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Working at home.

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Re: Working at home.

Postby spb » 15 Jan 2021, 13:16

TrimTheKing wrote:In summary, I've worked this way for a long time so for me it's fairly normal, but to echo others, personal and social contact cannot be overestimated in any way. Quick chats over a brew, 2 min interactions walking up the stairs to lunch, even just perched on the end of a colleagues desk.


That's been the killer for me as well - I've worked probably 70% from home for nearly ten years now, with most of the rest of the time being spent in client offices. I'd only visit our actual offices a few times a year to deliver training, and once every month or two to show my face and talk to people. Those were always the days when I got the least measurable work done, but it felt important given that (being a consultancy organisation) we generally work individually or in small teams on projects that rotate every week or two.

When the first lockdown started we thought we'd be fine - I was used to working from home, and my wife was studying to convert her qualification, also from home - and we were for about two months. It's been quite a ride since then, though.

We've also seen a few of the other changes that several of you have mentioned - apart from a realisation internally that a lot of the corporate departments can work effectively from home, we've also had some big changes from clients. Particularly, there's a lot of work where previously they insisted we come on site because there was no possibility they could allow remote access to those systems, where somehow they found a way to do it as soon as we couldn't go on site.

On the other hand, we're actively looking for a new office in London for the consulting team to start using as soon as the pandemic allows. Not for the entire team - we've only ever had office capacity for about a quarter of our team for as long as I've been here - but people who are used to working away on their own need to be able to talk to each other even if it's not direct collaboration, and that part's only become more obvious over the last year. I think we're lucky there, though - since any one of us not able to deliver means an immediate and direct loss of revenue, the company has (and knows it has) a more direct interest in keeping us healthy. Modern capitalism tends to view most workers as disposable and interchangeable, and it's people in those jobs that will really suffer as companies realise they can cut office costs and not provide anything to fill the gaps.
spb
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