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We need to adopt a no-commute culture

Elessar

Interesting article in the IT today from a software firm CEO that talks about the need for a no-commute culture here. He argues that with climate change and the work life balance cost of commuting, incoming generations of workers will demand remote working jobs and it might even be the next big thing in attracting talent.

He makes a good point of the likes of Facebook, Google & Microsoft buying up properties in the city for hundreds of millions of euro, only to have their staff commute in and use the company cloud services to do their job. Which could easily be done from home.

What's AH's take on it? Would no commute be an incentive for you in a job?

Link: https://www.irishtimes.com/business/innovation/chris-horn-we-need-to-adopt-a-no-commute-culture-1.4110977

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[Deleted User]

The next big thing...working from home person complaining that their partner thinks because they are at home all-day the housework should be done and dinner made :P

[Deleted User]

two lads reporting to me, we're in the same room.

i can see if things are getting done or not without lifting my head, and the printer is for ryanair tickets only.

everything we use is already accessed online or could be

not sure weve approached each others desks all year but to talk football, and we do most of that over whatsapp.

eastie17

Absolutes are never the answer.
Most workplaces that are office based encourage some of it.
but too much of it and the person can become isolated. A few years ago HP almost mandated home working, it nearly broke them.

This excerpt from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/when-working-from-home-doesnt-work/540660/ article sums up the differences best for me:

If it’s personal productivity—how many sales you close or customer complaints you handle—then the research, on balance, suggests that it’s probably better to let people work where and when they want. For jobs that mainly require interactions with clients (consultant, insurance salesman) or don’t require much interaction at all (columnist), the office has little to offer besides interruption.

But other types of work hinge on what might be called “collaborative efficiency”—the speed at which a group successfully solves a problem. And distance seems to drag collaborative efficiency down. Why? The short answer is that collaboration requires communication. And the communications technology offering the fastest, cheapest, and highest-bandwidth connection is—for the moment, anyway—still the office.

[Deleted User]

the answer i keep getting when i ask when working 2 days a week or whatever from home is going to become available in my dept- unions object to it!

hots

low-commute not no-commute for most is the best scenario imo, there's still benefit to face-to-face understanding, benefit to socialising with people or chatting sh/t in general. WFH is great but 100% WFH isn't for most people.

ancapailldorcha

Is there not a risk of increasing social isolation, though? It all sounds great but this idea of encouraging more people to spend less time around others would probably have its own set of consequences.

Duke of Url

Deleted User wrote: »

the answer i keep getting when i ask when working 2 days a week or whatever from home is going to become available in my dept- unions object to it!

When you are talking about remote working.

What line of business are you talking about?

[Deleted User]

Monitoring is changing though.

As one of my daughter's work is mostly on the computer its remotely monitored in some way her boss does not need to come near her, if he does not want, she can look at the monitoring herself she printed it off and showed it to me its graphs and the like I am not sure exactly how it works but suspect as long as the employee stays above a certain baseline they are left alone.

CelticRambler

Deleted User wrote: »

and the printer is for ryanair tickets only.

People are still printing transport tickets on paper? :eek:

[Deleted User]

Duke of Url wrote: »

When you are talking about remote working.

What line of business are you talking about?

project/helpdesk management specifically

public sector in a wider sense

other posts- agree that 100% remote working aint necessarily the aim, disagree that "remote working" means "no time around people"

ohnonotgmail

I have the option of working from home when i want. I never avail of it. Work is work and home is home.

[Deleted User]

eastie17 wrote: »

Absolutes are never the answer.
Most workplaces that are office based encourage some of it.
but too much of it and the person can become isolated. A few years ago HP almost mandated home working, it nearly broke them.

This excerpt from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/when-working-from-home-doesnt-work/540660/ article sums up the differences best for me:

If it’s personal productivity—how many sales you close or customer complaints you handle—then the research, on balance, suggests that it’s probably better to let people work where and when they want. For jobs that mainly require interactions with clients (consultant, insurance salesman) or don’t require much interaction at all (columnist), the office has little to offer besides interruption.

But other types of work hinge on what might be called “collaborative efficiency”—the speed at which a group successfully solves a problem. And distance seems to drag collaborative efficiency down. Why? The short answer is that collaboration requires communication. And the communications technology offering the fastest, cheapest, and highest-bandwidth connection is—for the moment, anyway—still the office.

Complete remote working is not a good idea two days a week is ideal.

MaryKon

Right so, let's have a gander

*major shifts in housing market, everybody suddenly happy to live down the country and Dublin property value goes down
*major shift in business and purchasing habits due to increased demand in rural areas and the obvious decrease in Dub and the other 2 cities
*budget takes a hit from major drop in revenue from fuel, road tax, tolls, fines etc
*voters are now spread out across the country instead of one or two spots

Yeah, no. Not gonna happen.

[Deleted User]

Deleted User wrote: »

project/helpdesk management specifically

public sector in a wider sense

other posts- agree that 100% remote working aint necessarily the aim, disagree that "remote working" means "no time around people"

The public services will the very very last to do anything like this and may never adopt it dut to the unions.

Duke of Url

mariaalice wrote: »

Monitoring is changing though.

As one of my daughter's work is mostly on the computer its remotely monitored in some way her boss does not need to come near her, if he does not want, she can look at the monitoring herself she printed it off and showed it to me its graphs and the like I am not sure exactly how it works but suspect as long as the employee stays above a certain baseline they are left alone.

So your daughter works from home. She then prints out monitoring data (Confidential?) and shows that to someone outside her organisation( You)?

Stevieluvsye

Imagine Civil Servants being allowed to work from home............Fcuk sake

Bawnmore

I work from home 99% of the time (travel 30 mins for face to face meetings sometimes and to client sites other times) and will find it very difficult to go back to being in an office. Before now, I've worked for a mix of big corporations (Microsoft, Dell, HP) and small agencies. That said, there have been people who started with us who it didn't suit due to feelings of isolation and difficulty keeping motivated (he says, typing a forum post at 10.33).

arctictree

My wifes workplace tried to bring in a working from home policy. Union objected to it massively. Were talking about insurance, health and safety etc etc. Idea was abandoned eventually.

[Deleted User]

seamus wrote: »

The crux of the management issue is this:
A dosser will doss whether they're at home or at work. At work they'll just find better ways to doss and be a bigger drain on company money than if they sit at home dossing.
If someone thinks that an employee can be considered to be "working" on the basis that they're at their desk from 9-5:30, then either the employee doesn't do anything, or the manager hasn't a clue how to manage people.

Pretty much although there's also the aspect of responsibility and accountability. If the employees are at their desks, then the manager is ultimately responsible for their performance and behavior. If the employees are at home, then the manager is no longer the central focus for upper management.

I worked for a financial company who introduced working from home for the whole department, and paid for the upgrades to peoples infrastructure to ensure that they'd be available to work. Massive failure.

People who work in IT are expected from the beginning to work to deadlines that they tend to set for themselves, and project management is an essential part of their work. That allows them to knuckle down and do the work from home, ignoring all the distractions. In our case, with people from various financial backgrounds, many people didn't focus on their jobs, the way they would have in the office. They succumbed to distractions making incredible excuses for their failures. These are professionals with the intention to progress upwards for promotions, not people just doing a job. Not dossers, since dossers typically pick less stressful roles.

In the office, the number of excuses and distractions are limited, and can be managed. Outside, not so much. But you're right in that it comes down to the manager. Personally, I don't think it works for many job types unless we start educating people in how to effectively manage themselves, starting in school as opposed to waiting for them to begin working before learning how to do it. In spite of a decade working, it's only once I started writing books, that I learned to manage myself properly.

[Deleted User]

MaryKon wrote: »

Right so, let's have a gander

*major shifts in housing market, everybody suddenly happy to live down the country and Dublin property value goes down
*major shift in business and purchasing habits due to increased demand in rural areas and the obvious decrease in Dub and the other 2 cities
*budget takes a hit from major drop in revenue from fuel, road tax, tolls, fines etc
*voters are now spread out across the country instead of one or two spots

Yeah, no. Not gonna happen.

feel this is likely to be a "thing", definitely

nkl12xtw5goz70

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Is there not a risk of increasing social isolation, though? It all sounds great but this idea of encouraging more people to spend less time around others would probably have its own set of consequences.

Possibly for people who find work to be a core social outlet — but for others it would mean being able to spend more time with their family and in their communities as opposed to spending hours every day commuting.

Some commuters barely see their family during the work week and that creates its own sense of isolation.

The Irish government is to develop guidelines for remote working, based on government research that found many people would like to avail of it. 60% say that it would improve their work-life balance.

ancapailldorcha

Rayden Hollow Hanger wrote: »

Possibly for people who find work to be a core social outlet — but for others it would mean being able to spend more time with their family and in their communities as opposed to spending hours every day commuting.

Some commuters barely see their family during the work week and that creates its own sense of isolation.

The Irish government is to develop guidelines for remote working, based on government research that found many people would like to avail of it. 60% say that it would improve their work-life balance.

Good point. I was picturing people who move to big cities to start careers.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

seamus wrote: »

The crux of the management issue is this:
A dosser will doss whether they're at home or at work. At work they'll just find better ways to doss and be a bigger drain on company money than if they sit at home dossing.
If someone thinks that an employee can be considered to be "working" on the basis that they're at their desk from 9-5:30, then either the employee doesn't do anything, or the manager hasn't a clue how to manage people.

Nah, I’d be much more likely to doss at home. I know this from experience. Being in a workplace gave me focus. Some people are more suited to working from home than others. Like anything, it’s not black and white.

[Deleted User]

Duke of Url wrote: »

So your daughter works from home. She then prints out monitoring data (Confidential?) and shows that to someone outside her organisation( You)?

She dose work from home at the moment but is going to do one day a week but as her, partner works from home three days a week they are going to try and not overlap.

Its not private information its her work, only her and her boss have access to it.

No third parties are named in the reports.

Stevieluvsye

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

Nah, I’d be much more likely to doss at home. I know this from experience. Being in a workplace gave me focus. Some people are more suited to working from home than others. Like anything, it’s not black and white.

This is correct. I have colleagues who literally can't work from home(and they have the choice to) as they know they'll do fcuk all. Personally i work from home 4 days a week and choose to go in either Thursday or Friday.

bee06

I could work from home with how my job is but I hate doing it. It’s so much easier to get things done when you can actually talk to someone face to face. Much easier to ignore an email compared to someone at your desk.

Duke of Url

mariaalice wrote: »

She dose work from home at the moment but is going to do one day a week but as her, partner works from home three days a week they are going to try and not overlap.

Its not private information its her work, only her and her boss have access to it.

No third parties are named in the reports.

Do you work for the company also?

If not then third parties do have access to it. She showed you the monitoring data in relation to her.

Im sure the only people who that should be visible to is her manager and her.

This is the point im making about companies strict security polices where there is more control within a Workplace environment then home working.

[Deleted User]

How come for major financial institutions its not a problem all the health and safety issues, GDPR solved but for the civil service its a big union issue.

Kintarō Hattori

Between fuel and tolls it's costing me around €300 a month to go to the office where I work online for the whole day. It's just as easily accessed from home or anywhere in the world so I'd certainly be all for no commuting, especially as it'd save me about 2 hours per day as well.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

bee06 wrote: »

I could work from home with how my job is but I hate doing it. It’s so much easier to get things done when you can actually talk to someone face to face. Much easier to ignore an email compared to someone at your desk.

And I just like home to be home. I like the separation of work and living spaces.