If Work From Home becomes a thing...

KyussB

Long term working from home = your employers will make you a contractor, not an employee - and even if your current employer has difficulty doing that, any new job you take up, will only hire you as a contractor if you'll be working from home.

Once the workforce is atomized like this, you become disposable like e.g. Deliveroo workers - your employer can shove a huge chunk of equipment/utility cost on to you - you lose all side-benefits you'd get as an employee - you sort out your own pension, no company contributions if you previously had that - you are available 24/7, not from 9-to-5 - some jobsworth managers, who need something to do to justify their jobs/existence, will use intrusive monitoring/tracking to 'verify' you are really working, or just to spy on what you're doing out of curiosity, on your own home devices (which are piss easy to access over your local network - any corporate VPN software can trivially be configured to access your LAN - most of this intrusiveness will in many cases be through mandatorily installing tracking apps yourself).

You're not going to be an employee much longer - you're going to be a contractor, with your employer being able to fuck you over a lot more, because you're just this depersonalized thing behind a screen, who can't really do much to defend himself/herself when constantly under the threat of unemployment, and isolated away socially from all other workers and unable to unionize.

Good luck with that...you think having a shit employer in a physical workspace is bad? Wait until you've got a shit employer that's so bad, that they can intrude on every hour of your waking day, in your own home.

...... If the above spiel started to happen contractor retention would be difficult good candidates would be headhunted for staff roles. It won't happen in skilled roles IMO.

Might happen in call centre type gigs which are poor if you are staff or contract.

Sunny Disposition

bilbot79 wrote: »

This isn't unfeasible at all

Dublin gaff 550 splits into

Irish countryside gaff - 300
Pad 1 abroad - 125
Pad 2 abroad -125

What's up doc?

This is the problem though when peoples property booms, they generally don’t realise it until it’s too late! Most people won’t sell at the sweet spot, they always think it’ll improve.

bilbot79

KyussB wrote: »

Long term working from home = your employers will make you a contractor, not an employee - and even if your current employer has difficulty doing that, any new job you take up, will only hire you as a contractor if you'll be working from home.

Once the workforce is atomized like this, you become disposable like e.g. Deliveroo workers - your employer can shove a huge chunk of equipment/utility cost on to you - you lose all side-benefits you'd get as an employee - you sort out your own pension, no company contributions if you previously had that - you are available 24/7, not from 9-to-5 - some jobsworth managers, who need something to do to justify their jobs/existence, will use intrusive monitoring/tracking to 'verify' you are really working, or just to spy on what you're doing out of curiosity, on your own home devices (which are piss easy to access over your local network - any corporate VPN software can trivially be configured to access your LAN - most of this intrusiveness will in many cases be through mandatorily installing tracking apps yourself).

You're not going to be an employee much longer - you're going to be a contractor, with your employer being able to fuck you over a lot more, because you're just this depersonalized thing behind a screen, who can't really do much to defend himself/herself when constantly under the threat of unemployment, and isolated away socially from all other workers and unable to unionize.

Good luck with that...you think having a shit employer in a physical workspace is bad? Wait until you've got a shit employer that's so bad, that they can intrude on every hour of your waking day, in your own home.

That's very negative now.

You make out like employers are just going to have all the power but that's not true. The workforce needs to be engaged, to belong, to be part of the company's future in order to perform. If they only needed contractors then they would already be using Asian workers through Upwork etc

KyussB

How can anyone feel as if they 'belong' to a company they are never physically at? When you work from home, you're identical to any other worker anywhere in the world, as far as your employers are concerned.

Biker79

KyussB wrote: »

How can anyone feel as if they 'belong' to a company they are never physically at? When you work from home, you're identical to any other worker anywhere in the world, as far as your employers are concerned.

This is a good point. It's a particular problem when you factor in a medium to high staff turnover.

As long as human beings work at a company, it needs some sort of culture to bind people together. Otherwise, its a legal entity with a few people at the top and staffed by ( in effect ) ai-bots.

If most company tasks can be automated and all you are to your colleagues is a Teams\ Zoom\Slack login...what will bind you to other people to create a culture?

If that problem can be solved through, for example, an effective online culture and occasional meet-ups....then it can probably work for the majority of staff.

I still think the higher value employees will get more of the face to face meeting time, along with space at the offices. With the lower value roles relegated to almost permanent WFH (and thus being more disposable).

JimmyVik

Be careful.
One guy I work with moved to west Mayo about 5 years ago and works from home. He wanted to leave for over a year now but cannot get a job that lets him work from home. There are jobs but paying half what he gets paid now, so he is kind of stuck.

Jim Root

JimmyVik wrote: »

Be careful.
One guy I work with moved to west Mayo about 5 years ago and works from home. He wanted to leave for over a year now but cannot get a job that lets him work from home. There are jobs but paying half what he gets paid now, so he is kind of stuck.

Guy I know moved to the back end of Waterford and commuted 2 days a month was suddenly surprised when his pay the following year didn’t increase in line with the Dublin employees. Was crying blue murder.

JimmyVik

Jim Root wrote: »

Guy I know moved to the back end of Waterford and commuted 2 days a month was suddenly surprised when his pay the following year didn’t increase in line with the Dublin employees. Was crying blue murder.

That happened with the guy I work with too. Thats part of the reason he wanted to leave in the first place. Felt hard done by.

Niamh:>)

jrosen wrote: »

I think this is a little naive. Most companies who have work from home policies will have it stated in your contract that your children must be either in childcare or under the care of another adult in the house.

What happens when your getting the kids up, fed, lunches made and all the usual morning chaos? what happens when they come home from school?
The huge benefit with WFH is the commute. Anyone with kids will still need childcare to some degree.

Well I was talking about working around school hours, and maybe my husband doing the morning shift with the kids. I was never trying to say I could work with the kids here, but flexibility is the key , for both of us. I mean I’m doing that now and the kids are here !

gazzer

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Really? Where did you get this from?

I'm hearing the exact opposite, that WFH is here to stay, and we have to find ways to make it work.

Same. I work in the Civil Service and we have basically been told that for the rest of the year at least we will only be coming into the office once a week (one staff member per pod of 4 desks) and WFH the rest of the time. Though prior to COVID it was very hard to be allowed wfh even once a week. Mad how its been turned on its head in just a few months.

M256

KyussB wrote: »

How can anyone feel as if they 'belong' to a company they are never physically at? When you work from home, you're identical to any other worker anywhere in the world, as far as your employers are concerned.

If you work for a multinational it is very likely that most of your day you collaborate with colleagues in different countries without having met them, like never. You lose 2 hours a day in traffic only to sit all day in Skype in the office.

Jim2007

KyussB wrote: »

How can anyone feel as if they 'belong' to a company they are never physically at? When you work from home, you're identical to any other worker anywhere in the world, as far as your employers are concerned.

Why do you need to feel you belong to a company in the first place? My family, my friends and my local community very much so, but a company no. It’s an economic arrangement, I’m not there to socialize or be popular, I’m there to do a job and get well paid for doing it.

Addle

gazzer wrote: »

Same. I work in the Civil Service and we have basically been told that for the rest of the year at least we will only be coming into the office once a week (one staff member per pod of 4 desks) and WFH the rest of the time. Though prior to COVID it was very hard to be allowed wfh even once a week. Mad how its been turned on its head in just a few months.

It’s a great opportunity for departments to embrace change, but as usual, there are vast disparities between departments and even offices within departments.
Our manager can’t wait to have us back in the office full time, even though the response to wfh has been nothing but positive.

Biker79

Jim2007 wrote: »

Why do you need to feel you belong to a company in the first place? My family, my friends and my local community very much so, but a company no. It’s an economic arrangement, I’m not there to socialize or be popular, I’m there to do a job and get well paid for doing it.

Depends on the organisation. Many will place value in business/ cross-functional relationships. Being productive can be hard without having built effective relationships.

Is it possible to build relationships while WFH? Possibly...but with challenges.

Is it easier to do this in traditional bricks and mortar with face to face contact? Definitely.

If your work is reduced to tasks that can be done remotely on a permanent basis, you are in a weaker position in terms of the value you add to a company. Which makes your job less valuable over time.

Just last Friday I saw one of our perm WFH get dumped with a load of extra menial tasks because somebody had to do them and that person had the least amount of leverage within the Team.

Not talking about Public/ Civil service here, but a private tech company.

mvl

Niamh:>) wrote: »

Well I was talking about working around school hours, and maybe my husband doing the morning shift with the kids. I was never trying to say I could work with the kids here, but flexibility is the key , for both of us. I mean I’m doing that now and the kids are here !

I think it depends on your role and company's policies: some companies have core hours which don't take into account the times of school drops/collections (I know my employer has these core hours; e.g. I had to organize after school activities all the primary school, as I have recurrent meetings with staff abroad after 14h/15h).
-also, I have seen this being abused by a percentage of parents in the company I work for, I guess I am quite judgemental of that: what about the employees who don't have kids ... why anyone elses work should be affected because someone is not available due to kids related activities ?!? Your kids, your responsibility; if it doesn't suit, there is also the option of reducing working hours.

Biker79

M256 wrote: »

If you work for a multinational it is very likely that most of your day you collaborate with colleagues in different countries without having met them, like never. You lose 2 hours a day in traffic only to sit all day in Skype in the office.

In that case, your job can be marked by head office in the States for automation.

With current tech, somebody chatting on Skype can be replaced by a chat-bot, once their tasks within MS Office are automated.

PirateShampoo

I wouldn't be in a rush to work from home. How long until they realise they can get a chap in Eastern Europe or Asia or where ever to do the same job for a fraction of the wages.

You cease being a physical entity for the company, just a bot down the end of a wire costing them money.

Stheno

Biker79 wrote: »

In that case, your job can be marked by head office in the States for automation.

With current tech, somebody chatting on Skype can be replaced by a chat-bot, once their tasks within MS Office are automated.

I think this is a somewhat simplistic view, particularly in IT, a lot of the jobs there would not be ready candidates for automation especially at more senior levels

strandroad

Biker79 wrote: »

In that case, your job can be marked by head office in the States for automation.

With current tech, somebody chatting on Skype can be replaced by a chat-bot, once their tasks within MS Office are automated.

No, that's incorrect. You're still working on projects with all the associated decision making and bespoke work, the fact that you can meet via video rather than face to face to collaborate doesn't make it a routine scripted task.

mvl

Biker79 wrote: »

In that case, your job can be marked by head office in the States for automation.
With current tech, somebody chatting on Skype can be replaced by a chat-bot, once their tasks within MS Office are automated.

ahh, sorry, but that is a simplistic view of what activities might happen on that chat: you can have architecture / research related activities by virtual teams already, these are the ones enabling the automation you are about - so would be automated last ?!?

KaneToad

Mr.S wrote: »

Will it though? People don't live in the city (centre) just to be near work.

Will the city centres not evolve to be less centric. If employees were to move out en masse, there would be a commensurate reduction reduction in shops / restaurants / gyms / bars etc...? Will we end up with smaller cities and larger urban towns?

Biker79

Biker79 wrote: »

In that case, your job can be marked by head office in the States for automation.

With current tech, somebody chatting on Skype can be replaced by a chat-bot, once their tasks within MS Office are automated.

They could be collaborating with a sister site about projects or even project managing remotely.

Chat bots aren't exactly capable of much.
And loads of folk aren't working on automatable MS tasks all day.

tastyt

Love people trying to convince themselves how important and skilled their jobs are compared to others

Yes, you can’t be done without, your company is different

dark crystal

jrosen wrote: »

What happens when your getting the kids up, fed, lunches made and all the usual morning chaos? what happens when they come home from school?
The huge benefit with WFH is the commute. Anyone with kids will still need childcare to some degree.

I start work at 9 when my child has already been dressed and had breakfast and is in school. I could defer my lunch until 2.15, collect him from school, be home by 2.45 and continue working while he's doing homework, having a snack etc. Finish work at 5. There's no adjustments to be made to my working day there besides taking my lunch an hour later. Only difference being, now I don't have the cost of after school childcare.

Now my son is almost 11, so that bit older. I would imagine parents of younger children may need more support, but regardless, WFH would save me money and make me a happier employee as a result.

I work in the civil service and productivity in our particular office has been through the roof since WFH was implemented. At least four of my colleagues have cancelled the shorter working year they had previously booked for Easter/summer, thus more productivity from them also. I go into the office twice a month to the necessary filing, taking phone calls as rostered etc. and it's been working out great for everyone.

There's only one or two people who would prefer to be in the office, but the vast majority of us are thriving doing the vast majority of our work from home. I really really hope it's here to stay!

Stheno

Stheno wrote: »

I think this is a somewhat simplistic view, particularly in IT, a lot of the jobs there would not be ready candidates for automation especially at more senior levels

What senior gigs can be readily automated?

Biker79

mvl wrote: »

ahh, sorry, but that is a simplistic view of what activities might happen on that chat: you can have architecture / research-related activities by virtual teams already, these are the ones enabling the automation you are about - so would be automated last ?!?

Obviously, not all roles in a multinational or any other commercial company are research or IT Architecture related.

I'm talking about the majority of roles in an organisation that are support based and not revenue-generating.

These are the ones that are already susceptible to automation and WFH might only hasten this eventuality. The tech, btw, is already here. It's increasingly affordable and becoming less complex to implement.

This was already on the horizon before COVID-19.

Stheno

Augeo wrote: »

What senior gigs can be readily automated?

Do you mean cant?

Stheno

Stheno wrote: »

I think this is a somewhat simplistic view, particularly in IT, a lot of the jobs there would not be ready candidates for automation especially at more senior levels

Stheno wrote: »

Do you mean cant?

No, I don't mean can't.
You made a point that particularly in IT a lot of the jobs there would not be ready candidates for automation especially at more senior levels.

I asked what senior gigs can be readily automated ........ to clarify, I'm referring to outside IT.

Stheno

Augeo wrote: »

No, I don't mean can't.
You made a point that particularly in IT a lot of the jobs there would not be ready candidates for automation especially at more senior levels.

I asked what senior gigs can be readily automated ........ to clarify, I'm referring to outside IT.

Ah outside IT I wouldn't know tbh it was IT I was specifically referring to, sorry