Topic: Working From Home

[Elmo!]

yeah, i'd probably like some structure to my day back if im brutally honest. i know the cost saving working from home, not paying for transport costs, lunches etc will go up, but its the human interaction.

no idea why they would bottle neck tuesday to thursday, most companies were operating a hot-desking system, meaning no one would have a station, this was due to over-crowding! people would just work in the canteen or break out areas.

To be fair we have no issues with overcrowding.... after they made half the office redundant shortly after lockdown started, we have enough space to have 2 desks each now.

[Lone Star Red]

‘We need those office folks’: Officials urge Biden administration to end silence on remote work
Alexander Nazaryan·Senior White House Correspondent
Tue, August 23, 2022 at 9:39 AM

WASHINGTON — One morning this summer, Washington, D.C., deputy mayor John Falcicchio was a few blocks from the White House to announce the opening of DC Sweet Potato Cake. In a downtown that had been drained of life for more than two years, the arrival of a new small business was no small victory.

But whether Sweet Potato Cake succeeds will largely depend on resolution of one of the most contentious debates in America today, one that pits the future of cities against the future of work, employers against employees. Remote work has become an entrenched practice in the last two years, but is it a truly sustainable one?

“We don't think all the people have to come back all the time,” Falcicchio said as sweet potato maven April Richardson greeted supporters. “But we do need most of the people back most of the time.”

He and others believe that President Biden, who has said he wants people back in offices, could spur the return by asking the federal government to end its practice of giving a wide latitude to remote workers — or at least to clarify when that practice will wind down.

And since there are thousands of federal employees in every American city, their return could indicate to businesses in the private sector that it is time to make work look like it did before the pandemic, cubicles, awkward happy hours and all.

“We need those office folks,” Falcicchio said, practically pleading.

He and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser have brought those pleas directly to the White House, but nothing came of their requests. U.S. senators who have asked when federal employees will return have also been met mostly with silence. And there are indications that some leaders in the federal bureaucracy want to continue remote work into perpetuity.

“We've got to live with the pandemic. We've got to get people back to work,” said a senior staffer for Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a legislator who has embraced the issue. "It's just not happening fast enough,” he added, charging Biden with an unwillingness to make “a tough decision.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Critics of remote work believe that the Biden administration has been coy about its plan because, despite what the president says, other officials want to maintain the practice at all costs.

“Agencies should leverage their experiences with expanded telework during the pandemic to institutionalize telework programs as a routine way of doing business,” one personnel guidance from the Biden administration says.

The resistance to RTO, as the return-to-office is known, is hardly confined to bureaucrats. Employees at Silicon Valley firms have resisted office work. Even the domineering executives of Manhattan’s biggest banks have had to concede that remote work is here to stay, at least partly, and that offices will never again be as full as they were in early February 2020, before lockdowns forced everyone who could to work from home.

“Hybrid is here to stay,” said Nicholas A. Bloom, a Stanford expert on workplace practices. He added that employees need to have concrete plans for how many days people need to be in the office and then “strictly enforce” those policies. But in the summer of 2022, that seems like a distant goal in both the private and public sectors.

The debate over remote work — for those fortunate enough to have the possibility to begin with — is likely to intensify even as the nation heads into its third autumn of the pandemic. In general, fears of the coronavirus have receded, leaving some business leaders to wonder why, if restaurants are full, they should continue to cater to a practice implemented at a time of crisis.

Earlier this month, writer Malcolm Gladwell infuriated work-from-home proponents by arguing, in an interview on the “Diary of a CEO” podcast, that the practice was a sign of low motivation.

“It’s very hard to feel necessary when you’re physically disconnected,” Gladwell said, describing his experiences as the co-founder of podcast company Pushkin Industries.

“It’s not in your best interest to work at home,” he advised.

Some economists think that the moment is right for companies to insist on office work. “We believe post Labor Day will be a meaningful milestone,” real estate investment expert Jay Jiang of Dream Office told the Boston Globe earlier this week.

In his State of the Union address in February, Biden described returning to the office as almost a kind of patriotic duty. He reiterated that message several days later from the White House. “Because of the progress we’ve made fighting COVID, Americans can not only get back to work, but they can go to the office and safely fill our great downtown cities again,” Biden said.

That was in early March. Since then, highly transmissible coronavirus waves have continued to scramble return-to-office plans. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused gas prices to rise, though they have recently been coming back down. And fears of crime have kept commuters away from public transit, but some urbanists believe that it is the lack of commuters that gives criminals license in the first place.

Then, in a May 31 email, Elon Musk told employees at Tesla they had to return to the office. Instead of offering perks, as other chief executives had tried to do, Musk said employees had to spend 40 hours a week at the company’s Fremont, Calif., headquarters “or depart Tesla.”

The following day, Politico reported that New York City Mayor Eric Adams was pushing for more city employees to return to their offices. "Please note, the Mayor has repeatedly emphasized, for the City to continue its comeback, we need employees from every sector to return to their offices,” mayoral chief-of-staff Frank Carone wrote. “The benefits of this return for the city are immeasurable and we, as City employees, must continue to lead by example.”

In a city where commercial real estate — and the financial and law firms that fill millions of square feet — constitute the tax base, a collective flight of workers and the corporations that employ them could lead to a mass economic collapse not witnessed since the 1970s. So it is not surprising that city leaders like Adams want laptop-bound workers back in cubicles.

Biden has gone curiously silent on the issue, but his views do not appear to have changed. While working from home — well, the White House residence — during his bout with COVID-19, the president held a summit on the economy with business leaders. During an exchange with Marriott chief executive Tony Capuano, Biden disparaged “everybody sitting and Zooming everything,” in a seeming reference to remote work.

But so far, his administration has not lived up to that goal. Last November, 42 senators asked the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration — the three agencies in the executive branch responsible for managing the federal workforce — to clarify return-to-office plans. They argued that not all constituents had adequate internet access, and that not all services could be rendered adequately over the internet.

The timing was inauspicious, since the Omicron variant was only weeks from arriving on U.S. shores in full force. “As the Omicron variant of COVID-19 continues to spread, it is a reminder of the challenges that face employers, including the Federal Government, as we implement reentry plans,” then-acting OMB director Shalanda Young wrote in early January to Sen. Wicker, who had been insistently pushing to have federal employees return to the workplace.

In February, Sens. Wicker, Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz. filed legislation that would ask the Biden administration to codify return-to-office plans. The legislation went nowhere, so they wrote to OMB, GSA and OPM again in May, asking for the Biden administration to bring federal employees back.

The senators argued that “widespread vaccines, testing, and safety measures have resulted in a dramatic decline in COVID-19 cases and deaths. As a result, the private sector and schools have reopened and it is time for the federal government to do the same.”

None of the three agencies responded.

“We’re frustrated,” the Wicker staffer told Yahoo News in a telephone conversation.

Proponents of remote work argue that the office has always been the domain of white men, and that women and people of color benefit from the ability to work remotely, as do people who can’t afford to live in Washington, San Francisco or New York. Remote work has also been shown to boost productivity while allowing workers more time for extracurricular pursuits.

But not everyone thinks the practice is fair, since only certain types of work can be done in front of a computer in the first place. People who work in meat processing plants never had a remote option. Neither did nurses or delivery workers.

“There are a lot of jobs that can’t be done remotely. And by and large, those tend to be service-sector jobs and jobs that pay less than work-from-home type of jobs,” a senior administration official told Yahoo News. “It’s something we have to think through, as an administration focused on equity.”

The senior administration official also pointed out that while wealthier, digital-first employees may have the luxury of escaping to “Zoomtowns” in the mountains of Colorado or the coast of California, it is service workers who are stuck in big cities with deteriorating public transit, rising crime and the hollowing-out of small businesses starving for customers.

“How do you account for the fact that certain people may be avoiding the costs of commuting and may be able to live in less costly areas,” the senior administration official wondered, “and meanwhile, the folks who are making less money can’t avoid those costs? Is that going to have an inequality impact?”

The question is whether remote work was a temporary perk, like the ability to order to-go cocktails, or a new feature of the American workplace. If the latter is the case — as Bloom, of Stanford, and others maintain it is — then how should it be factored into an employee’s overall compensation package?

"Remote, in the private sector, is perceived as a new fringe benefit," says Kathy Wylde, who heads the Partnership for New York City. She says that the Manhattan executives she regularly talks to are all offering remote work but are “doing it unhappily.” And she worries, like Gladwell, about the younger employees who continue to eagerly seize on the opportunity to stay out of the office without, she believes, thinking through the long-term consequences of that decision.


"Increasingly, I am starting to hear that young people are beginning to understand that their career potential is being jeopardized by not being in the office,” Wylde told Yahoo News. “Advancement comes from relationships, and you can't build relationships on Zoom. You can’t become a leader.”

Some companies in the private sector now calculate salaries based on geography, since a dollar goes a lot further in Boise than it does in Brooklyn. The differential can be seen as a kind of tax on remote work, a tax many younger employees are seemingly willing to pay.

Public sector employees, and federal employees in particular, tend to belong to unions, and Wylde believes that if they want to continue working from home, they should seek that privilege through contract negotiations.

"New fringe benefits should be negotiated. There should be some reciprocity, in terms of what taxpayers are getting in return,” she says, dismissing any public health arguments for maintaining remote work. "If people can go to restaurants, go to theaters, ride on airplanes, etc., it's not a health issue."

Ventilation upgrades, which many office buildings needed even before the pandemic, could help, to a degree, to convince workers that commercial buildings are safe. And those upgrades will be far more effective in stopping an airborne virus than hand sanitizer dispensers and social distancing stickers.

But there are some workers who can't be coaxed back into the office, either because of lingering health concerns or because they moved to Jackson Hole in 2020 and have no interest in returning to Midtown Manhattan in 2022.

Wylde believes that the “federal government owes the taxpayer to bring people back." But so far, the Biden administration has not made that a priority and does not, for now, appear to be intent on doing so. Corporations are struggling too. Office towers in Midtown Manhattan remain empty, as do the federal offices of downtown D.C. When they will be full again, nobody knows.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/we-need-those-office-folks-officials-urge-biden-administration-to-end-silence-on-remote-work-153902316.html

[AndyInVA]

I wondered if increased energy costs for businesses would start to put people back at home so employees would have to pay their own heat and electricity.

[Elmo!]

My work are talking about fully subsidising the canteen so lunch is free, and giving everyone free membership in the gym next door to get people to come back more.

Technically Tue-Thu is now mandatory but loads aren't doing it and they seem reluctant to take the stick approach.

[Schmidt]

I wondered if increased energy costs for businesses would start to put people back at home so employees would have to pay their own heat and electricity.

The opposite has been true in my office, as costs go up more people start to show up to the office regularly. My bills literally halved when I started going back in, despite rising energy prices.

[AndyInVA]

Interesting article about the US federal government.

clearly there must be hundreds of senior leaders in government departments who are not in a hurry to get back on the subway trains into DC and even more thousands around the country who love WFH

[PaulF]

The opposite has been true in my office, as costs go up more people start to show up to the office regularly. My bills literally halved when I started going back in, despite rising energy prices.

Do you reckon heating is the main cost. And for the office that's the same for one person as a hundred? Actually probably less.
Not sure how much computer and monitor takes or kettle boils.
Lifts cost a fair bit to run too if relevant.

[Schmidt]

Do you reckon heating is the main cost. And for the office that's the same for one person as a hundred? Actually probably less.
Not sure how much computer and monitor takes or kettle boils.
Lifts cost a fair bit to run too if relevant.

Running a PC is a huge drain alone, then like you say the other little things like kettles, using hot water, cooking, it all adds up.

[.adam]

Running a PC is a huge drain alone, then like you say the other little things like kettles, using hot water, cooking, it all adds up.

My wife and I both work from home.

We have Octopus Energy where you can get half hourly downloads of energy consumption from the Smart Meter. I've got a master spreadsheet which feeds these into a calculator to work out what we're using.

During working hours yesterday, we used £1.71 of electricity. That's with two laptops running.

Of the £1.71, 15p was standing charge so we'd have paid that anyway. If you factor in the appliances that would be running all the time regardless of whether we're here or not, I think the electricity cost of us being here is negligible.

[Schmidt]

My wife and I both work from home.

We have Octopus Energy where you can get half hourly downloads of energy consumption from the Smart Meter. I've got a master spreadsheet which feeds these into a calculator to work out what we're using.

During working hours yesterday, we used £1.71 of electricity. That's with two laptops running.

Of the £1.71, 15p was standing charge so we'd have paid that anyway. If you factor in the appliances that would be running all the time regardless of whether we're here or not, I think the electricity cost of us being here is negligible.

Since switching from WFH to going to the office 4 days per week my energy usage is less than half what it was, and that's with me not using heating during either period. My PC is quite beefy though and it has two monitors so it's probably on the higher end of usage.

[Spezialo]

Normally do 3 days a week in office. May start going in more and taking stuff in that needs charging.

[Schmidt]

Normally do 3 days a week in office. May start going in more and taking stuff in that needs charging.

This probably belongs in the mingebags thread, but during lockdown my work sent everyone power banks with the company logo on (felt a bit like mockery sending us portable batteries during a lockdown). I've been taking it into work to charge it and then using it to charge stuff up at home.

[Spezialo]

Nothing wrong with that mate. Get what you can.

[I've been a good boy]

I think two years ago people would have called you a mingebag for that but not anymore, got to help yourself where possible at the moment.

Do people really leave their laptops plugged in all day at home? I only have mine plugged in about 4 hours a day, for when it needs charging. I don't use a monitor either as that's just another device that'll use up energy.

[Crosby Nick]

I think two years ago people would have called you a mingebag for that but not anymore, got to help yourself where possible at the moment.

Do people really leave their laptops plugged in all day at home? I only have mine plugged in about 4 hours a day, for when it needs charging. I don't use a monitor either as that's just another device that'll use up energy.

Kind of have it plugged in out of habit. Battery life has gone to shit a bit but I do try and unplug it more now. Don’t have a monitor either.

[PaulF]

I think two years ago people would have called you a mingebag for that but not anymore, got to help yourself where possible at the moment.

Do people really leave their laptops plugged in all day at home? I only have mine plugged in about 4 hours a day, for when it needs charging. I don't use a monitor either as that's just another device that'll use up energy.

Id assume it draws no power when but needed.
A big monitor uses a decent amount off power, but is a huge productivity boost. I'm send employed so that works for me. I guess some with be spending money to save their employer money!

[Jiminy Cricket]

Kind of have it plugged in out of habit. Battery life has gone to shit a bit but I do try and unplug it more now. Don’t have a monitor either.

Depending on the laptop, there are sometimes power/battery modes which allow you to set limits for charging (low and high) for when the laptop is plugged in. Some models, like the laptop I am using right now (Lenovo) have a set option which stops charging the battery at 60%, and starts charging again at 55%. If you normally use your laptop plugged in, this option greatly increases the life of the battery.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-limit-battery-charge-in-windows

For laptops which lack the necessary hardware, I understand there are apps which alert you when the battery reaches preset high and low thresholds of your choosing. Obviously, this is not a s good and you are unlikely to select 60% high and 55% low for you to be manually unplugging and plugging in the power supply.

[PaulF]

Depending on the laptop, there are sometimes power/battery modes which allow you to set limits for charging (low and high) for when the laptop is plugged in. Some models, like the laptop I am using right now (Lenovo) have a set option which stops charging the battery at 60%, and starts charging again at 55%. If you normally use your laptop plugged in, this option greatly increases the life of the battery.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-limit-battery-charge-in-windows

For laptops which lack the necessary hardware, I understand there are apps which alert you when the battery reaches preset high and low thresholds of your choosing. Obviously, this is not a s good and you are unlikely to select 60% high and 55% low for you to be manually unplugging and plugging in the power supply.

I sense an app to make the smart plug linked to alexa(Patent pending) do the necessary

[Jiminy Cricket]

I sense an app to make the smart plug linked to alexa do the necessary

That's a great idea! Though, you've just blown your patent application by talking about in public.

[AndyMuller]

Is this still a thing people are doing? I’ve gone from working from home 5 days a week to being in the office 5 days a week with no other option.

[thaddeus]

Is this still a thing people are doing? I’ve gone from working from home 5 days a week to being in the office 5 days a week with no other option.

My company didn't renew the lease on their HQ so there is no office.  They've suggested they may rent some smaller office space for collaborations but they're doing fine without so I'm not sure why they would.

[Crosby Nick]

Is this still a thing people are doing? I’ve gone from working from home 5 days a week to being in the office 5 days a week with no other option.

1 day a week in the office for me, 4 days from home. Hoping that won’t change any time soon given I now have a dog.

[Chakan]

Wife has gone back to 3 days a week at work 2 at home. Company I work for have no offices so we're all still at home, although I was working from home anyway 2 years before the pandemic, so wouldn't return anyway.

[Elmo!]

3 days a week in the office for me which is supposed to be compulsory, but got 1 colleague who has only been coming in once a week and no one has pulled him up on it. Pissed me off this morning because he came in and ranted about the commute and how much of a waste of time it is. I agree really but ranting at us isn't going to change things, and he is getting away with only doing it once a week.

[Schmidt]

4 in the office 1 at home for me, though it's completely optional, I just live close to my office so I save a ton on energy bills by going in, and it's good seeing people and catching up on projects in person.

[rob1966]

Is this still a thing people are doing? I’ve gone from working from home 5 days a week to being in the office 5 days a week with no other option.

I'm permanent WFH. Similar to thaddeus, our lot got out the massive office block we were in and moved into a smaller place with just enough space for essential on site IT staff, departments that cannot WFH (HR), TRaining dept and one that deals with big customers and they likely don't trust the staff to wfh, they are more like a call centre than anything else.

[RainbowFlick]

Is this still a thing people are doing? I’ve gone from working from home 5 days a week to being in the office 5 days a week with no other option.

i've been in the office 4 times since lockdown. all 4 have been a complete waste of my time beyond socialising and having a bit of meaningless chit-chat.

we have an office available to us if we want, but it's dingy and the setup is pretty crap (screens etc). seems a waste of my time doing a two hour commute to be irritated and less efficient really.

my team are nice enough but i just don't see the value of going in to talk about love island or something personally. i have actual people to talk to outside of work if i need to 

[Wabaloolah]

Is this still a thing people are doing? I’ve gone from working from home 5 days a week to being in the office 5 days a week with no other option.

Changed jobs (alluded to it earlier in the thread) now contracting and currently have a contract with a London Borough. I am WFH for the duration (initially until March 2023 but already told it will be extended for another 12 months)

I had to go the office in London to collect my laptop the first day and not been back since beginning of October.

The council staff have been told they need to be in the office two days a week and home for 3 but nobody listens and the place is like a ghost town. The day I was in, a huge open plan office and there were about 5 people on the floor, myself included!

Previous job I was WFH 5 days a week and my ex-colleagues are still doing the same, although likely to change after Christmas

[filopastry]

I go in when my boss does, which is on average about 1 day a week.

We are downsizing offices soon anyway so there won't be room for everyone to go in even if they wanted to.

I am very happy to mostly work from home in a hybrid arrangement personally, I definitely notice more people on the tube in the mornings and evenings this autumn compared to Spring, so I suspect office attendance has been drifting up.

[paulrazor]

One day a week til xmas. Then I dunno. Hoping it stays the same

Been doing this since mid September

Second week loads of my section didn't come in although at least three were sick (of course everyone was moan first ask questions later)

Basically if you miss your day you have to come in twice another week.

Thing is though. Fella moaning
A. Doesn't work with us directly

B. Fella in his section hasn't been seen. Ok for him to stay at home (though given most think he's a prick I think people are happy to not see him)

Tiresome office politics

[RainbowFlick]

I go in when my boss does, which is on average about 1 day a week.

We are downsizing offices soon anyway so there won't be room for everyone to go in even if they wanted to.

I am very happy to mostly work from home in a hybrid arrangement personally, I definitely notice more people on the tube in the mornings and evenings this autumn compared to Spring, so I suspect office attendance has been drifting up.

partly i think people worried about energy bills etc but also it seems a lot of the more conservative businesses have seized the opportunity to seemingly unwind 'hybrid' working to basically mean maybe 1-2 days at home at most. got to support those commercial property portfolios of their clients somehow, i suppose.

[AndyInVA]

I go in when my boss does, which is on average about 1 day a week.

We are downsizing offices soon anyway so there won't be room for everyone to go in even if they wanted to.

I am very happy to mostly work from home in a hybrid arrangement personally, I definitely notice more people on the tube in the mornings and evenings this autumn compared to Spring, so I suspect office attendance has been drifting up.

That seems like a really common sense policy. I hope other places follow the same mind set.

[Andy]

partly i think people worried about energy bills etc but also it seems a lot of the more conservative businesses have seized the opportunity to seemingly unwind 'hybrid' working to basically mean maybe 1-2 days at home at most. got to support those commercial property portfolios of their clients somehow, i suppose.

...and all the businesses that rely on workers, such as independent sandwich shops, pubs, shops etc

I agree with flexible working, but think the default should be people working in the office.

I'd be more worried about companies sacking off offices to save money, then people not being able to get into the office when they need to.

[Wabaloolah]

...and all the businesses that rely on workers, such as independent sandwich shops, pubs, shops etc

I agree with flexible working, but think the default should be people working in the office.

I'd be more worried about companies sacking off offices to save money, then people not being able to get into the office when they need to.

why do you think that should that be the default?

[redbyrdz]

...and all the businesses that rely on workers, such as independent sandwich shops, pubs, shops etc

Most of the people I know that work from home go for a coffee at least a few times a week, to get out of the house. Probably more so than when they worked in the office. I think the cafes will just move to other locations, more to where people live, which is a good thing. Pubs, most people go to after work these days, so I don't think they'll be massively affected. I can even see them being more in demand, because those that work from home all day are often more keen to socialise than those that are surrounded by other people all day.

[PaulF]

I wonder if wfh is 'enabling' more people to hold down multiple jobs.
I do know of someone that was out on the road as a software sales rep, but at the same time (without software company's knowledge) was selling houses.

[afc tukrish]

I wonder if wfh is 'enabling' more people to hold down multiple jobs.
I do know of someone that was out on the road as a software sales rep, but at the same time (without software company's knowledge) was selling houses.

Selling houses working from home?

Neat trick, that...

[ABZ Rover]

Back in the office full time as of next Monday and looking forward to it. 

However, we have so many new hires recently that desk / office space and car parking are going to be stretched.  We already have a new building that we are moving into in Jan but projections are that this is already oversubscribed.

Might try for a 3/2 split office/home and see if it flies.

[PaulF]

Has anyone been given guidance on what internet speeds they would need for WFH? Obviously it will vary depending on what kind of work you do and how the IT is set up. I'm just curious. 

[thaddeus]

Has anyone been given guidance on what internet speeds they would need for WFH? Obviously it will vary depending on what kind of work you do and how the IT is set up. I'm just curious.

When we went to full WFH the network wasn't capable of supporting more than 5-10mb/s for each employee.  That was still largely usable though but I ended up disabling any incoming videos on Teams as otherwise it could struggle in large meetings.

My role at the time was very data intensive and shunting hundreds/thousands of GB around with those speeds was brutal.  The solution was fairly simple though; using the limited bandwidth to remote onto an internal server and do the heavy lifting there.

We upgraded our home connection from around 20mb/s to around 100 as having us both WFH plus général network hum was too much.