Offices Reopening-Will you go?

na1

road_high wrote: »

Don’t mean to be blunt but if they want you there and you’ve signed up to it and it’s deemed safe why wouldn’t they be within their rights to expect you in ?

I work from home already in my role but I can’t wait to get out and meet colleagues and clients face to face again. Only so much you can do over the phone and emails. Sooner we are back in business the better

I don't understand how 'coming to the office' will make it 'back in business'

I actually prefer stay at home even if the COVID is over. There is no point wasting time& money on commutes while the same work can be done from home.

I know it might make some people jealous, but this is what the reality is...

hmmm

JTMan wrote: »

I think re-opening buildings will, in many cases, be more hassle than it is worth, until there is a vaccine. Once there is a vaccine, offices can reopen without all this hassle re-jigging offices and at the same time significantly reduce real estate.

Really interesting.

Business Continuity sites are mentioned in the article. All the big banks and plenty of other companies spend small fortunes every year having continuity sites, and they have been useless for most in this event. We might not all end up working from home permanently, but I can see companies shifting to ensure that we are adequately set up to work from home if the need arises. Buying a few desks and monitors for staff will be a lot cheaper than having a BCP site, and what would previously never have been accepted by Regulators suddenly looks more like the safer option.

na1

eviltwin wrote: »

I'm still working as normal, I don't have any fear about it because I know everyone is taking precautions. You have to live your life and that means going to work. I understand the concern but what's the alternative?

alternative is to find a job with more competent management.

na1

Murphman88 wrote: »

I work for a multinational in Dublin. We can do our job fully from home as all in cloud. How do people think companies are going to reopen offices and what timeline? Until now my company had a funny attitude to any requests to wfh.' Presenteeism' was very much the rule.

My own feeling on this is that unless there is either a vaccine or therapeutic avaiible I will refuse a request to be present in the office. Will many people take this stance? I have elderly parents so feel as though I couldn't see them if I'm forced to sit in an open plan office during this crisis.

Your point should be: if the company don't care about the health of your parents, why should I care about my employer?
Be sure if something happens to your parents(hopefully not) - no one from the company will help you or express their regret.

Stay at home (and actively look for alternative jobs), even after the company asks everyone to work in the office.
If you get laid off due to misconduct, you can have a good story for social media and probably for a labor court:
"I was laid off by ** because I don't want to risk the life of my parents."

MY BAD

It's busier than ever in my workplace. The first few weeks everyone was very good at distancing and hygiene. Unfortunately people are getting complacent now. The company management are bringing over engineers to service one part of the plant from mainland Europe next week. They won't be going into two weeks isolation before mixing with employees. Pretty reckless behaviour in my opinion.

na1

maneno wrote: »

So your expectation is that all public/civil servants should take a wage cut based on your friends circumstances? The mind boggles!!

no job done, no salary. This is how it works in the private sector.
Every taxpayer in this country is effectively an employer of the public servants.

na1

JimmyVik wrote: »

Or what if someone has a cough

They say that was the reason of the toilet paper shortage:
"one person has a cough - ten persons sh*t their pants"

Tippex

from what I can tell if social distancing is maintained the only way offices will be able to have staff onsite as before will be to increase their office space. This is totally unrealistic for 99.9% of businesses out there.
A lot of businesses will see this as a great experiment and use the opportunity to maintain a full wfh policy and reduce their outgoings by downsizing their offices.

uli84

I’d run not just go, oh wait, my job is home based

jonnny68

ill go in maybe 2 days a week until further notice

Tippex

na1 wrote: »

I don't understand how 'coming to the office' will make it 'back in business'

I actually prefer stay at home even if the COVID is over. There is no point wasting time& money on commutes while the same work can be done from home.

I know it might make some people jealous, but this is what the reality is...

+1 for this I used to have my office near Guinness' I would regularly be commuting 3 hours per day sometimes 4 by bus from Bray (1.5hrs - 2 hrs each way) (which is ridiculous when you think about it) the amount of wasted time in commutes is totally underestimated imo. For the last 2 years we are fully remote and yes it takes getting used to but I am so much more productive wfh than when in the office.

I have essentially been working from home for the last 3 years.

seamus

hmmm wrote: »

Really interesting.

Business Continuity sites are mentioned in the article. All the big banks and plenty of other companies spend small fortunes every year having continuity sites, and they have been useless for most in this event. We might not all end up working from home permanently, but I can see companies shifting to ensure that we are adequately set up to work from home if the need arises. Buying a few desks and monitors for staff will be a lot cheaper than having a BCP site, and what would previously never have been accepted by Regulators suddenly looks more like the safer option.

Having been involved in BCP stuff before, I know that pandemics are often considered, but usually from a regional perspective; i.e. "If there's an outbreak in London, then we can move operations to Manchester".

When it's suggested that it could be a national event, companies often throw their hands up. Much like, "Well what if someone drops a nuke on the major cities?", the answer is usually, "To hell with BCP, I'll be at home with my family, you can come to work if you want".

The edge case that there might be a large-scale pandemic that was nationally disruptive without being an "end times" event is usually never considered.

The impact this is going to have long-term on commercial property can't be understated IMO. Even if it's not a case that companies will move to majority home-working, it has been proven that many companies have zero need to concentrate all of their staff into a single large building. The processes and infrastructure already exists to allow them to operate out of multiple regional offices, with a mix of remote workers. At a fraction of the operational costs of having 100,000 sq.m. in Dublin's docklands.

One question will be what level of individual investment companies (or the government) will be willing to make. Will there be grants for building/converting office space at home, for example?

hmmm

seamus wrote: »

When it's suggested that it could be a national event, companies often throw their hands up. Much like, "Well what if someone drops a nuke on the major cities?", the answer is usually, "To hell with BCP, I'll be at home with my family, you can come to work if you want".

The edge case that there might be a large-scale pandemic that was nationally disruptive without being an "end times" event is usually never considered.

It's a classic low likelihood/high impact risk which everyone ignores.

Now it's happened, it's no longer a low-likelihood event, so companies will have to plan for it. Are they going to have a full business continuity site where they are paying for hundreds of empty desks, or would they redirect that towards employees being able to WFH at short notice? I suspect many will. It could be argued it's a lot more resilient too.

Kintarō Hattori

na1 wrote: »

I don't understand how 'coming to the office' will make it 'back in business'

I actually prefer stay at home even if the COVID is over. There is no point wasting time& money on commutes while the same work can be done from home.

I know it might make some people jealous, but this is what the reality is...

Same here. I had an hour each way in the car and between petrol and tolls I was spending €300pm just to get there. Now I can get up a little later and I'm 'home' earlier.

Flavour Diaper

You will all be back in the office soon enough i expect. In many situations precautions can be instated. Some people are working five day weeks in offices since this began. Some have increased due to others being directed to stay home.

gazzer

na1 wrote: »

no job done, no salary. This is how it works in the private sector.
Every taxpayer in this country is effectively an employer of the public servants.

Im a civil servant and can only speak for my colleagues in the division I work in but we are as busy as we were pre Covid. Working 9 hour days but having to use our own laptops and phones as none of that was supplied to us. On the flip side, any of my friends who work in the private sector who are working from home have been provided with all the equipment they need.

GreeBo

hmmm wrote: »

I can avoid contact with people in my office.

I can't avoid people on public transport. I don't actually know how public transport is even going to operate, having large numbers of strangers all squashed together just makes no sense.

Your office doesnt have a door or lift or stairwell or corridors or bathrooms or taps or toilets?


/BUMP.

JTMan

Flavour Diaper wrote: »

You will all be back in the office soon enough i expect.

No chance unless by 'soon' you mean September

The latest leaks on the lifting of the restrictions still puts office reopenings in the "later phases".

We ain't going back to offices anytime this summer by the looks of things.

The impact this is going to have long-term on commercial property can't be understated IMO.

Completely. This crisis is going to turn commercial real estate on it's head. Hopefully land that was destined to be commercial real estate will be used for badly needed residential instead.

hmmm

GreeBo wrote: »

Your office doesnt have a door or lift or stairwell or corridors or bathrooms or taps or toilets?

Not sure what point you're getting at. We can control our risks in all those situations in a socially-distanced workplace, we can't stop someone breathing down our neck on a packed bus.

GreeBo

hmmm wrote: »

Not sure what point you're getting at. We can control our risks in all those situations in a socially-distanced workplace, we can't stop someone breathing down our neck on a packed bus.

You said that you can keep your distance in your office, I don't understand how you can keep your distance from shared things such as doors and lifts, toilets, etc, etc?

I also dont understand what benefit you will get from being in the office if you have to socially distance from everyone else?

hmmm

GreeBo wrote: »

You said that you can keep your distance in your office, I don't understand how you can keep your distance from shared things such as doors and lifts, toilets, etc, etc?

I also dont understand what benefit you will get from being in the office if you have to socially distance from everyone else?

I haven't been advocating for going back to offices? My original point was that for many people, getting into the office on public transport would be a bigger problem/concern.

Szero

JTMan wrote: »

No chance unless by 'soon' you mean September
The latest leaks on the lifting of the restrictions still puts office reopenings in the "later phases".

Kudos to the government for realising that opening offices, which is largely non-essential, should be left to the last restrictions to be lifted.

I am starting to wonder if office restrictions will even be lifted in September. This could easily coincide with the time that Fauci and others expect a second wave.

Starting to think that I'll build that outdoor garden office afterall.

Jim Root

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

There are also 100s or 1000s of civil servants at home getting full pay, who can't go to the offices as they are not open, and don't have the facility to work from home. I have a friend on a 50k salary who wasn't issued a laptop and office isn't open, so he's getting full pay for doing nothing.
How long is it going to be before the public/civil service take wage cuts?

this kind of situation drives me absolutely banana's. there needs to be an axe wielded all across the public service.

Amirani

JTMan wrote: »

Completely. This crisis is going to turn commercial real estate on it's head. Hopefully land that was destined to be commercial real estate will be used for badly needed residential instead.

If it has that sort of impact on commercial real estate, it's likely there'd be a significant drop in demand for Dublin residential also. If people don't need to work in city centre, many won't choose to live there either.

Rowley Birkin QC

We've been updated to say that we have the option to WFH until at least Oct.2nd regardless of Govt. guidelines. It's good as it gives us certainty from a work perspective at least.

A lot of my team will likely never go back to the office as we've been business as usual since this began and the company is fine with it.

Thelonious Monk

maneno wrote: »

So your expectation is that all public/civil servants should take a wage cut based on your friends circumstances? The mind boggles!!

No, I think they should be taking a pay cut because the economy is destroyed, it's ridiculous they can still expect the same money. Not the lower level people but certainly those in higher positions. The NZ pm has taken a 20% pay cut along with her ministers.

stephenjmcd

WFH has always been an option where I work but 99% still pick to come into the office and I'll still go into the office, we expect to be back in some form in June hopefully. Can request a letter to go in if we need it and I'll probably do that and start going back a few days a week in May

JTMan

Amirani wrote: »

If it has that sort of impact on commercial real estate, it's likely there'd be a significant drop in demand for Dublin residential also. If people don't need to work in city centre, many won't choose to live there either.

Yeah, demand for city centre real estate is likely to be hit but people need to live somewhere and Dublin's population is growing and residential property demand as a whole is projected to grow significantly over the coming years.

I'll still go into the office, we expect to be back in some form in June hopefully.

Is your company planning on breaking the law / going against government advise? To go the office, you have to be an essential services worker who cannot perform their activities from home. Very few people meet this criteria. And it won't be June that offices are reopening, seems like the government will allow offices to reopen as part of the later phases, which may occur in September.

stephenjmcd

JTMan wrote: »

Yeah, demand for city centre real estate is likely to be hit but people need to live somewhere and Dublin's population is growing and residential property demand as a whole is projected to grow significantly over the coming years.



Is your company planning on breaking the law / going against government advise? To go the office, you have to be an essential services worker who cannot perform their activities from home. Very few people meet this criteria. And it won't be June that offices are reopening, seems like the government will allow offices to reopen as part of the later phases, which may occur in September.

Yes we can operate under the essential services sector, company decision to work from home

Grueller Baby

One of the big 4 companies in Ireland have apparently told staff earlier today to work from home until October.