arguably family life has already been more invaded by work in the UK and US than anywhere else in the western world since the 1980s. The statistics on family breakdown and hours worked, for instance, as I mentioned earlier and compared to continental europe, appear to bear this out.
JohnL - There are occasions when government may need to protect employees from employers but if both parties are happy with an arrangement government interfering is just silly.
kle4 - Of course we are free to ignore government but I'd still prefer it if they didn't try to 'nudge' us on silly things anyway.
But governments have always sought to nudge is my point. I think people are overdoing the outrage on this occasion. There's plenty I don't think they should nudge on, some I agree on, and that's likely the case with most people (I would bet good money people do want the government to nudge on lots of things). We had Dr Palmer, a long term professional politician, seemingly suggesting the other day politicians commenting on things that are not their direct responsibility (eg trying to tell an employer what they think they should be doing) was not on, and I doubt you can find a politician who has not stuck their nose in something not their business.
Governments have done no planning that they have shared with the public for how to live with the virus in the medium term. They did a belated lockdown and then unlockdown. The last significant review was in May, I think.
By living with the virus, I mean how to go about something approaching normal life while keeping the epidemic in check.
The only planned control appears to be a vaccine that may prove effective some time next year. There is at least one winter to get through first and it will be grim.
I can understand the purpose of demanding people go back to work in offices to save ancillary services. But by putting people on buses, trains and inside mechanically ventilated offices we could be accelerating our way to a second wave, which would be even more catastrophic.
Johnson is a lucky politician. Maybe he is confident that a second wave can't happen on his watch.
Luck has a tendency to run out. Sometimes a 'lucky run' can be quite long, but then fall at the end tends to be more spectacular. And/or unexpected.
A question which has just occurred to me; did Johnson know when he first started campaigning to be Mayor of London, that the Olympics were definitely coming?
Indeed, "Operation Save Pret" could see us all within weeks, stuck at home again for another three months.
There is no strategy beyond the next crisis.
Superforecasters...
I think that forecasting the next week, let alone the next year is something of a dark art during the pandemic. Although this government don't appear to be even trying.
Yes, spot on. The key word in David's thoughtful header is "uncertainty". My organisation is keeping the office shut till Feb or later, but has no real plan for what happens next. A friend who would love to move to a better house in a cheaper area doesn't know if she dares risk that the employer suddenly wants her to come in every day. And to be fair to the Government, it would be hard for any Government to plan with confidence, and simply avoiding inconsistency may be all we can realistically ask.
I'd actually feel better about Johnson if he said frankly that things may or may not get better soon and as a country and a Government we are feeling our way through, rather than tiresome boosterism which is so obviously based on sand.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
The 1939 peak in London population was only achieved again and overtaken within the last decade. Between 1951 and 1981 - which is probably the better comparison for this purpose, Greater London lost 1.5 million people. London in the 1980s - when I arrived - had a very different feel about it (the later episodes of Our Friends in the North offer a reminder). This reversed, slowly, in the 1990s but the population has only really exploded since 2000.
WFH sucks, it just sucks less and in different ways to commuting and all the corporate bullshit you get with office life.
Perhaps, and on balance I can see that being the case for more than it is not the case for. But is it necessary for us to go around quite so confidently that society is changed forever quite so quickly?
Yes, but none of that will actually happen in the real world, as you say.
I haven't given up hope. The Government is useless but it isn't entirely without survival instincts. If it can't demonstrate progress in Northern parts then it is left entirely reliant on some voters' new-found dislike for the Labour Party. Under such circumstances, if Starmer succeeds in rebuilding bridges then the Tories are done for.
One of the government’s biggest problems is that it has spaffed away - as a former newspaper columnist might put it - shedloads of trust and credibility. Relatively few people now take what it says seriously because it has lied, demonstrated serial incompetence and treated the public like fools.
We had a senior management away day yesterday in a hotel in Surrey. The consensus was that we need to be back in our office in EC4, but that it is impossible to rely on government advice right now, so we cannot mandate a return, it will have to be on a staggered, voluntary basis, as we work out the practical implications of ever-changing guidelines, with those who can and want to work from home able to do so. My guess is that we are not alone.
We’re also going through a very tough redundancy process that is seeing dozens of jobs go. Again, I doubt we’re alone.
The next few months and, probably years, are going to be brutal. I don’t think many people realise just how hard it’s going to be.
Yep. I've been saying to mates recently that you have to our sort of age (mid 50s) to really remember bad economic times with millions unemployed. I came of age in early 1980s. Brutal for young people.
I'm not quite old enough to remember much about that period - I would've been eight at the time of the Miners' Strike, so I recall that we kept a box of candles in case of power cuts but that's about it - but I do think that's where we are heading. It's hard to say exactly how bad it will get in the medium term, since that rather depends on how many new jobs are created by new ways of living and working, how poorly paid they are and how slow they are in coming along, but I can certainly see a real problem coming both with long-term youth unemployment and with out-of-work over-50s who struggle ever to find another job because nobody thinks it's worth the investment to retrain them.
I know that unemployment topped three million in the early Eighties, but the UK now has a substantially larger population than it did then. It's arguable that we'll be doing well if it's not passed four million by Christmas.
Without CJRS I think we would have hit 10 million unemployed this year, now Id think it will peak at 3-4 million around spring next year. On the economy the government have actually done pretty well. Shame about the rest of it.
Out of work over 50s with average or better skills will probably find the new economy much better for getting work than the status quo was. It might be part time, but for most roles it will be a lot easier to train them and for them to wfh than it would to do the same for a university leaver which might be their competition.
WFH sucks, it just sucks less and in different ways to commuting and all the corporate bullshit you get with office life.
Perhaps, and on balance I can see that being the case for more than it is not the case for. But is it necessary for us to go around quite so confidently that society is changed forever quite so quickly?
The normal cycle is:
- During the crisis = "the world will never be the same again" - After the crisis = "everything seems to have gone back the way it was before" - A decade or so after = "actually a lot of things started to change back there"
Pret made a third of its workforce redundant. From what I have seen so many of its workforce are the very same migrants the government wants rid of - so whats the problem?
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
Nothing. They're stuffed.
Or a boom in mobile coffee dispensing (a good use for old ice cream vans?), coffee, cakes and sandwiches to the door. And perhaps in home cleaning?
Pret made a third of its workforce redundant. From what I have seen so many of its workforce are the very same migrants the government wants rid of - so whats the problem?
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
Tell the oligarchs to do one.
You may have a point about the donors, but I suspect the bigger worry is that if property prices do crash, a whole load of people will find themselves in serious negative equity (albeit, many don't vote Tory or if they do don't live in marginal seats) and there could be worries about the banks too.
Personally, I find I work far better at an office than at home. I get far too easily distracted at home.
One of the other challenges we face is that we don't have large houses. Two people working from home with kids in fairly cramped conditions - certainly true for many of my generation - is no picnic. However it should be up to employers to decide what works best not the government and it's newfound thirst for central planning.
Should it be up to employers? It sounds reasonable but suppose that accidentally adds a degree of institutional racism is it still a good idea?
But perhaps different unintended consequences will cancel each other out. The preference for large homes discriminates against urban workers but the need for fast broadband works against folk in big houses out in the sticks.
Not just racial discrimination, it means there is a property qualification for getting a white collar job. 19th century stuff. I absolutely get the out cry against commuting, but people are not thinking the unintended consequences through.
Out in the sticks broadband starved big houses is a pretty negligible and shrinking demographic. I am broadcasting to you from the middle of Dartmoor and I have a choice of 15mbps landline and good 4g.
London zone 1 and fastest I could get normally is about 2mb - so had to get fibre to the building put in. Its a myth all cities have great broadband.
WFH sucks, it just sucks less and in different ways to commuting and all the corporate bullshit you get with office life.
Perhaps, and on balance I can see that being the case for more than it is not the case for. But is it necessary for us to go around quite so confidently that society is changed forever quite so quickly?
My view is that the virus has accelerated the adoption of digital tools (and ways of working) and that they are here to stay. They are more convenient for many users and critically help solve a massive problem for business, the cost of renting commercial property. The fact I can enjoy more time with my family and commute less is merely a welcome side effect.
Pret made a third of its workforce redundant. From what I have seen so many of its workforce are the very same migrants the government wants rid of - so whats the problem?
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
Tell the oligarchs to do one.
A lot of people invested in commercial property - which sadly now includes a fair few councils that got carried away in this direction - as well as a lot of pension funds - have hard times coming.
Interesting that the crisis started with those in power telling everyone else to stay at home whilst conspicuously failing to do so themselves - leading to a fair few high profile infection cases. Now those same people are telling everyone else to get back to work whilst still staying well away from the office themselves!
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.
Governments have done no planning that they have shared with the public for how to live with the virus in the medium term. They did a belated lockdown and then unlockdown. The last significant review was in May, I think.
By living with the virus, I mean how to go about something approaching normal life while keeping the epidemic in check.
The only planned control appears to be a vaccine that may prove effective some time next year. There is at least one winter to get through first and it will be grim.
I can understand the purpose of demanding people go back to work in offices to save ancillary services. But by putting people on buses, trains and inside mechanically ventilated offices we could be accelerating our way to a second wave, which would be even more catastrophic.
Johnson is a lucky politician. Maybe he is confident that a second wave can't happen on his watch.
Luck has a tendency to run out. Sometimes a 'lucky run' can be quite long, but then fall at the end tends to be more spectacular. And/or unexpected.
A question which has just occurred to me; did Johnson know when he first started campaigning to be Mayor of London, that the Olympics were definitely coming?
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
Yes over 28 years losing 2 million and them moving elsewhere would cause only minor social disruptions. If it happened over a couple of years it will cause huge social disruption to the rest of the UK.
Many people think we cant cope with 250k immigrants, the vast majority of whom already end up in cities. How will the complainers feel if its 1m people a year leaving cities and competing for rural houses, schools and hospitals?
Indeed, "Operation Save Pret" could see us all within weeks, stuck at home again for another three months.
There is no strategy beyond the next crisis.
Superforecasters...
I think that forecasting the next week, let alone the next year is something of a dark art during the pandemic. Although this government don't appear to be even trying.
I'd actually feel better about Johnson if he said frankly that things may or may not get better soon and as a country and a Government we are feeling our way through, rather than tiresome boosterism which is so obviously based on sand.
I would too (and figures do make noises to that effect occasionally), but let's be real: if he did do that he would be pilloried by all the press, the public, the opposition and many in his own party.
Boosterism at least only means he is pilloried by some of the press, some of the public, and the opposition.
We expect and demand our politicians be omniscient and omnipotent (though we may try to claim otherwise), as we react poorly to any hint they are uncertain or they are not confident in a plan, or that their own plans may not eliminate all problems.
Sure it is still the fault of a political leader to take the easy route and pander in that situation, but there's a reason they do it, and it's because we punish the opposite.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
Yes over 28 years losing 2 million and them moving elsewhere would cause only minor social disruptions. If it happened over a couple of years it will cause huge social disruption to the rest of the UK.
Many people think we cant cope with 250k immigrants, the vast majority of whom already end up in cities. How will the complainers feel if its 1m people a year leaving cities and competing for rural houses, schools and hospitals?
We had that problem during lockdown, with townies suddenly filling up their second homes out of season and competing for supermarket deliveries, toilet rolls and hospital beds. It wasn't just Penarth that had unwelcome visitors.
Pret made a third of its workforce redundant. From what I have seen so many of its workforce are the very same migrants the government wants rid of - so whats the problem?
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
Tell the oligarchs to do one.
A lot of people invested in commercial property - which sadly now includes a fair few councils that got carried away in this direction - as well as a lot of pension funds - have hard times coming.
Interesting that the crisis started with those in power telling everyone else to stay at home whilst conspicuously failing to do so themselves - leading to a fair few high profile infection cases. Now those same people are telling everyone else to get back to work whilst still staying well away from the office themselves!
To be fair they stayed away from parliament and their offices for various breaks adding up to over 20 weeks last year as well. On this they were well ahead of the curve.
JohnL - There are occasions when government may need to protect employees from employers but if both parties are happy with an arrangement government interfering is just silly.
kle4 - Of course we are free to ignore government but I'd still prefer it if they didn't try to 'nudge' us on silly things anyway.
There is another side to this though, which is that a lot of employers may actually NOT be happy with the current WFH situation. However the workers are currently in the driving seat (although this may not persist if the economy continues to contract and many people confidently asserting they will “go elsewhere” if their employer doesn’t play ball find that they actually have nowhere to go).
Most of the people commenting on how great WFH has been are commenting from a personal perspective and from the perspective as a member of staff. And, frankly, a lot of this is not people having an epiphany on the joys of home working, but who would have always taken such opportunity if they could do so, we’re it not for employer resistance.
There is less from employers/managers, many of whom may be desperate to get their staff back to the office, in some numbers and at least on a part time basis, who at the moment do not feel they can compel their staff to do so. And will welcome any Govt support on the matter they can get.
kle4 - I think the fundamental problem is the government's reasoning. If it was that too much home working is unproductive and less profitable then I'd have time for it. The 'save pret' idea is just silly. I suspect the reason (knowingly or otherwise) that it has proved so emotive is it pits the metropolitan elite against the rest. No surprise Sturgeon is taking a different line and our 'Brexit' government seems caught between two stools.
Pret made a third of its workforce redundant. From what I have seen so many of its workforce are the very same migrants the government wants rid of - so whats the problem?
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
Tell the oligarchs to do one.
Maybe there's a niche in the market for cheap, close to home drop-in work spaces that can be walked/cycled to? They'd need very good internet capability - and be secure too - but you could still have a degree of interaction with people from different work disciplines, common provision of services such as a food etc. Get out the house, but pay far less than commuting costs whilst not being stuck in your home environment.
kle4 - I think the fundamental problem is the government's reasoning. If it was that too much home working is unproductive and less profitable then I'd have time for it. The 'save pret' idea is just silly. I suspect the reason (knowingly or otherwise) that it has proved so emotive is it pits the metropolitan elite against the rest. No surprise Sturgeon is taking a different line and our 'Brexit' government seems caught between two stools.
I think it is certainly fair to criticise on a case by case basis when the government is seeking to nudge things, since as you point out it may be the reasoning for their nudge is problematic, or it is not really an a suitable goal. I merely think some people in criticising the specific instance have over generalised to implicitly or explicitly criticising nudging as a concept, and I doubt most of those are actually against government nudging for things they support.
Pret made a third of its workforce redundant. From what I have seen so many of its workforce are the very same migrants the government wants rid of - so whats the problem?
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
Tell the oligarchs to do one.
You may have a point about the donors, but I suspect the bigger worry is that if property prices do crash, a whole load of people will find themselves in serious negative equity (albeit, many don't vote Tory or if they do don't live in marginal seats) and there could be worries about the banks too.
I bought a house in 2006 and spent a decade in serious negative equity, so I understand its a problem. But how else can I put this - society has just gone through a massive change event. The slow erosion of physical by virtual has been felt on the high street for years and is still growing - but the virtual work environment was something that hadn't entered the mainstream. Now it has we aren't going back, just as nobody has been able to uninvent Amazon to save the high street.
Lets stop calling it work from home and refer to it in its completed state - flexible working. Business likes flexible working as it saves costs and makes its employees happy. Employees like flexible working as it saves costs and makes work something more tolerable. The money that will not be wasted on vast offices not needed and commuting not needed and twatty coffee not needed can be used more productively in the economy on something that is needed.
This is basic market capitalism. The Tories don't get it apparently. Then again "fuck business". What would Thatcher be doing? Demanding we hold back economic progress and keep making crap cars and digging coal? Which is the comparable to the guff that ministers (sat at home the massive hypocrites) are coming out with saying go back to the office to save Pret. Fuck Pret.
Nonsense. If there really is a WFH revolution, cities and towns won't be competing on proximity to London anymore, it will be on crime, livability, beauty, amenities, surrounding countryside, airports, and price. That will level up the North.
I agree, though people might also start thinking about the weather as well, in which case Scotland and the north are screwed.
Climate change has rather been forgotten, at least in the medium term ... We in SE Scotland are noticeably cooler and damper than the SE of England (except when it comes to thunderstorms, perhaps). We only had one sort of really hot day this summer. I can't remember when they were last worried about the reservoir capacity let alone called a drought/restrictions on water usage. 1976?
Edit: but not trying to score points. The immediate point is valid for many poeople.
This is a very thought-provoking discussion thread - a change from the squabbles we sometimes get here.
JohnL - There are occasions when government may need to protect employees from employers but if both parties are happy with an arrangement government interfering is just silly.
kle4 - Of course we are free to ignore government but I'd still prefer it if they didn't try to 'nudge' us on silly things anyway.
There is another side to this though, which is that a lot of employers may actually NOT be happy with the current WFH situation. However the workers are currently in the driving seat (although this may not persist if the economy continues to contract and many people confidently asserting they will “go elsewhere” if their employer doesn’t play ball find that they actually have nowhere to go).
Most of the people commenting on how great WFH has been are commenting from a personal perspective and from the perspective as a member of staff. And, frankly, a lot of this is not people having an epiphany on the joys of home working, but who would have always taken such opportunity if they could do so, we’re it not for employer resistance.
There is less from employers/managers, many of whom may be desperate to get their staff back to the office, in some numbers and at least on a part time basis, who at the moment do not feel they can compel their staff to do so. And will welcome any Govt support on the matter they can get.
The bigger deal will be the inter-generational difference, with older people in more senior (hence more autonomous) roles, and more comfortable homes in nicer environments, who already know their business and their contacts, having a good time, whereas the reverse is true for younger employees renting in much less suitable and attractive conditions and missing out on all the learning-on-the-job that comes from being alongside people with more experience, as well as on social interaction at and after work more generally.
kle4 - I think the fundamental problem is the government's reasoning. If it was that too much home working is unproductive and less profitable then I'd have time for it. The 'save pret' idea is just silly. I suspect the reason (knowingly or otherwise) that it has proved so emotive is it pits the metropolitan elite against the rest. No surprise Sturgeon is taking a different line and our 'Brexit' government seems caught between two stools.
Yes.
This is a critical factor the government hasn't considered. There were literally thousands of contributions in the Mail yesterday along the lines "London and the property owners don't like it ? Then tough. This is how we're going revive our our own small town."
Events, dear boy, events, and here an unintended consequence of the covid lockdown has been to create a new anti-metropolitan, anti-commuting localism.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
Nothing. They're stuffed.
In a way that doesn't affect the government - the areas affected by the service sector shake up of the 2020s are Labour just as those affected by the manufacturing sector shake up of the 1980s were Labour.
But whereas the manufacturing towns were 'up north' the service sector job losses will be happening within a few miles of Westminster.
Now add in the racial factor - the job losses will be concentrated among BAME and other immigrant communities. Do we see in the 2020s a UK equivalent of the 'great migration' ?
City centre cafes and restaurants and stores have clearly been hit hard by the lockdown, home working and online competition. Even if workers do return to office working next year it is unlikely to be full time with part time WFH the norm.
However cafes and small shops in market towns and villages and suburbs where the Tory vote is concentrated have ironically been boosted as more workers working from home have been around at lunchtime or the early evening to shop there in the week
Pret made a third of its workforce redundant. From what I have seen so many of its workforce are the very same migrants the government wants rid of - so whats the problem?
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
Tell the oligarchs to do one.
Maybe there's a niche in the market for cheap, close to home drop-in work spaces that can be walked/cycled to? They'd need very good internet capability - and be secure too - but you could still have a degree of interaction with people from different work disciplines, common provision of services such as a food etc. Get out the house, but pay far less than commuting costs whilst not being stuck in your home environment.
You could call it...a pub.
For someone with some capital behind them, buying up a decent number of failing rural pubs and repositioning them as a chain of cross between pub/restaurant/village shop/shared workspace sounds like it "should" work well.
Indeed, "Operation Save Pret" could see us all within weeks, stuck at home again for another three months.
There is no strategy beyond the next crisis.
Superforecasters...
I think that forecasting the next week, let alone the next year is something of a dark art during the pandemic. Although this government don't appear to be even trying.
Yes, spot on. The key word in David's thoughtful header is "uncertainty". My organisation is keeping the office shut till Feb or later, but has no real plan for what happens next. A friend who would love to move to a better house in a cheaper area doesn't know if she dares risk that the employer suddenly wants her to come in every day. And to be fair to the Government, it would be hard for any Government to plan with confidence, and simply avoiding inconsistency may be all we can realistically ask.
I'd actually feel better about Johnson if he said frankly that things may or may not get better soon and as a country and a Government we are feeling our way through, rather than tiresome boosterism which is so obviously based on sand.
But your last paragraph is how Johnson rolls. After all he is still campaigning on a daily basis nine months out from an election that he won handsomely.
Nonsense. If there really is a WFH revolution, cities and towns won't be competing on proximity to London anymore, it will be on crime, livability, beauty, amenities, surrounding countryside, airports, and price. That will level up the North.
I agree, though people might also start thinking about the weather as well, in which case Scotland and the north are screwed.
Climate change has rather been forgotten, at least in the medium term ... We in SE Scotland are noticeably cooler and damper than the SE of England (except when it comes to thunderstorms, perhaps). We only had one sort of really hot day this summer. I can't remember when they were last worried about the reservoir capacity let alone called a drought/restrictions on water usage. 1976?
Edit: but not trying to score points. The immediate point is valid for many poeople.
This is a very thought-provoking discussion thread - a change from the squabbles we sometimes get here.
None of us could ever have imagined so much being done to curb carbon emissions across so much of the world so rapidly. If, perhaps, partly or even largely temporarily.
I had an interesting email the other day from a large defence contractor trying to headhunt me. I’m in a shortage area of engineering so I get these from time to time. However, what’s interesting is that the recruiter explicitly played up the WFH aspect. Last time I worked in defence trying to WFH was a nearly implausible nightmare. I think if major security restricted firms are now openly advertising roles as WFH friendly this might be here to stay. I’ve actually been surprised how much engineering I was able to do from home (although my role is fieldwork heavy so it’s not been perfect).
Nonsense. If there really is a WFH revolution, cities and towns won't be competing on proximity to London anymore, it will be on crime, livability, beauty, amenities, surrounding countryside, airports, and price. That will level up the North.
I agree, though people might also start thinking about the weather as well, in which case Scotland and the north are screwed.
Climate change has rather been forgotten, at least in the medium term ... We in SE Scotland are noticeably cooler and damper than the SE of England (except when it comes to thunderstorms, perhaps). We only had one sort of really hot day this summer. I can't remember when they were last worried about the reservoir capacity let alone called a drought/restrictions on water usage. 1976?
Edit: but not trying to score points. The immediate point is valid for many poeople.
This is a very thought-provoking discussion thread - a change from the squabbles we sometimes get here.
None of us could ever have imagined so much being done to curb carbon emissions across so much of the world so rapidly. If, perhaps, partly or even largely temporarily.
Pret made a third of its workforce redundant. From what I have seen so many of its workforce are the very same migrants the government wants rid of - so whats the problem?
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
Tell the oligarchs to do one.
With the oligarchs gone, who funds the Conservative Party?
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.
Couldn't they commute? I envisage fewer commuters heading into the cities and more heading out. Wouldn't that be more efficient too since the numbers each way would be more even? I'm no expert btw.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.
The long-term consequences of WFH should be to distribute wealth and opportunity more evenly throughout the country. However, in the short term the main beneficiaries will be relatively well to do towns in existing big city commuter belts - largely the Home Counties, but also in parts of Cheshire, N Yorks and so on. Retford ain't going to become part of the land of milk and honey next week.
I had an interesting email the other day from a large defence contractor trying to headhunt me. I’m in a shortage area of engineering so I get these from time to time. However, what’s interesting is that the recruiter explicitly played up the WFH aspect. Last time I worked in defence trying to WFH was a nearly implausible nightmare. I think if major security restricted firms are now openly advertising roles as WFH friendly this might be here to stay. I’ve actually been surprised how much engineering I was able to do from home (although my role is fieldwork heavy so it’s not been perfect).
So this is the other angle: The people who used to work from the office might be expected to go back, but people who are getting hired now are getting hired at least on the basis of WFH for now, and potentially on the basis of WFH forever. Even in the "WFH for now" case this is going to be quite hard to reverse unless the employee is enthusiastic about it, and the path of least resistance will be to carry on the same.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.
Couldn't they commute? I envisage fewer commuters heading into the cities and more heading out. Wouldn't that be more efficient too since the numbers each way would be more even? I'm no expert btw.
Commuting costs a bloody fortune and requires a decently paying job to make it worth the bother.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
One significant downside is the invasion of family life by work. Who can now object to getting work emails at 2300? WFH can be quite exploitative.
Those whose contractual working hours do not involve working more than 8 to 9 hours a day
Pret made a third of its workforce redundant. From what I have seen so many of its workforce are the very same migrants the government wants rid of - so whats the problem?
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
Tell the oligarchs to do one.
Maybe there's a niche in the market for cheap, close to home drop-in work spaces that can be walked/cycled to? They'd need very good internet capability - and be secure too - but you could still have a degree of interaction with people from different work disciplines, common provision of services such as a food etc. Get out the house, but pay far less than commuting costs whilst not being stuck in your home environment.
You could call it...a pub.
I am convinced there is a market for exactly that (the workspace, not the pub) and am looking seriously at buying a property where I could set up exactly that.
Governments have done no planning that they have shared with the public for how to live with the virus in the medium term. They did a belated lockdown and then unlockdown. The last significant review was in May, I think.
By living with the virus, I mean how to go about something approaching normal life while keeping the epidemic in check.
The only planned control appears to be a vaccine that may prove effective some time next year. There is at least one winter to get through first and it will be grim.
I can understand the purpose of demanding people go back to work in offices to save ancillary services. But by putting people on buses, trains and inside mechanically ventilated offices we could be accelerating our way to a second wave, which would be even more catastrophic.
Johnson is a lucky politician. Maybe he is confident that a second wave can't happen on his watch.
Luck has a tendency to run out. Sometimes a 'lucky run' can be quite long, but then fall at the end tends to be more spectacular. And/or unexpected.
A question which has just occurred to me; did Johnson know when he first started campaigning to be Mayor of London, that the Olympics were definitely coming?
Boris became Conservative choice for Mayor in 2007, sfaict from skimming biographies of Boris and David Cameron.
It seems one of the first to suggest Boris should run for Mayor was his Spectator colleague Mary Wakefield, who several years later would marry Dominic Cummings.
Pret made a third of its workforce redundant. From what I have seen so many of its workforce are the very same migrants the government wants rid of - so whats the problem?
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
Tell the oligarchs to do one.
Maybe there's a niche in the market for cheap, close to home drop-in work spaces that can be walked/cycled to? They'd need very good internet capability - and be secure too - but you could still have a degree of interaction with people from different work disciplines, common provision of services such as a food etc. Get out the house, but pay far less than commuting costs whilst not being stuck in your home environment.
You could call it...a pub.
I am convinced there is a market for exactly that (the workspace, not the pub) and am looking seriously at buying a property where I could set up exactly that.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
Yes over 28 years losing 2 million and them moving elsewhere would cause only minor social disruptions. If it happened over a couple of years it will cause huge social disruption to the rest of the UK.
Many people think we cant cope with 250k immigrants, the vast majority of whom already end up in cities. How will the complainers feel if its 1m people a year leaving cities and competing for rural houses, schools and hospitals?
Complainers complain. So what. Disruptive change happens sometimes.
Trump's approval rating now just 38% in the West and 42% in the North East but his approval rating is up to 46% in the Midwest and 48% in the South
Several of these pictures, and the specific angles the shots are taken from, have left me wondering whether the organisers have deliberately left the ambiguity of a halo around Trump for some of the Evangelicals.
The latest data for the UK is that travel for retail and recreation is down 11% from the baseline, compared to a 40% decline back in July. Supermarket and pharmacy has been pretty consistent (over July/Aug) at 14% down, public transport consistent 44% down, workplaces 48% down. The published data has tons of local breakdowns.
Comparing for example Germany, retail categories pretty much back to normal, public transport -18%, workplaces -27%.
Or Italy, again retail normal, transport -27%, workplaces -37%.
Or the US, retail down 13%, public transport (probably not a very useful indicator in an American context) -32%, workplaces -37%.
I clicked on a few others but couldn't find any that had a decline in workplace mobility as large as the UK.
kle4 - I think the fundamental problem is the government's reasoning. If it was that too much home working is unproductive and less profitable then I'd have time for it. The 'save pret' idea is just silly. I suspect the reason (knowingly or otherwise) that it has proved so emotive is it pits the metropolitan elite against the rest. No surprise Sturgeon is taking a different line and our 'Brexit' government seems caught between two stools.
Yes.
This is a critical factor the government hasn't considered. There were literally thousands of contributions in the Mail yesterday along the lines "London and the property owners don't like it ? Then tough. This is how we're going revive our our own small town."
Events, dear boy, events, and here an unintended consequence of the covid lockdown has been to create a new anti-metropolitan, anti-commuting localism.
A smart government would see this as the opportunity it is. No need to sink vast billions into expensive infrastructure projects aimed at channelling ever more people into small urban areas where a large percentage of their economic output gets frittered off into pointless tat that services the need to channel people in. Distribute the workforce out. Money gets spent on actual productivity which thanks to the improved work life balance is higher than it was before.
The Tory right is very happy attacking workshy Brits who they whine are less productive than foreign types. People were knackered and broken - the status quo ante the government are demanding we return to wasn't working either for people or the companies they worked for or the wider economy. You want to make people more productive? Allow flexible working.
It's also worth remembering, once again, that the argument about people going back to offices again is happening in the period before Nicola Sturgeon announces the enforcement of masks in workplaces. Any gradual drift back into offices will be mostly killed off by that loathsome prospect.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.
The long-term consequences of WFH should be to distribute wealth and opportunity more evenly throughout the country. However, in the short term the main beneficiaries will be relatively well to do towns in existing big city commuter belts - largely the Home Counties, but also in parts of Cheshire, N Yorks and so on. Retford ain't going to become part of the land of milk and honey next week.
Lands of milk and honey tend to be expensive.
Places which have cheap housing, good communications and some nice countryside nearby tick boxes for many people.
I suspect we'll see even more new housing being built around the likes of Retford.
What will happen in the grotty urban core of such towns I don't know.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.
The long-term consequences of WFH should be to distribute wealth and opportunity more evenly throughout the country. However, in the short term the main beneficiaries will be relatively well to do towns in existing big city commuter belts - largely the Home Counties, but also in parts of Cheshire, N Yorks and so on. Retford ain't going to become part of the land of milk and honey next week.
Up to a point, Lord Copper. Paying London salaries to people WFH in Dunny-on-the-Wold might spread wealth around but when those people resign, they will be replaced by locals on local salaries so the squillionaire business owner can move higher up the Forbes rankings. (Arguably DotW is still a bit better off than it would have been otherwise.)
And not just this country. If your job can be done remotely from your home in Yarmouth or Accrington then it can be done remotely from someone else's home in Sfântu Gheorghe and more cheaply too.
Again what I think is being exposed by all this is how central London the acclaimed economic jewel in the crown was - in order to function competitively with its huge costs - reliant on poor or desperate people happy to live in overcrowded and cramped conditions.
Trump's approval rating now just 38% in the West and 42% in the North East but his approval rating is up to 46% in the Midwest and 48% in the South
I think we'll see a lot of reporting like this, where the toplines are basically the same as they've been for the last 6 months, so the unlucky reporter assigned to it has to resort to picking the most interesting sub-sample and writing an article about the statistical noise.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.
The long-term consequences of WFH should be to distribute wealth and opportunity more evenly throughout the country. However, in the short term the main beneficiaries will be relatively well to do towns in existing big city commuter belts - largely the Home Counties, but also in parts of Cheshire, N Yorks and so on. Retford ain't going to become part of the land of milk and honey next week.
Up to a point, Lord Copper. Paying London salaries to people WFH in Dunny-on-the-Wold might spread wealth around but when those people resign, they will be replaced by locals on local salaries so the squillionaire business owner can move higher up the Forbes rankings. (Arguably DotW is still a bit better off than it would have been otherwise.)
And not just this country. If your job can be done remotely from your home in Yarmouth or Accrington then it can be done remotely from someone else's home in Sfântu Gheorghe and more cheaply too.
Most people WFH tend to be middle class ie lawyers, business executives, accountants, those working in finance etc who do work that can be done online not on site.
Most of those workers also have degrees and professional qualifications, you cannot outsource those unless to workers similarly qualified
I had an interesting email the other day from a large defence contractor trying to headhunt me. I’m in a shortage area of engineering so I get these from time to time. However, what’s interesting is that the recruiter explicitly played up the WFH aspect. Last time I worked in defence trying to WFH was a nearly implausible nightmare. I think if major security restricted firms are now openly advertising roles as WFH friendly this might be here to stay. I’ve actually been surprised how much engineering I was able to do from home (although my role is fieldwork heavy so it’s not been perfect).
So this is the other angle: The people who used to work from the office might be expected to go back, but people who are getting hired now are getting hired at least on the basis of WFH for now, and potentially on the basis of WFH forever. Even in the "WFH for now" case this is going to be quite hard to reverse unless the employee is enthusiastic about it, and the path of least resistance will be to carry on the same.
Trump's approval rating now just 38% in the West and 42% in the North East but his approval rating is up to 46% in the Midwest and 48% in the South
I think we'll see a lot of reporting like this, where the toplines are basically the same as they've been for the last 6 months, so the unlucky reporter assigned to it has to resort to picking the most interesting sub-sample and writing an article about the statistical noise.
"Eighty-two percent of Republican voters approve of Trump"
I had an interesting email the other day from a large defence contractor trying to headhunt me. I’m in a shortage area of engineering so I get these from time to time. However, what’s interesting is that the recruiter explicitly played up the WFH aspect. Last time I worked in defence trying to WFH was a nearly implausible nightmare. I think if major security restricted firms are now openly advertising roles as WFH friendly this might be here to stay. I’ve actually been surprised how much engineering I was able to do from home (although my role is fieldwork heavy so it’s not been perfect).
So this is the other angle: The people who used to work from the office might be expected to go back, but people who are getting hired now are getting hired at least on the basis of WFH for now, and potentially on the basis of WFH forever. Even in the "WFH for now" case this is going to be quite hard to reverse unless the employee is enthusiastic about it, and the path of least resistance will be to carry on the same.
People will get fed up with WFH eventually.
Not if they use their new free time, maybe more political activists, community arts performers, chess clubs, walking football etc etc etc they may even get to know their neighbours and talk to them!
The latest data for the UK is that travel for retail and recreation is down 11% from the baseline, compared to a 40% decline back in July. Supermarket and pharmacy has been pretty consistent (over July/Aug) at 14% down, public transport consistent 44% down, workplaces 48% down. The published data has tons of local breakdowns.
Comparing for example Germany, retail categories pretty much back to normal, public transport -18%, workplaces -27%.
Or Italy, again retail normal, transport -27%, workplaces -37%.
Or the US, retail down 13%, public transport (probably not a very useful indicator in an American context) -32%, workplaces -37%.
I clicked on a few others but couldn't find any that had a decline in workplace mobility as large as the UK.
The UK and to an extent the US had far more working in big city centres like London and New York city and Chicago and commuting than those in continental Europe who are more likely to work in offices in smaller cities and towns locally
I had an interesting email the other day from a large defence contractor trying to headhunt me. I’m in a shortage area of engineering so I get these from time to time. However, what’s interesting is that the recruiter explicitly played up the WFH aspect. Last time I worked in defence trying to WFH was a nearly implausible nightmare. I think if major security restricted firms are now openly advertising roles as WFH friendly this might be here to stay. I’ve actually been surprised how much engineering I was able to do from home (although my role is fieldwork heavy so it’s not been perfect).
So this is the other angle: The people who used to work from the office might be expected to go back, but people who are getting hired now are getting hired at least on the basis of WFH for now, and potentially on the basis of WFH forever. Even in the "WFH for now" case this is going to be quite hard to reverse unless the employee is enthusiastic about it, and the path of least resistance will be to carry on the same.
People will get fed up with WFH eventually.
You may get a balance of one or two days at home and other days at the office. Nothing to be frightened of.
WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.
My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.
Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.
Certainly.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.
I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.
The long-term consequences of WFH should be to distribute wealth and opportunity more evenly throughout the country. However, in the short term the main beneficiaries will be relatively well to do towns in existing big city commuter belts - largely the Home Counties, but also in parts of Cheshire, N Yorks and so on. Retford ain't going to become part of the land of milk and honey next week.
Up to a point, Lord Copper. Paying London salaries to people WFH in Dunny-on-the-Wold might spread wealth around but when those people resign, they will be replaced by locals on local salaries so the squillionaire business owner can move higher up the Forbes rankings. (Arguably DotW is still a bit better off than it would have been otherwise.)
And not just this country. If your job can be done remotely from your home in Yarmouth or Accrington then it can be done remotely from someone else's home in Sfântu Gheorghe and more cheaply too.
Offshoring has been a recent topic of discussion on here too. Myself, I'm sure that it will happen, but perhaps not on the scale that many fear. It's already been tried in a number of sectors, notably IT and call centres, and been far from a universal success.
It goes without saying that the amount people can earn from doing particular jobs will continue to depend on the price the market will pay for any given skill set, not on location. Clearly if an experienced worker in a specialist role moves from London to Powys and then subsequently resigns, the employer isn't going to hire an out-of-work shop assistant from Macynthlleth for the minimum wage to cover the gap. The employer should be able to save on the London weighting if the successor is working out of Powys (or Rutland, or Moray,) but that's about it.
Comments
Americans will be deciding whether they want to continue living in a functioning presidential democracy or a Trump family monarchy. If he gets four more years the republic is finished as a law abiding democracy imho.
One of his children will be on the ballot in 2024 and the election process will have been so rigged that they will win.
Levels of familiy breakdown and mental illness are lower almost throughout continental Europe.
But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.
Until we reach a point where we've either been vaccinated or we've decided not to worry about COVID-19, going to the office seems a bit pointless to me. I appreciate that having somewhere else to work is a good thing for some, and I'm glad that my work are taking steps to make it an option. But I don't see the point of going to the office just for the sake of doing it.
Johnson is a lucky politician. Maybe he is confident that a second wave can't happen on his watch.
Things were busy a couple of weeks back, but the loss of the first part of the summer season hit businesses hard (their compensation, such as it is, being based of course on year-round data so not great for seasonal businesses). But the recent weather has been diabolical and as you say autumn has arrived, leaving the remaining visitors trudging around miserably in wind and rain.
Any one of us could do a better job.
But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?
These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.
The fraud, now that WFH is the norm and there are limitless reasons for avoiding any particular commitment to time and place (got a cough etc), is to have multiple such full time non-jobs simultaneously.
Interesting that we have people simultaneously saying that the government shouldn't tell people what to do, but also need to embrace (and presumably therefore encourage, ie tell people what to do) home working for society.
But perhaps different unintended consequences will cancel each other out. The preference for large homes discriminates against urban workers but the need for fast broadband works against folk in big houses out in the sticks.
The interesting thing is, I don't get the sense that the Left are particularly keen on going into bat for them.
In time some employers will surely be looking at steps in this direction - indeed for work that involves logging via an office IT system (for example call centre WFH) the technology is already there.
Out in the sticks broadband starved big houses is a pretty negligible and shrinking demographic. I am broadcasting to you from the middle of Dartmoor and I have a choice of 15mbps landline and good 4g.
kle4 - Of course we are free to ignore government but I'd still prefer it if they didn't try to 'nudge' us on silly things anyway.
Also, I think I work better now that I'm not being woken up by my alarm every morning to get to the station early enough to have a comfortable (standing) journey to work.
A question which has just occurred to me; did Johnson know when he first started campaigning to be Mayor of London, that the Olympics were definitely coming?
I'd actually feel better about Johnson if he said frankly that things may or may not get better soon and as a country and a Government we are feeling our way through, rather than tiresome boosterism which is so obviously based on sand.
Out of work over 50s with average or better skills will probably find the new economy much better for getting work than the status quo was. It might be part time, but for most roles it will be a lot easier to train them and for them to wfh than it would to do the same for a university leaver which might be their competition.
- During the crisis = "the world will never be the same again"
- After the crisis = "everything seems to have gone back the way it was before"
- A decade or so after = "actually a lot of things started to change back there"
Ah yes. The real problem. So many of the friends of the Conservative Party own vast property portfolios. Big business suddenly has realised it doesn't need a big expensive office. Which collapses demand and with it values. This is Bad News for the friends of the party. So fuck the virus get everyone back into the office. Says Grant Shapps. From Home.
Companies will still need office space. They will be smaller and more flexible. Suspect many will also utilise regional hubs. People will still meet face to face - just less often. The economics of forcing people to waste money and productive time travelling to do something they can do without travelling is no longer viable. The restructuring of our economy offers plenty of commercial opportunities if you think about it, and the more profitable use of time and the more profitable use of money not being spaffed up against the wall in pointless commuting and twatty coffee will be a gain.
Tell the oligarchs to do one.
Interesting that the crisis started with those in power telling everyone else to stay at home whilst conspicuously failing to do so themselves - leading to a fair few high profile infection cases. Now those same people are telling everyone else to get back to work whilst still staying well away from the office themselves!
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jul/06/olympics2012.olympicgames1
Boris became Conservative choice for Mayor in 2007, sfaict from skimming biographies of Boris and David Cameron.
Many people think we cant cope with 250k immigrants, the vast majority of whom already end up in cities. How will the complainers feel if its 1m people a year leaving cities and competing for rural houses, schools and hospitals?
Boosterism at least only means he is pilloried by some of the press, some of the public, and the opposition.
We expect and demand our politicians be omniscient and omnipotent (though we may try to claim otherwise), as we react poorly to any hint they are uncertain or they are not confident in a plan, or that their own plans may not eliminate all problems.
Sure it is still the fault of a political leader to take the easy route and pander in that situation, but there's a reason they do it, and it's because we punish the opposite.
Pleasant day to all, time for some sun.
Most of the people commenting on how great WFH has been are commenting from a personal perspective and from the perspective as a member of staff. And, frankly, a lot of this is not people having an epiphany on the joys of home working, but who would have always taken such opportunity if they could do so, we’re it not for employer resistance.
There is less from employers/managers, many of whom may be desperate to get their staff back to the office, in some numbers and at least on a part time basis, who at the moment do not feel they can compel their staff to do so. And will welcome any Govt support on the matter they can get.
You could call it...a pub.
Lets stop calling it work from home and refer to it in its completed state - flexible working. Business likes flexible working as it saves costs and makes its employees happy. Employees like flexible working as it saves costs and makes work something more tolerable. The money that will not be wasted on vast offices not needed and commuting not needed and twatty coffee not needed can be used more productively in the economy on something that is needed.
This is basic market capitalism. The Tories don't get it apparently. Then again "fuck business". What would Thatcher be doing? Demanding we hold back economic progress and keep making crap cars and digging coal? Which is the comparable to the guff that ministers (sat at home the massive hypocrites) are coming out with saying go back to the office to save Pret. Fuck Pret.
Edit: but not trying to score points. The immediate point is valid for many poeople.
This is a very thought-provoking discussion thread - a change from the squabbles we sometimes get here.
This is a critical factor the government hasn't considered. There were literally thousands of contributions in the Mail yesterday along the lines "London and the property owners don't like it ? Then tough. This is how we're going revive our our own small town."
Events, dear boy, events, and here an unintended consequence of the covid lockdown has been to create a new anti-metropolitan, anti-commuting localism.
But whereas the manufacturing towns were 'up north' the service sector job losses will be happening within a few miles of Westminster.
Now add in the racial factor - the job losses will be concentrated among BAME and other immigrant communities. Do we see in the 2020s a UK equivalent of the 'great migration' ?
However cafes and small shops in market towns and villages and suburbs where the Tory vote is concentrated have ironically been boosted as more workers working from home have been around at lunchtime or the early evening to shop there in the week
Trump's approval rating now just 38% in the West and 42% in the North East but his approval rating is up to 46% in the Midwest and 48% in the South
I had an interesting email the other day from a large defence contractor trying to headhunt me. I’m in a shortage area of engineering so I get these from time to time. However, what’s interesting is that the recruiter explicitly played up the WFH aspect. Last time I worked in defence trying to WFH was a nearly implausible nightmare. I think if major security restricted firms are now openly advertising roles as WFH friendly this might be here to stay. I’ve actually been surprised how much engineering I was able to do from home (although my role is fieldwork heavy so it’s not been perfect).
https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/
The latest data for the UK is that travel for retail and recreation is down 11% from the baseline, compared to a 40% decline back in July. Supermarket and pharmacy has been pretty consistent (over July/Aug) at 14% down, public transport consistent 44% down, workplaces 48% down. The published data has tons of local breakdowns.
Comparing for example Germany, retail categories pretty much back to normal, public transport -18%, workplaces -27%.
Or Italy, again retail normal, transport -27%, workplaces -37%.
Or the US, retail down 13%, public transport (probably not a very useful indicator in an American context) -32%, workplaces -37%.
I clicked on a few others but couldn't find any that had a decline in workplace mobility as large as the UK.
The Tory right is very happy attacking workshy Brits who they whine are less productive than foreign types. People were knackered and broken - the status quo ante the government are demanding we return to wasn't working either for people or the companies they worked for or the wider economy. You want to make people more productive? Allow flexible working.
Places which have cheap housing, good communications and some nice countryside nearby tick boxes for many people.
I suspect we'll see even more new housing being built around the likes of Retford.
What will happen in the grotty urban core of such towns I don't know.
And not just this country. If your job can be done remotely from your home in Yarmouth or Accrington then it can be done remotely from someone else's home in Sfântu Gheorghe and more cheaply too.
Most of those workers also have degrees and professional qualifications, you cannot outsource those unless to workers similarly qualified
America is so f***ed.
It goes without saying that the amount people can earn from doing particular jobs will continue to depend on the price the market will pay for any given skill set, not on location. Clearly if an experienced worker in a specialist role moves from London to Powys and then subsequently resigns, the employer isn't going to hire an out-of-work shop assistant from Macynthlleth for the minimum wage to cover the gap. The employer should be able to save on the London weighting if the successor is working out of Powys (or Rutland, or Moray,) but that's about it.