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Working From Home Megathread

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    School buses are mainly a rural thing. Kids would have to get on the normal DB to go to school. A higher percentage would be within walking/cycling distance than rural areas though, just due to higher population density.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    Would you not say that on average someone living in a very rural area would drive a lot more than someone in a town or city? We have a single car and put about €50 a month into it, I wouldn't even think about the cost of fuel.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 949 ✭✭✭gauchesnell


    true but it depends on your interpretation of walking/cycling distance though. Wrong to suggest people cars more in rural areas - people use cars differently,



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 949 ✭✭✭gauchesnell


    no absolutely not - I was never driven to school and that isnt a thing still for anyone I know who still lives where I grew up (family or friends). As I said driving to shops is done less - just a larger shop but again people bike more. Travelling to events - especially school events are done by bus. A lot more cycling aswell. Why would you drive to a shop a couple of miles away when you would cycle. There isnt a lot of individual parents driving their kids to gaa training for example. There is a bus.

    Again depends where exactly you live and personal choice but remove the whole driving to school thing and that will remove a chunk of driving time for a lot of people.

    My own kids are grown and Im very lucky I never had to drive them to school despite living in Dublin. Walked/public transport but I know that isnt an option for everyone. School buses in rural ireland are just for school kids not everyday commuters like Dublin bus. A resource really.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    Anecdotes are all well and good, but you need to look at the larger picture.

    "Outside of the 'Cities' less than 2% of people travelling to work, school, or college do so by bicycle.

    Nearly 3 million workers and students commuted in 2016, an increase of 9.3% on the 2011 figure of 2.7 million and a rise of 62% since 1986.

    Driving a car was the most popular way to commute in 2011 and in 2016, although the proportion fell from 41.6% to 40.6%, with a drop in each of the urban areas and rise in each of the rural areas, (see Figure 8.1). The lowest proportion of commuters who drove a car was 33.6% in ‘Cities’ in 2016 with the highest at 48.2% in ‘Rural areas with high urban influence’.

    Walking was the second most popular way to commute for people living in ‘Cities’ at 20.1% in 2016. Travelling by car as a passenger was the second most popular method in every other type of area, with the highest proportion of 25.2% in ‘Rural areas with high urban influence’.

    The highest proportion of commuters in 2016 who cycled was 6.1% in ‘Cities’, in contrast to between 0.5%-0.7% of commuters in the three rural areas."


    You also need to look at the additional cost/inefficiency in providing services in rural areas, smaller schools, subsidised bus service, the need to have a broadband plan to provide broadband to areas where it would be uneconomic, etc.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 949 ✭✭✭gauchesnell


    all valid points - nothing is perfect. Remote working doesnt mean or require you to work in rural area. You can continue to live in rural area but remote work from a larger town if needed (like the artcile mentioned a local hub). The variations are endless

    Would I want to return to a rural area myself - no. Not for me. But rural doesnt mean isolated or more dependent on a car. Also in respect the schools the scope is wider - I didnt attend school in the same county as where I lived growing up. Why - because we had to. The small local school closed.



  • Posts: 14,769 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    You are asking what an employer can do if an employee repeatedly fails to attend for work. What can employers normally do? What they actually do depends on whether they want that employee to stay, or not.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 543 ✭✭✭Young_gunner


    I’m not sure it’ll be quite as simple as that - the employee could argue that they are performing their duties - would any employer want that publicity?

    I feel the great WFH experiment has changed how these cases could be viewed



  • Posts: 14,769 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    The Government published reasons why employers could refuse wfh, why would the WRC rule against an employer who followed Government guidelines? In relation to publicity, would it really be noteworthy? Lots of people don’t want to go back to offices and will either quit or be let go, such is life.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,348 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    The Census data disagrees with you. We have on average, one girl in each secondary school cycling to school. The Census data shows this to be a car bound lifestyle.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 949 ✭✭✭gauchesnell


    yeah I dont care 🤣🤣 Girls not cycling to school isnt anything to do with rural or urban area or remote working. I hope you know that. Im a woman so I dont need CSO data to explain why that is.



  • Posts: 695 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    If you dont realise remote working will create as many opportunities for employers to save money as it will employees you are very naive.

    You seem to think employees can rock up to wotk this morning, say hi to their colleagues, pick up a laptop and rock home.

    The employer is then stuck in a contract to pay office space.

    Nothing to stop him saying you changed the working contract by refusing to attend at the workplace he is paying for, he says working from home doesnt suit him so he isnt paying you.

    You then need to find a wfh job, he tries to get staff willing to be office based, if he cant then he either closes down or he gets WFH staff at a cheaper rate, why would he pay you iif he can get cheaper labour elsewhere, after all the only difference between you and someone in India is the benefit of your presence in an office, if you are WFH that might as well be Mumbai or Finglas, its all the same to him, only thing that will matter is the salary costs.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 543 ✭✭✭Young_gunner


    I guess time will tell - I just don't see it being that straightforward. Most companies are averse to legal action and consequent potential reputation damage



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,963 ✭✭✭✭Cyrus


    People cant just throw their hands up and say i bought a house down the country what can i do. If their place of work is mandated as the office a number of days a week and they dont show then its easy enough to sack them, if they have any integrity they would leave before it came to that.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,963 ✭✭✭✭Cyrus


    Your everyone in the country cycles everywhere myth has been debunked, so even though you are a women, you dont know everything 😉



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 543 ✭✭✭Young_gunner


    but people can and will do that, i'm not sure it'll be that easy to sack them



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,644 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    Turn off their VPN access on the days they are supposed to be in the office: being in there will be the only way they can do the job that day.

    If they aren't in, they won't get the job done.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,963 ✭✭✭✭Cyrus


    of course it will, you cant just not turn up to the office if required.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    I can't see them doing that, but anyone whose pay includes a discretionary element/bonus might see an effect there. I think private companies will take action, not sure what they will do exactly. I have put a couple of people on PIP in the past and it was relatively straightforward, just need to make sure the process is giving them a chance to improve and all documentation is in place.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,288 ✭✭✭TaurenDruid


    Contract? Lol - good one! Civil servants don't get individual contracts. They do get 47 different circulars dating back to the 1920s, but that's not the same.

    The person in question should have insisted on something in writing. The public service is talking (slowly) about blended working, which to management apparently means some staff can work from home one day a week, if their job allows it. Yer man needs to request a transfer to a civil service office in Limerick.

    ===
    boards.ie default cookie settings now include "legitimate interest" for >200 companies, unless you specifically opted out!



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 543 ✭✭✭Young_gunner


    but what does 'required' mean if their output has been perfect over the last 2 years? it's muddy water is all I'm saying.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 543 ✭✭✭Young_gunner


    An employer acting so vindictively could be open a can of worms - constructive dismissal?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,739 ✭✭✭storker


    It's remarkable how creative you can be when seeking to shaft employees: turn off VPN access, schedule meetings for school run time. Imagine if you could channel that into creating a happy rather than a coerced workforce.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,288 ✭✭✭TaurenDruid



    Employer wants to expand. They can: a) pay a load for a new lease; or b) allow staff to WFH at least some of the time, and hotdesk when in the office. Nothing at all to stop them taking on staff in Mumbai, directly, or on contract - except whatever stopped them from doing so before COVID. I know I've certainly stipulated in contracts before that the support being provided had to be based in Ireland. Salary costs are one thing, so also are customer satisfaction, word of mouth, etc.

    ===
    boards.ie default cookie settings now include "legitimate interest" for >200 companies, unless you specifically opted out!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,897 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    Yea they seem to be stuck in the dark ages but I could see this coming a mile off. Fluffy vague talk is a lot different from defined structures



  • Posts: 14,769 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    If the employees contract states their workplace is in an office, and the employer is unable to grant a request for wfh on at least one of the grounds laid out by the Government, why would it be any different to anyone else who refuses to attend their place of work?



  • Posts: 5,121 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Came into the office today. No reason other than just to see it and do something different. I thought that there would be a few people about in the docklands but it is absolutely dead. Clearly there is hardly anyone back in the office yet in professional services and tech firms



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,963 ✭✭✭✭Cyrus


    it means their place of work as defined by their employment contract, nothing at all muddy about it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 949 ✭✭✭gauchesnell


    not necessarily. A colleague won his case at the WRC after his contract was ended with my employer but he had verbal assurances from his manager it wouldnt be. Now this was backed up by numerous colleagues aswell so he had a lot of witness statements. There was no written evidence either way. He got back pay and got his job back aswell. Yes Im public sector.

    Not the same I know but it was interesting outcome all the same.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 543 ✭✭✭Young_gunner


    As I've said previously, I think Covid is a massive game changer in this whole debate. Employers will have a tough time taking legal / enforcement action assuming the individual has discharged their duties to a high standard over the last 2 years.



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