Working From Home Megathread

Quin_Dub

PauloMN wrote: »

100%. Especially when people would probably choose WFH or hybrid over more money. It's very possible to be better off on less money if you only have to go to the office once or twice a week, you can buy a commuter belt house with space rather than an apartment in some block in town.

The other thing where WFH really works is when you are dealing with different time zones. If you're in contact with Asia or the US as part of your working day, WFH is a no-brainer. Flexibility to be at home and do whatever needs to be done, and then take calls very early or late in the day. Offices were built for mainly 9 to 5 type work. That type of work is becoming less common in the private sector, especially in IT related companies.

Technology has really evolved so quickly recently. It's easier for me to train someone remotely than in the office to be honest. Screenshare, jump on a Hangout, much nicer than having someone looking over your shoulder while you crouch to make room for them. Esp now with Covid still about!

That is exactly how/why I started working from home a dozen years ago.

The majority of my work was with US based people 6 to 8 time zones behind me.

I was finding that I was going in to the Office but leaving at midday or 1pm because if I stayed beyond then I'd be stuck in the office until 7 or 8pm due to conference calls with the US.

I came to the realisation that me driving to the office to spend only 3 or 4 hours there and then rushing home during a gap in calls so that I'd be home at a reasonable time just made no sense.

So I just stopped going to the Office and worked from home instead and life was so much easier and calmer.

It was actually only a few years later that my company formalised their WFH policy , before that I simply just didn't go in.

My boss and all my team mates were in other countries anyway so my physical presence in the office was never noticed one way or the other.

Frank Bullitt

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

It's not my argument: it's a labour inspectors.

Your employer is legally responsible for ensuring that you don't average more than 48 hours/week, and that you get legal minimum breaks during shifts and rest time between work days.

Your employer will get away with neither knowing nor caring - until some employee complaints, or the government wants to prove something against them. But they will face penalties if WRC inspection happens. And after that grey are likely to care, whether you want them to or not.

Your crusade against all things that are not by the book or is WFH based is pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

JTMan

Nice perk ...

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/1402734293026287620

Lillyfae

JTMan wrote: »

Nice perk ...

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/1402734293026287620

Wowza, if I was working for Facebook I would be researching the Mediterranean right now.

Mrs OBumble

Frank Bullitt wrote: »

Your crusade against all things that are not by the book or is WFH based is pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

Do you regard all laws as optional?

Or just ones regarding employee rights?

That's a big move from Facebook

Quin_Dub

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Do you regard all laws as optional?

Or just ones regarding employee rights?

It's a question of Spirit vs. Letter and everyone finding an equitable balance.

Are there weeks where I work more than 40hrs?
Yes , without question

Are there weeks where I work less than 40 hours ?
Yes , Absolutely.

And to be honest, given my tenure and experience in reality it's far more of the latter than the former.

Do my employers give a toss one way or the other as long as I am productive and delivering on the goals set for me?
No , not in the slightest.

People and Employers that rigidly and slavishly apply rules without any nuance or acceptance of human nature & reality are generally unsuccessful in the long run.

I find that the best people and places are those that respect the rules but use a general principle of "Don't take the pi$$" when applying them.

The sort of working environment you seem to advocate - One where every moment is micro-managed and micro-measured and all rules blindly and rigidly applied just seems utterly appalling to me.

Each to their own I guess , but count me (and based on the responses here , pretty much everybody else) out , thanks.

recyclops

JTMan wrote: »

Nice perk ...

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/1402734293026287620

Thats a good perk although the article says you have to be in the office half the time so realistically your worse off and in the office more than Hybrid models most businesses well end up doing.

Fr Tod Umptious

JTMan wrote: »

Nice perk ...

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/1402734293026287620

I wonder what percentage of Facebook's Dublin staff are from the rest of the EU.

Anecdotally you hear that a lot of them are,so this could be a huge bonus for them not having to move (back) to Dublin if they wished to remain in their home country.

The real issue is when someone tries to apply the same rules across multiple types of employment, it will of course be completely inappropriate for many of the roles while at the same time perfect for other.
For example, customer facing roles such as receptionist or checkout operator and most manufacturing production line operative roles do require fairly strict working hours to function correctly, rigid start and end times are to be expected, it is also true that none of these roles are suitable for WFH as they would simply be impossible to achieve.

The problem appears that some people are unable to make the distinction between jobs that require a presence during the working day and jobs that generally are results driven, that historically used to be pushed into the same mould as presentism roles.

Recently, WFH has proven that productivity can be maintained without forcing fixed hours on people as there is nothing more frustrating than having more "office hours" than active work hours, being forced to wait until 5PM before an hour or more of commuting hell.

The fact that some people want to return to that lifestyle is hard to comprehend, unless their home lives are so bad that the long commute and boring office time is preferable.

I sometimes wonder if there is simple jealously against those who have jobs that allow flexibility in task management as well as flexibility in where they can accomplish these tasks.
With Facebook's & Golden Sachs recent announcements it's clear that some companies are surfing the tide while others are trying to reverse it.

Fr Tod Umptious

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

I wonder what percentage of Facebook's Dublin staff are from the rest of the EU.

Anecdotally you hear that a lot of them are,so this could be a huge bonus for them not having to move (back) to Dublin if they wished to remain in their home country.

Do they not have to be in the office more than half the time? It sounds great but between the requirement to be in the office and national tax laws I’m not sure how simple it will be to implement

Fr Tod Umptious

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

I wonder what percentage of Facebook's Dublin staff are from the rest of the EU.

Anecdotally you hear that a lot of them are,so this could be a huge bonus for them not having to move (back) to Dublin if they wished to remain in their home country.

It will be interesting to see how the wage bill is sorted out as these employees will now be based in different countries, will they be expected to earn the local equivalent wage for the role, I suspect that the smarter companies see this as a way to reduce wage bills by locally employing in lower wage countries.

Relative to the high costs of living in Dublin, many would still be better off in their home countries even on a lower salary.
Edit: It could also be in part due to the corporate Tax levelling that is starting to happen, the Dublin effect is diminishing.

Christy42

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Do you regard all laws as optional?

Or just ones regarding employee rights?

You should take your case up against Facebook in that case since they seem to be about to break a large number of employee rights laws with workers not even close to the office.

irelandrover

Deleted User wrote: »

The fact that some people want to return to that lifestyle is hard to comprehend, unless their home lives are so bad that the long commute and boring office time is preferable.

Not everyone has a long commute or a boring office.

There are advantages for a lot of people to WFH. What I've seen in this thread is they don't seem to accept that there are advantages to others to working from the office.

There is a study done in the Netherlands and it shows issues with WFH.

https://nltimes.nl/2021/06/09/young-people-will-suffer-continued-work-home-researcher-says

ednwireland

in year our company has gone from office based to been bought by an American company , most of the people now work from home we have programmers in india and tech people in uk

irelandrover

irelandrover wrote: »

Not everyone has a long commute or a boring office.

There are advantages for a lot of people to WFH. What I've seen in this thread is they don't seem to accept that there are advantages to others to working from the office.

There is a study done in the Netherlands and it shows issues with WFH.

https://nltimes.nl/2021/06/09/young-people-will-suffer-continued-work-home-researcher-says

True, for some roles, regular but infrequent face to face meetings will help maintain the teams cohesion and ensure focus on what is needed, but that does not mean 40hours a week in an office, several days a month is all that is needed.


As for the Dutch study, it appears to be the opinion of one person without any factual data to back it up.

Fr Tod Umptious

Deleted User wrote: »

Do they not have to be in the office more than half the time? It sounds great but between the requirement to be in the office and national tax laws I’m not sure how simple it will be to implement

Ok I missed the requirement to be in the office half time.

givyjoe

Deleted User wrote: »

True, for some roles, regular but infrequent face to face meetings will help maintain the teams cohesion and ensure focus on what is needed, but that does not mean 40hours a week in an office, several days a month is all that is needed.


As for the Dutch study, it appears to be the opinion of one person without any factual data to back it up.

I'm on a Team of #15 people, we've not met once in person together since lockdown 1, not once. Zero negative difference on work output. I dont believe its necessary at all, regardless of roles, unless its something that only can be done (effectively) in person. We were a completely fragmented team, all focused on our separate silos up til a year ago. I'd say we're a significantly more cohesive team since we started doing these WFH meetings (once a week on Friday) Before this it was impossible to get everyone together, literally, as we didn't have a meeting room big enough! Absolutely zero affect on focus, that's for individual managers (and us) to worry about, which we do.

The single biggest noticeable difference, which massively contributes to increased efficiency, is no more open plan office where before, it was a continuous cycle of interruptions to each others work and focus. If we really need to speak to someone now, we jump on a teams call.

Fr Tod Umptious

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Ok I missed the requirement to be in the office half time.

I may have picked it up wrong but I took that to mean you had to be present in the office half the time in the country you are in. So for example if a Spanish person was working in Dublin then they could transfer to Spain and then use the Spanish office to fulfill that requirement. Assuming the country you move to has an office.

Underground

On the Facebook news, if I am an employee of Facebook based in Ireland right now, I can't just up and move to Spain can I?

For some reason I seem to think that the max you can work abroad in any calendar year is about one month due to PAYE reasons, is that the case or have I completely made that up?

Underground

Underground wrote: »

On the Facebook news, if I am an employee of Facebook based in Ireland right now, I can't just up and move to Spain can I?

For some reason I seem to think that the max you can work abroad in any calendar year is about one month due to PAYE reasons, is that the case or have I completely made that up?

There are currently tax implications but moving forward no reason these rules can't be changed. It will provide a challenge to Ireland's economic model.

Underground

[Deleted User] wrote: »

There are currently tax implications but moving forward no reason these rules can't be changed. It will provide a challenge to Ireland's economic model.

Wow. That is some shift. If you're in your mid 20's to mid 30's with no dependents, not much reason to stay in Ireland if you have an option like that open to you.

If others follow suit we'll see a massive brain drain.

Underground

Underground wrote: »

Wow. That is some shift. If you're in your mid 20's to mid 30's with no dependents, not much reason to stay in Ireland if you have an option like that open to you.

If others follow suit we'll see a massive brain drain.

Ya, could be a fantastic development for a lot of people, there will probably be a lot of push back from certain companies, politicians, landlords etc. Even now though the fact that it is being discussed is a huge development, no one could have predicted this only a year and a half ago.

Antares35

Underground wrote: »

Wow. That is some shift. If you're in your mid 20's to mid 30's with no dependents, not much reason to stay in Ireland if you have an option like that open to you.

If others follow suit we'll see a massive brain drain.

We have dependants and are still looking at it as the better option!

moycullen14

Antares35 wrote: »

We have dependants and are still looking at it as the better option!

I'm thinking the opposite. What about a 'job' in Silicon Valley whilst living in west Kerry?

Antares35

moycullen14 wrote: »

I'm thinking the opposite. What about a 'job' in Silicon Valley whilst living in west Kerry?

Not to be scoffed at either

Mrs OBumble

Christy42 wrote: »

You should take your case up against Facebook in that case since they seem to be about to break a large number of employee rights laws with workers not even close to the office.

Why would I take a case against anyone???

All I'm doing is stating what Irish law says.

Facebook are large enough that they will have themselves covered. Though as someone noted the move to local-country wage rates may influence where people actually want to work from.

givyjoe

givyjoe wrote: »

I'm on a Team of #15 people, we've not met once in person together since lockdown 1, not once. Zero negative difference on work output. I dont believe its necessary at all, regardless of roles, unless its something that only can be done (effectively) in person.

Correct, that is why I stated "in some roles" , I also work as part of a global team who I have never met in person, this was before covid so in that sense, little has changed for me except the location of where I do the on-line meetings.


The types of role I was thinking about are ones where it can sometimes help to be physically at the workplace to discuss something like a manufacturing process where looking at the setup while discussing it is more beneficial than remotely. Flexibility is the key, I seldom need to have those onsite meetings, but when I need them they're needed.

Fr Tod Umptious

Deleted User wrote: »

There are currently tax implications but moving forward no reason these rules can't be changed. It will provide a challenge to Ireland's economic model.

In reality there are plenty of reason that tax rules cannot be changed.
As we have seen with Ireland and the corporate tax debates over the last few years countries are very slow to relinquish any sort of tax autonomy they may have, regardless of their support for single markets for goods and services.

While it would be nice to think that any company based in the EU could hire a remote employee based in any other EU country seamlessly the reality is that their is a myriad of implications to doing so that make it not seamless and it may be a long time before that changes.

irelandrover

Deleted User wrote: »

Ya, could be a fantastic development for a lot of people, there will probably be a lot of push back from certain companies, politicians, landlords etc. Even now though the fact that it is being discussed is a huge development, no one could have predicted this only a year and a half ago.

Id assume that to comply with tax regulations that the person will be transferred to the foreign office. So that if you want to move to France you join the Paris branch of Facebook. In which case you fall into their pay scales instead of the Irish pay scales.


I cant see Facebook allowing a person in the Warsaw office to earn an Irish salary while sitting beside a person earning the polish salary.