We need to adopt a no-commute culture

nkl12xtw5goz70

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Is there not a risk of increasing social isolation, though? It all sounds great but this idea of encouraging more people to spend less time around others would probably have its own set of consequences.

Possibly for people who find work to be a core social outlet — but for others it would mean being able to spend more time with their family and in their communities as opposed to spending hours every day commuting.

Some commuters barely see their family during the work week and that creates its own sense of isolation.

The Irish government is to develop guidelines for remote working, based on government research that found many people would like to avail of it. 60% say that it would improve their work-life balance.

ancapailldorcha

Rayden Hollow Hanger wrote: »

Possibly for people who find work to be a core social outlet — but for others it would mean being able to spend more time with their family and in their communities as opposed to spending hours every day commuting.

Some commuters barely see their family during the work week and that creates its own sense of isolation.

The Irish government is to develop guidelines for remote working, based on government research that found many people would like to avail of it. 60% say that it would improve their work-life balance.

Good point. I was picturing people who move to big cities to start careers.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

seamus wrote: »

The crux of the management issue is this:
A dosser will doss whether they're at home or at work. At work they'll just find better ways to doss and be a bigger drain on company money than if they sit at home dossing.
If someone thinks that an employee can be considered to be "working" on the basis that they're at their desk from 9-5:30, then either the employee doesn't do anything, or the manager hasn't a clue how to manage people.

Nah, I’d be much more likely to doss at home. I know this from experience. Being in a workplace gave me focus. Some people are more suited to working from home than others. Like anything, it’s not black and white.

mariaalice

Duke of Url wrote: »

So your daughter works from home. She then prints out monitoring data (Confidential?) and shows that to someone outside her organisation( You)?

She dose work from home at the moment but is going to do one day a week but as her, partner works from home three days a week they are going to try and not overlap.

Its not private information its her work, only her and her boss have access to it.

No third parties are named in the reports.

Stevieluvsye

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

Nah, I’d be much more likely to doss at home. I know this from experience. Being in a workplace gave me focus. Some people are more suited to working from home than others. Like anything, it’s not black and white.

This is correct. I have colleagues who literally can't work from home(and they have the choice to) as they know they'll do fcuk all. Personally i work from home 4 days a week and choose to go in either Thursday or Friday.

bee06

I could work from home with how my job is but I hate doing it. It’s so much easier to get things done when you can actually talk to someone face to face. Much easier to ignore an email compared to someone at your desk.

Duke of Url

mariaalice wrote: »

She dose work from home at the moment but is going to do one day a week but as her, partner works from home three days a week they are going to try and not overlap.

Its not private information its her work, only her and her boss have access to it.

No third parties are named in the reports.

Do you work for the company also?

If not then third parties do have access to it. She showed you the monitoring data in relation to her.

Im sure the only people who that should be visible to is her manager and her.

This is the point im making about companies strict security polices where there is more control within a Workplace environment then home working.

mariaalice

How come for major financial institutions its not a problem all the health and safety issues, GDPR solved but for the civil service its a big union issue.

Kintarō Hattori

Between fuel and tolls it's costing me around €300 a month to go to the office where I work online for the whole day. It's just as easily accessed from home or anywhere in the world so I'd certainly be all for no commuting, especially as it'd save me about 2 hours per day as well.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

bee06 wrote: »

I could work from home with how my job is but I hate doing it. It’s so much easier to get things done when you can actually talk to someone face to face. Much easier to ignore an email compared to someone at your desk.

And I just like home to be home. I like the separation of work and living spaces.

Ush1

mariaalice wrote: »

How come for major financial institutions its not a problem all the health and safety issues, GDPR solved but for the civil service its a big union issue.

Cos snouts in troughs.

Stevieluvsye

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

Between fuel and tolls it's costing me around €300 a month to go to the office where I work online for the whole day. It's just as easily accessed from home or anywhere in the world so I'd certainly be all for no commuting, especially as it'd save me about 2 hours per day as well.

Ask your manager can you so? You have a valid argument

mariaalice

Duke of Url wrote: »

Do you work for the company also?

If not then third parties do have access to it. She showed you the monitoring data in relation to her.

Im sure the only people who that should be visible to is her manager and her.

This is the point im making about companies strict security polices where there is more control within a Workplace environment then home working.

The printing off of it is monitored i.e they know she did it. she can show it to anyone she likes she is not working for the CIA. The paranoia of some people.

You might keel over at this bu my husband showed me a work report he did to illustrate a point.

CelticRambler

eastie17 wrote: »

This excerpt from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/when-working-from-home-doesnt-work/540660/ article sums up the differences best for me:
<snip>

But other types of work hinge on what might be called “collaborative efficiency”—the speed at which a group successfully solves a problem. And distance seems to drag collaborative efficiency down. Why? The short answer is that collaboration requires communication. And the communications technology offering the fastest, cheapest, and highest-bandwidth connection is—for the moment, anyway—still the office.

My non-professional activities require quite a bit of collaboration. I'm involved in two quite different projects at the moment, one of which is progressing very nicely with me doing my bit about 5000km away from the project leader, because 90% of the collaboration is time spent thinking about what the other parties have suggested. The slowest part of the process occurred last week when I had to wait about an hour for a large video file to be downloaded (during which time I was able to dig 3kg of carrots, make a loaf of brown bread, review and sign one of the aforementioned contracts and lay out the tools needed for some work I'd do on my car later)

In parallel, the other project is crawling along because the project leader insists on round-table meetings at our notional HQ, 75km from me. 90% of that time is spent yakking about the previous meeting, the next meeting, or a dozen off-topic subjects. I remember one night when we were treated to a series of YouTube videos showing clips of the artists who had already been selected to appear at our festival so that we could formally approve them. :rolleyes:

So while I do agree that brainstorming with other people physically present in the one room can be a rapid and effective way to solve some problems, having alone time away from the herd can be just as effective - especially for those challenges that require real out-of-the-box solutions.

HildaOgdenx

A mix of working from home 1/2 days and being office based for the rest of the week, is the ideal solution for me. Cutting out a long commute a couple of days a week was like getting a new lease of life.

victor8600

An office is a place to work. I see the move to promote "working from home" as the Uber-isation of office jobs. Let's save costs at the expense of workers.

Personally, I prefer working in the office. My house is small and I don't have the luxury of a separate room that I can set up as an office and, most importantly, keep kids away.

nkl12xtw5goz70

victor8600 wrote: »

An office is a place to work. I see the move to promote "working from home" as the Uber-isation of office jobs. Let's save costs at the expense of workers.

I would argue that both the company and the worker can save money by working remotely. The company obviously benefits in reduced expenses. But the worker also benefits by not having to pay as much for petrol, tolls, parking, car maintenance, etc. Plus, he or she can save on work clothes, dry-cleaning, buying lunch out, and so on. Plus, kids will be in a creche or with a childminder for fewer hours, which may also be a saving.

The Cool

I'm self employed and work from home, personally I love it but it's not for everyone, some issues in particular:

- working from home comfortably requires you to have spare living space, somewhere to put a desk that is quiet and conducive to work. I share a house with my OH so was able to claim a work area, and I can also shut him up if I'm working and he's around. If I was in a houseshare, it'd be a different story as I wouldn't have control over my housemates or a corner of the common rooms and mightn't necessarily have space in my bedroom for a desk. Working from bed or the sofa with your laptop on your lap is lovely in theory but annoying in practice. Solution there might be to rent a place to myself or rent an extra room in the house, but then there's cost.

- On that note, there's personal investment in having the IT equipment, desk, chair, and good internet.

- The social aspect is more or less important to some people, my time is flexible and I enjoy being able to go meet teacher friends for coffee at 4pm on a wednesday so it suits me. My OH on the other hand - none of his friends live local, so all the friends he sees day to day are colleagues. If he were to cut off that social interaction, he would need to join a club or something to meet people.

- The facilities often just aren't there away from cities, and in the country we need major infrastructure investment. As much as I'd love to move back to my home village in Donegal and buy a house by the beach for a song, I'd be foregoing my ultrafast fibre broadband for 2G/3G internet from the mobile companies, not to mention local amenities. That said, it'd be great if we all moved to the small villages as it would bring them back to life and the services would be brought to us due to demand, but regardless, for the first people who jump ship, it's gonna be crap.

Somebody mentioned homeschooling kids - great for the actual physical environment, terrible for our social environment :pac:
As regards dossing at home - you definitely do, at the start, but once you miss a deadline or two you soon learn to knuckle down and get stuff done! In that regard I'd say the most important thing is routine - scheduling your time, clocking on and off, and having a specific work place, as in a desk rather than the sofa.

As I said I love working from home and would find it hard to go back to the commuting life, but it's definitely something that takes thought and preparation.

Duke of Url

mariaalice wrote: »

The printing off of it is monitored i.e they know she did it. she can show it to anyone she likes she is not working for the CIA. The paranoia of some people.

You might keel over at this bu my husband showed me a work report he did to illustrate a point.

Hmmmm OK. I dont believe that for a minute.

username2013

arctictree wrote: »

My wifes workplace tried to bring in a working from home policy. Union objected to it massively. Were talking about insurance, health and safety etc etc. Idea was abandoned eventually.

What profession is she in if you don't mind me asking?

mariaalice

Be interesting to see what the world of work will be like in 50 years time.

KilOit

I could do a part of my job at home but I also think it's very important for the social aspect to be around people. We're going down a very dangerous path of working from home is the norm, we'd have no social interaction and people would become very lonely. Things are already bad with over use of social apps.

Cina

I had to do it for a week after I had an operation two years ago and it almost drove me to the brink. I think for someone to do it they need to have a lot of willpower and be willing to go out for walks before work, at lunch, after work etc. Make sure to spend time with family and friends in the evening. I didn't have those options during that week and it was really difficult being at home alone all day.

I also hear people say they're way more productive and I didn't really feel that either. Not sure how I could possibly be more productive at home with all my luxuries as opposed to at a desk in an office where you basically have to work or else the day will drag.

I think the perfect balance would be 2-3 days in the office and 2-3 days at home a week. I don't think I could ever go to doing it from home full time.

mickuhaha

Everyone here is missing the worst outcome for remote working. That is if the work can be done remotely you don't need you're workers to be in Ireland. You can use cheap staff from other countries in alot of situations. Just look at a number of call centers. This is why the unions object. This of course excludes high skilled positions where the option seems to be in place to some point.

Stevieluvsye

mickuhaha wrote: »

Everyone here is missing the worst outcome for remote working. That is if the work can be done remotely you don't need you're workers to be in Ireland. You can use cheap staff from other countries in alot of situations. Just look at a number of call centers. This is why the unions object. This of course excludes high skilled positions where the option seems to be in place to some point.

Realistically nobody needs to be in an office in this day and age. Maybe in rare cases

nkl12xtw5goz70

mariaalice wrote: »

Be interesting to see what the world of work will be like in 50 years time.

We are still largely stuck in a nineteenth-century model. Robert Owen campaigned as early as 1817 for "eight hours' labour, eight hours' recreation, and eight hours' rest." His model caught on, and stuck. More than 200 years after he formulated that slogan, we still expect to report to a centralized workplace for 8 hours a day to be overseen by managers, even though we now have the technology to do things radically differently.

Teaching children to work more autonomously during school hours would help them make the transition to working without constant supervision. A culture of babysitting in education leads to a mindset of working only when the teacher is watching — which translates to "dossing" when the manager's back is turned at work, and thus an inability to focus when working from home.

The traditional workweek of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week is now being challenged. More employers are experimenting with 4-day weeks, shorter working days, and remote working. Many progressive-thinking managers have figured out that it's not how many hours you spend in the office that counts — or, indeed, whether you report to an office at all — but how much you get done and how much value you add. So it will indeed be interesting to see how things evolve from here.

mariaalice

mickuhaha wrote: »

Everyone here is missing the worst outcome for remote working. That is if the work can be done remotely you don't need you're workers to be in Ireland. You can use cheap staff from other countries in alot of situations. Just look at a number of call centers. This is why the unions object. This of course excludes high skilled positions where the option seems to be in place to some point.

In one of the places, my daughter's partner worked the work was take back from India to the UK because it was so badly done its not as simple as it seems.

mickuhaha

Stevieluvsye wrote: »

Realistically nobody needs to be in an office in this day and age. Maybe in rare cases

True and no reason companies should use more expensive staff either.

Working from home full time would be so isolating. Plus plenty of times you need to just have a 2 min chat with people to sort something out
Definitely good as an occasional option though

mickuhaha

mariaalice wrote: »

In one of the places, my daughter's partner worked the work was take back from India to the UK because it was so badly done its not as simple as it seems.

I am glad to hear that.

andekwarhola

Most IT companies do, I assume. Most of my colleagues would do at least one day working remotely.

jmayo

Slowyourrole wrote: »

There are certain ideas that, no matter how factually or logically based they are, simply don't sit well with people because they seem too far out of an established status quo. Working from home is one. Criminal rehabilitation is another. Universal Basic Income is another. Even basic welfare and online shopping were once concepts that seemed completely outrageous.

Yeah well we all know how Criminal rehabilitation worked out in London recently. It is often a farcical concept as a means to giving jobs to some well meaning social workers.

That is cr** that people have a problem with the idea of working from home when it is basically impossible for some to do their job from home.

Not everyone works for the googles, facebooks or microsofts of this world and wish to fook some Irish people copped on to that salient truth.

Anyone that works with or maintains equipment has to travel to where that equipment is.
Anyone that has to have personal physical interaction with people has to travel.

Yes, if you spend all day working on a computer, either doing some form of data processing, development, report writing, etc then fine you could work from anywhere.

But a lot of people do not have that luxury.

username2013

In the past I have worked in some roles exclusively from home( I'm in IT) and found it has its advantages and disadvantages. These are

Advantages:
- No commute
- Cuts down on pointless meetings to an extent (you still have to be available for some meeting via webex, skype etc)
- Saves money both on commute and lunch etc
- Easier to focus especially on coding as a software developer
- Can be a little more flexible in some ways

Disadvantages:
- Not around your work colleagues. I realise a lot of people might like this, but I also like to have a chat and a bit of craic at work, hard to do this on your own!
- You’re never away from work. Very easy to slip into a habit where your checking emails at 7 or 8 in the evening.
- Less breaks – not sure if other are like this, but I end up working a lot more when at home
- Your daily routines can start to slip. Had many days when I got up, quickly checked some emails, intending to then go for shower, breakfast etc. Come 1pm I am still working, no personal grooming done, it’s easy to slip into bad habits like this.
- Miss out on internal conversations. Some of the most important things you can learn in a company can be via informal chats, when you’re not in the office sometimes can feel a bit out of the loop
- Parents/in laws – if they are visiting, they just don’t seem to understand that you’re working no matter how many times you tell em and they constantly interrupt. Ideas for the houses, kids etc. It might be just my relations though!


Overall, I think a mix of in office and the option of being able to work at home for a couple of days a week is best for me, but everyone is different.

KildareP

Not sure I buy the climate change aspect of it.

You'll need still need to have some sort of an office or base that is heated, lit, etc.

At the moment our house is unheated and dark for the majority of our waking day - as are the majority of houses in our estate.

Whereas if we were all working from home then all of our houses would need to heated and lit from the moment we woke to the moment we went back to bed.

Meanwhile those base offices are still going to he heated and lit anyway!

And transport would still run because people will have more spare time saved from time ordinarily spent commuting to go and explore.

So rather than decreasing energy use we'd be increasing it?

andekwarhola

Clogged up commuting routes aren't just down to workers.

Factor in crappy infrastructure, terrible public transport and fat kids getting driven 1km to school by idle parents for example.

andekwarhola

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Is there not a risk of increasing social isolation, though? It all sounds great but this idea of encouraging more people to spend less time around others would probably have its own set of consequences.

Have to say I do like coming into the office but lucky enough to have a convenient commute and the can work from home once to twice a week.

Even a significantly smaller workplace with hot desks (and a staggered rota of office attendance) would mean people could WFH but also have office time too.

FionnB

mickuhaha wrote: »

True and no reason companies should use more expensive staff either.

Plenty of reasons - certainly in my line of work the required skill sets are just not there in countries where employees are 'cheaper'

mickuhaha

FionnB wrote: »

Plenty of reasons - certainly in my line of work the required skill sets are just not there in countries where employees are 'cheaper'

Tell the Dell employees that.

lawred2

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

People issue. A lot of managers would hate it.

A large number of employees would also hate it

jmayo

jmayo wrote: »

Yeah well we all know how Criminal rehabilitation worked out in London recently. It is often a farcical concept as a means to giving jobs to some well meaning social workers.

That is cr** that people have a problem with the idea of working from home when it is basically impossible for some to do their job from home.

Not everyone works for the googles, facebooks or microsofts of this world and wish to fook some Irish people copped on to that salient truth.

Anyone that works with or maintains equipment has to travel to where that equipment is.
Anyone that has to have personal physical interaction with people has to travel.

Yes, if you spend all day working on a computer, either doing some form of data processing, development, report writing, etc then fine you could work from anywhere.

But a lot of people do not have that luxury.

gosh you got awful angry there.

hopefully when you calm down youll read the thread again and spot that the mandatory, everyone now has to work from home 100% of the time regardless of their job argument hasnt been so much as hinted at.

phew, eh

Stevieluvsye

lawred2 wrote: »

A large number of employees would also hate it

Yep especially the "FOMO" brigade. I know girls who just go to work for the social aspect and to gossip on anything and everything

mariaalice

lawred2 wrote: »

A large number of employees would also hate it

I dont think anyone would be forced to do it and lots of work would just not be suitible for home working.

lawred2

Stevieluvsye wrote: »

Yep especially the "FOMO" brigade. I know girls who just go to work for the social aspect and to gossip on anything and everything

I admire your determination to not let any opportunity slip by

FionnB

mickuhaha wrote: »

Tell the Dell employees that.

I would imagine that Dell employees would agree that their jobs cannot be done as well in certain other countries.

Sunny Disposition

Anyone I employ who can work from home gets told its okay for them to do so, but its fine if they prefer to come into the office. I don't tell people this at the start of course, after about a year when I'm confident in them. Most mix it up, do a bit of both. Most of the people I've had though are on sites and just have to be physically present, there's no way around that unfortunately.

Strumms

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

And I just like home to be home. I like the separation of work and living spaces.

This 10000% ^^^... people think “ohhhh what a great company ‘allowing’ me to work from home”

I think.. shower of baštards, saving shed loads of cash on office space, furniture, stationery, insurance, cleaning etc, conditioning me to work for less due to the ‘bonus’ of being allowed to stay at home. Invading my personal, family, social life and space with their work, mindset etc....

NO...I wouldn’t do it...

My last job it had got to the stage of despite not being on call a few times a week I’m getting txts or calls of managers and the odd colleague... “sorry Strumms know you are off but”.... it’s gets old.... so separate your work and personal life.

chrissb8

I think for most, they can work at home and maybe come in for 1 or 2 days a week for meetings or discussions that actually matter. There is just no more need with the communication technologies we have at our disposal now.

Either one of two things will happen. More working from home or a 4 day week. The efficencies and automation in technology just means we don't need to be at our desks like we used to. No manager is looking over their workers shoulder or has to keep an eye on them. Just set deadlines, objectives and most people will work towards those.

I would never have my company buy and rent me out a property close to them just so I can get to work easier. The idea of my employer curating my personal life to fit better into my professional just feels too invasive. By the sounds of it Google, Facebook or any of those huge employers want to own their employees and use subtle influence to draw employees ever closer to their bosom.

mickuhaha

FionnB wrote: »

I would imagine that Dell employees would agree that their jobs cannot be done as well in certain other countries.

Dell moved 1,900 jobs to Poland. I am sure they know .

Dravokivich

mariaalice wrote: »

The printing off of it is monitored i.e they know she did it. she can show it to anyone she likes she is not working for the CIA. The paranoia of some people.

You might keel over at this bu my husband showed me a work report he did to illustrate a point.

If I showed anything from work to anyone who shouldn't see it, I'd be out the door.

The Nal

mickuhaha wrote: »

Dell moved 1,900 jobs to Poland. I am sure they know .

And then almost immediately a lot of those jobs to China.


I worked from home for four years. Loved it. Had my routine, not wasting countless hours in traffic and when work was over, it was over. Office door closed. My commute started at 8.55am I was "home" every day at 5.30pm.

Current gig is office based every day and I don't like it. My next job will have some sort of working from home option. At least 2 days a week.