Working From Home Megathread

While checked out some people can have a lot of systems that need them (at least short term) . Hiring can take time or they may want a replacement.

While a checked out employee is not ideal it is sometimes still worth it for the company to have them there while tasks get transferred over. Even just having them around for troubleshooting while people learn new tasks is handy.

or even where someone's home environment is unsuitable for wfh.

Overcomplicate?

Everyone who signs up at https://connectedhubs.ie/ will be able to book three free days at a hub - or one free day at each of three hubs. Or whatever. This is frankly the least complicated way of doing it imaginable. No eligibility criteria, no regional allocations.

I've signed up: when I take a day's annual leave to work on my own projects, it could be handy to book an office-desk to work form.

My point is the majority wouldn't be spending 20-25 euro a day to travel to office(the actual price of the desk).

€10 a day is too much for most people. I would feel that in rural areas in particular there is scope to have remote work facilities as an adjunct to businesses. My son has opened a cafe with a separate area for remote work and I think this is the kind of thing that will work. The space wasn't used anyway, and now typically you 5-6 people a day working there paying €4 each for a desk, and they'd typically spend €7-€10 a day in the cafe. It's a few hundred euro a week he wouldn't have and it does give a bit more vibrancy to the cafe.

Unfortunately the country isn't set up for remote working at all, but it'll have to catch up.

Until a couple of years ago hundreds of thousands of people got most of their personal interaction at work. That wasn't a good situation of course, but now many people find that hard to replace. The State could take a role in this as well, but I think it's hard to deal with. People need to be encouraged to join clubs, have social events etc. It is very important and really people's mental health could decline if they aren't proactive about replacing the social contact they once had at work.

Many other things are going to change also, rural areas are being revitalised, which is obviously good, but there will be new pressures in those areas. In North and West Clare local people are finding it particularly hard to get houses, and the fact that more highly paid remote workers are moving in is a major factor, which is going to be a permanent feature of the market now.

On the other hand the pull factors that drew people to the cities are unlikely to ever be as strong again. The more highly paid jobs can now be done anywhere. I would say urban areas are inevitably going to face a degree of decline in the next 10 years.

IMO remote work is definitely positive for society, but there are a number of challenges that didn't exist at the start of 2020.