For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1793675
I'm of the view that things will balance out over the next few years. There'll be an increase in home working and hot desking and we'll see dormitory towns prosper and city centres fall back a bit. One solution for city centres might be to convert some office buildings to affordable accommodation.

I think we'll see long term travel reduction where the balance between business travel and Zoom type work will shift too, good for the environment as long as data centres are getting sustainable power :D

I've been looking with interest at my son's modus operandi to reach this conclusion. His job is utterly dependent on international networking, He will still travel a bit to establish and reinforce personal relationships, but more of his business will be done on-line for sure. He's been working from here, his flat in London and we rented a holiday let in Devon and he joined us there and worked more than half the time.
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By Morten
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1793681
johnm wrote:I've been looking with interest at my son's modus operandi to reach this conclusion. His job is utterly dependent on international networking, He will still travel a bit to establish and reinforce personal relationships, but more of his business will be done on-line for sure.

Indeed. We have officially become a WFH company (*) and are cancelling the office leases we hold around the world. To be fair, this was already discussed when we set up the company a few years ago so it was not a big stretch but I do not think that we are the only ones.
We. too, depend on international networks but we have an extensive set already and can build on those - more difficult for those who do not yet have them, e.g. younger colleagues who are earlier in their careers and do not yet have those networks. A challenge as I see it to provide an environment for the youngsters to build those networks.
Strangely enough the youngsters themselves are far less concerned about that than I am - they are used to building networks without ever meeting people in person and see our way of working as old fashioned and incredibly inefficient. And they are probably right.
The current situation has probably pushed through a change in working practice rather quicker than it would have naturally happened, but it's not an all bad change although any transition is painful in the short term.

*: Major reasons: productivity as measured in several ways has increased since lockdown, staff save 2-3 hours and on average 6% of take-home pay by not commuting, sickness leave has gone down and staff happiness has increased. Add to that the savings on office leases and the impact on the bottom line is non negligible... With very few actual downsides having been reported and those we can address with remote/local solutions.
Also, WFH does not need to mean 'from home' it really means 'not in the office'. At the moment, we are still reviewing how to manage the tax implications of staff relocating abroad, but everyone is encouraged to work wherever they want in the UK, although there may be times they may be asked to come to a meeting and any travel will be their 'problem'. Meetings (internal and external) need not necessarily be in the City anymore, of course!
I am one step closer to my dream of flying around the world whilst working :)
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By eltonioni
#1793683
The office buildings are not the main problem. The economic and social disaster is the lack of people inside them, who spend their money outside them.


Also, the people who sit at home "working" will very quickly find that they aren't making the random economic and social contact that leads to career and social progression. They will come to regret it, though I suspect that wage cuts will help many see that commuting isn't as bad as they thought. There is also a lot of naivety in the people who think that they will be able to keep their big city pay weighting.
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By Propwash
#1793690
Flyingfemme wrote:So the world is losing paper pushers and gaining workers who actually do stuff. Not necessarily a bad thing. Trouble is that doing stuff pays far less than paper shuffling, so we get generally poorer, can afford less product and smaller mortgages. Not a good look for the UK as a whole.

Careful! Some of those paper pushers from outsourcing companies (the actual one involved has changed a couple of times since I retired) make sure my occupational pension gets paid on time. I would be deeply unhappy if that agreeable situation changed. :wink:

As for all the predictions about how the working world will look in 5 years time after this, I will wait and see. I still recall the predictions made on Tomorrow's World by Raymond Baxter in the late 60's about how robots would be doing all the work by 1990 and everybody would have more leisure time than they would know what to do with. 50 years on and that has only partly happened and in very limited areas. :roll:

PW
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1793691
eltonioni wrote:The office buildings are not the main problem. The economic and social disaster is the lack of people inside them, who spend their money outside them.


Also, the people who sit at home "working" will very quickly find that they aren't making the random economic and social contact that leads to career and social progression. They will come to regret it, though I suspect that wage cuts will help many see that commuting isn't as bad as they thought. There is also a lot of naivety in the people who think that they will be able to keep their big city pay weighting.


If cities decay then dormitory towns will prosper in their stead.

The opportunities for networking are not office dependent and meetings, conferences etc, will resume at some point and in some form. Indeed they already are in some quarters. Facilities like "Linked in" also open doors as do many traditional membership organisations.

People need their big city weightings to cover big city costs, if the costs disappear the weighting is not so important.

In the IT industry we've been looking at these issues for decades and the technology has been around for a while. The human factors have been forced into the limelight by Covid and we're seeing the balance of the direct human interaction and technology based interaction shift as we always expected it would eventually.

The commercial property boys are going to have to have a rethink and Prat a Manger is going to be moving :-)
By Spooky
#1793697
Propwash wrote:
Flyingfemme wrote:So the world is losing paper pushers and gaining workers who actually do stuff. Not necessarily a bad thing. Trouble is that doing stuff pays far less than paper shuffling, so we get generally poorer, can afford less product and smaller mortgages. Not a good look for the UK as a whole.

Careful! Some of those paper pushers from outsourcing companies (the actual one involved has changed a couple of times since I retired) make sure my occupational pension gets paid on time. I would be deeply unhappy if that agreeable situation changed. :wink:

As for all the predictions about how the working world will look in 5 years time after this, I will wait and see. I still recall the predictions made on Tomorrow's World by Raymond Baxter in the late 60's about how robots would be doing all the work by 1990 and everybody would have more leisure time than they would know what to do with. 50 years on and that has only partly happened and in very limited areas. :roll:

PW


I remember seeing that video at school. Sadly it missed the part with thousands unemployed, areas falling into decay, those at the top getting richer etc
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By eltonioni
#1793698
johnm wrote:
eltonioni wrote:The office buildings are not the main problem. The economic and social disaster is the lack of people inside them, who spend their money outside them.


Also, the people who sit at home "working" will very quickly find that they aren't making the random economic and social contact that leads to career and social progression. They will come to regret it, though I suspect that wage cuts will help many see that commuting isn't as bad as they thought. There is also a lot of naivety in the people who think that they will be able to keep their big city pay weighting.


If cities decay then dormitory towns will prosper in their stead.

The opportunities for networking are not office dependent and meetings, conferences etc, will resume at some point and in some form. Indeed they already are in some quarters. Facilities like "Linked in" also open doors as do many traditional membership organisations.

People need their big city weightings to cover big city costs, if the costs disappear the weighting is not so important.

In the IT industry we've been looking at these issues for decades and the technology has been around for a while. The human factors have been forced into the limelight by Covid and we're seeing the balance of the direct human interaction and technology based interaction shift as we always expected it would eventually.

The commercial property boys are going to have to have a rethink and Prat a Manger is going to be moving :-)


I suspect that you're going to get a very unpleasant surprise.

On the other hand, I also suspect that people will actually go back to work in big cities once the penny drops.
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By kanga
#1793706
flybymike wrote:... The BBC propaganda machine spouts government policy and won’t even report on the multiple demonstrations by tens of thousands of protesters last weekend in London, Dublin and Berlin against current government policy. :twisted:


Not quite true.

BBC News (R4 and online; I rarely watch non-local BBC or other TV news, which has long been biassed by all channels to what footage is available) and analytic programmes have been reporting both on the (different) policies of the 4 governments and on criticisms thereof from the beginning. Again, I recommend 'More or less' for a calm dissection of the statistics asserted in support/opposition to these.

On last weekend's protests, I had not noted mention of any in Dublin, but vignettes of those in London and Berlin certainly appeared in the online summaries:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-52693383
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53964147

Other news sources are, of course, available.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1793708
I suspect that you're going to get a very unpleasant surprise.


Conceivably: Here in Cirencester the multiples have succumbed to on line shopping long before the Covid hit, specialist shops have been coping, clothes shops have shut as no-one needs clothes to go to work or social events :-( Cafe's and restaurants and takeaways doing well in general, though some better than others.

I have very limited sampling thus far, basically my son and what he tells me about his friends who, like him, actually live in London for the most part. Message is more home less office and more Zoom less travel.
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By Miscellaneous
#1793711
johnm wrote:...specialist shops have been coping, clothes shops have shut as no-one needs clothes to go to work or social events :-( Cafe's and restaurants and takeaways doing well in general, though some better than others.

You never cease to amaze me with the extent, breadth and detail of your knowledge. :thumright:
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1793712
Miscellaneous wrote:
johnm wrote:...specialist shops have been coping, clothes shops have shut as no-one needs clothes to go to work or social events :-( Cafe's and restaurants and takeaways doing well in general, though some better than others.

You never cease to amaze me with the extent, breadth and detail of your knowledge. :thumright:


I'm a mere amateur compared to @kanga
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By kanga
#1793714
I have a relative in a large international IT company which has told its 1,000s of employees worldwide that they can work from home for at least a year (although offices are being kept available and 'Covid secure' if they want to meet in person); and has given everyone US$1,000 each to make their home workplaces work-friendlier in any way they wish. But their entire business is based on 'moving only bits around', apart from physical maintenance of some (very large and deliberately multiply redundant, in many countries) data centres.

Equally, another relative and spouse, both seniors in the same national (not UK) branch of an international finance company, are working from home, as their employer allows and encourages; and again meeting rooms (not private offices nor secretarial support) in their usual city centre offices are available if required. However, they are required to maintain 'Chinese Walls' from each other when dealing with international clients, which may require telephone calls across timezones over poor lines with raised voices at domestically inconvenient times (like mutinous children's bedtimes). At the same time, one of the staff of one of them, in another city where all the schools have been closed (again) because of a resurgence of infections, is a single mother with a child on the autistic spectrum in a small apartment, and is reportedly at her wit's end from domestic pressure not the working from home.

Both employers, unsurprisingly, have stopped all international travel (and longrange domestic, where applicable) as company policy, even where the host countries allow it.

In short, WFH may suit some sorts of 'white collar' businesses, some greatly; but even those whom it suits may have perfectly competent and productive staff whom it does not, and who need support. How this will affect the developed world's large cities and inner/outer suburbs is yet to be seen.
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By Miscellaneous
#1793716
johnm wrote:I'm a mere amateur compared to @kanga

Maybe so, however I don't recall kanga claiming to not only know how well the various cafes are doing, but knowing how well they are doing relative to each other.
I hope you are sharing your knowledge with those business owners in these difficult times. :thumright: