What Are You Thinking About v.CC

[skywindO2]

1 hour ago, Shanedorf said:

indeed
And one potential result could be a crash in the commercial office space market as companies realize how much money they are wasting on rent/leases
Before this even happened I went to one of our 34 offices and it was absolutely gorgeous - but very few people were there.
Mainly because of the commute and because it was cubicle-world...home is a better option for many

Which could result in a lower average cost of living since people could move away from the large cities/population centers that they've stayed in for strictly work reasons. 

[Glen]

2 hours ago, Dome said:

Working from home the last several days my wife has had very little to do. She’s realizing how little she actually did at work and is wondering why she hasn’t always worked at home.

She starts working at home before her office even would be open, and her work is done before her lunch break without the distractions of coworkers and bosses checking in all the time.

Im thinking a lot of people are having this realization.

Would be pretty solid if this was a global move towards working from home. Would save both the company and workers money while making life easier on both ends as well.

[Glen]

1 hour ago, Shanedorf said:

indeed
And one potential result could be a crash in the commercial office space market as companies realize how much money they are wasting on rent/leases
Before this even happened I went to one of our 34 offices and it was absolutely gorgeous - but very few people were there.
Mainly because of the commute and because it was cubicle-world...home is a better option for many

Really just gotta pitch it to the CEO's/owners on how much money could be saved & go directly into their pockets.

"If you allow the majority to work from home if they please we will continue to be as efficient as before(if not more). As well as the uptick in efficiency our profit margins are through the roof not needing to rent/heat/maintain an office area for 200 people anymore while our workers continue to do everything at their home office."

[TENINCH]

I've been working from home since August.

Left my Military Contracting job with Leidos in Atlanta. That paid me almost 3 times what I make now. Used to leave my house at 5:30am to make it to work at 7am. Then I'd get home around 6pm on a good day. It was stressful but I thought I needed the money. The car maintenance and gas though took huge chunks out of my check. Eventually after 7 years I had enough and moved down to Florida to be near the beach. I've never been happier in my entire life. I wake up at 7:59 am to be at work at 8:00 am. I get on the computer they provided me with my 3 monitors and VPN into their network. Throw my headphones on and listen to music then entire day. I make 4 or 5 outbound calls throughout the day and I get off at 4:30. Most days I head to the beach. Another benefit from working at home is that you can live anywhere in the United States you want to and you don't put those driving miles on your car.

If you have the option to work from home I highly recommend doing it!

Edited March 18, 2020 by TENINCH

[Glen]

2 minutes ago, TENINCH said:

Another benefit from working at home is that you can live anywhere in the United States you want to and you don't put those driving miles on your car.

Cost of maintenance on your car is a huge plus if able to work from home. Gas, insurance, overall wear and tear you put on it is greatly reduced.

Parents would possibly not require day care(which in itself is another mortgage payment each month they wouldn't have to spend). Would not need to worry about taking a sick day if their kid needed to stay home.

Money saved on not eating out each day would be a huge benefit as well if you're not able to meal prep. Could just make your own lunch at home rather than spending $15 on take out. Add in your daily coffee as well if you(like you said) needed to wake up at 5am and need caffeine to operate.

Probably a crap ton of other "little things" we really don't notice we're spending money on would be saved from just working from home.

Also just the efficiency alone would increase. Where in a typical office you're required to be there 9-5, but the work load for the day could of had you out of the office by 1pm so you dilly dally for a few hours just to pass the time. At home you would have your own schedule(for the most part), and be able to cut the day short if you happened to finish the work load early.

 

[theJ]

Just now, Glen said:

Cost of maintenance on your car is a huge plus if able to work from home. Gas, insurance, overall wear and tear you put on it is greatly reduced.

Parents would possibly not require day care(which in itself is another mortgage payment each month they wouldn't have to spend). Would not need to worry about taking a sick day if their kid needed to stay home.

Money saved on not eating out each day would be a huge benefit as well if you're not able to meal prep. Could just make your own lunch at home rather than spending $15 on take out. Add in your daily coffee as well if you(like you said) needed to wake up at 5am and need caffeine to operate.

Probably a crap ton of other "little things" we really don't notice we're spending money on would be saved from just working from home.

Also just the efficiency alone would increase. Where in a typical office you're required to be there 9-5, but the work load for the day could of had you out of the office by 1pm so you dilly dally for a few hours just to pass the time. At home you would have your own schedule(for the most part), and be able to cut the day short if you happened to finish the work load early.

 

These two things do not correlate.  If i had an employee that said they wanted to WFH so they could keep their 2 year old home, i'd flatly refuse.  Part time, yes.  But you can't get 40 hours that way.

 

My $0.02 - WFH can work for some.  It's not a universal solution though, even within industries where some people can do it.  The main two reasons are training and collaboration.

It's very difficult to train new employees and integrate them into a company culture if they're not around the rest of the company.  It's doubly difficult if that new employee is a new graduate. 

And that mainly comes down to communication and collaboration.  Yes, tools like Slack, Teams, etc make it easier with screen and file sharing.  But it's not 100% effective.  You miss on a lot of the hallway conversations that inform on things you wouldn't otherwise catch.  

Personally, i think the solution is a hybrid one.  Maybe M and F are WFH days, the rest are office days.  Something like that.  You need to give people uninterrupted time to do their work so their efficiency goes up.  But you also need the face time that's crucial to training and company culture.

[Glen]

5 minutes ago, theJ said:

These two things do not correlate.  If i had an employee that said they wanted to WFH so they could keep their 2 year old home, i'd flatly refuse.  Part time, yes.  But you can't get 40 hours that way.

 

My $0.02 - WFH can work for some.  It's not a universal solution though, even within industries where some people can do it.  The main two reasons are training and collaboration.

It's very difficult to train new employees and integrate them into a company culture if they're not around the rest of the company.  It's doubly difficult if that new employee is a new graduate. 

And that mainly comes down to communication and collaboration.  Yes, tools like Slack, Teams, etc make it easier with screen and file sharing.  But it's not 100% effective.  You miss on a lot of the hallway conversations that inform on things you wouldn't otherwise catch.  

Personally, i think the solution is a hybrid one.  Maybe M and F are WFH days, the rest are office days.  Something like that.  You need to give people uninterrupted time to do their work so their efficiency goes up.  But you also need the face time that's crucial to training and company culture.

I dont have any kids so I was hesitant to add that in. But I would believe two WFH parents could justifiably WFH while raising a child at the same time.

I also believe "work culture" is grossly over used & the vast majority of people dont believe in it & only care about "the culture" because they get a paycheck every two weeks. New hires & training I understand needing an office environment for those instances. But I wouldn't say they promote a "culture" and thus lead to a more efficient worker. Odds are that the same worker who "buys in" to the "culture" ultimately would work just as hard at home if the continued to get paid the same & were given the same tasks they would at their normal 9-5.

I would agree that a hybrid solution is the way to go. For instances like you said of team meetings & collaborations where it would likely be more efficient to have all members in the same room not needing to worry about talking over one another due to input lag. But even in cases like that I would say at most two days are needed for those heavily important meetings. Most cases you could likely hash everything out on a Monday and get by just fine with group emails/skype throughout the rest of the week.

[theJ]

22 minutes ago, Glen said:

I would agree that a hybrid solution is the way to go. For instances like you said of team meetings & collaborations where it would likely be more efficient to have all members in the same room not needing to worry about talking over one another due to input lag. But even in cases like that I would say at most two days are needed for those heavily important meetings. Most cases you could likely hash everything out on a Monday and get by just fine with group emails/skype throughout the rest of the week.

Yeah it really depends on the industry.

My company can't really put all meetings on a specific day, since they're with clients.  But the meeting heavy days tend to be T/W/R.  We have a 1-day per week WFH policy, but i could see that changing depending on the outcome of this virus.  Currently everyone is working from home, and nothing has exploded yet.  However, we did let most of our co-ops/interns go.  There was no feasible way to keep them busy or give them the tools/support they needed working remotely.

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

WAH works with kids if they’re older.  If they’re young and require constant supervision they need to have a full time caregiver.

[theJ]

1 minute ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

WAH works with kids if they’re older.  If they’re young and require constant supervision they need to have a full time caregiver.

Agreed.

I can do it, inefficiently, with my 6 year old when he's sick.  But that's usually a 10 hour day where i only put 6 or 8 on the timesheet.

[K9]

I definitely can see why people would want to work from home. However, I've been going into the office because I can't stand working from home. Other than the commute, which is nothing now that no one is on the road - working from home sucks; so many distractions, no one to talk to & my motivation is almost gone by the end of the day. 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

24 minutes ago, K9 said:

I definitely can see why people would want to work from home. However, I've been going into the office because I can't stand working from home. Other than the commute, which is nothing now that no one is on the road - working from home sucks; so many distractions, no one to talk to & my motivation is almost gone by the end of the day. 

I enjoy an 8 hour work day being actually 8 hours.

No “work clothes” (I wear a tee and gym shorts 90% of my life), no commute, no traffic, no packing lunches or buying breakfast, no nonsense.

Log in, work my 8 and then walk downstairs.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezey.

[K9]

42 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I enjoy an 8 hour work day being actually 8 hours.

No “work clothes” (I wear a tee and gym shorts 90% of my life), no commute, no traffic, no packing lunches or buying breakfast, no nonsense.

Log in, work my 8 and then walk downstairs.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezey.

I forgot about the work clothes, doing the hair, etc. I do agree with you there, much nicer to not deal with that! 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

4 minutes ago, K9 said:

I forgot about the work clothes, doing the hair, etc. I do agree with you there, much nicer to not deal with that! 

Yeah man, when I went from working inpatient to at home I gained almost 3 hours in time, not to mention fuel costs, wear and tear on the vehicles, etc.

[K9]

My commute is only 18 min - on a busy day. Now, with no one on the road, easily 11 min.. BUT---if you have a longer commute, that time you're saving is friggin priceless!  Wear and tear -- honestly, I'm a leaser for life, so I don't worry too much about that part; different subject all together  ha