I am in the lucky position where I can work from home reasonably successfully and don’t plan to be commuting up to London by train any time soon but it got me wondering if I really ever need to go to the office again.

I work in IT as a Transformation Director of Data which is a fancy title for moving our clients computer systems from old technology to new technology. This means I have lots of meetings and discussions about what options we have, how we can plan this, how are we progressing, what problems and blockers we have etc.

Since lock down all of these meetings have been via Webex or Microsoft teams backked up with telephone calls and recorded transcript Lync discussions.

We have been very successful in maintaining progress after a slightly slow start while we got machines to people when they were locked down in India. We have actually increased the amount of training we are doing via online courses.

All our meetings continue unchanged
All our development continues unchanged
All our training continues unchanged
All our deployments and fixes continue unchanged

I am trying to think of why I will ever need to go back to the office. Suddenly the management message at the end of last year that by 2025 only 25% of the company would be working in offices seems very real and possible even a bit unambitious. Clearly this is not possible for a lot of people and trades but I believe it will affect more than just the IT trade.

Anyone else foresee this kind of change to their work over the next year?

Surely as there is a recession looming a lot of companies will realise that paying mega rents for fancy city centre offices is madness when many of their people can work from home

Thinking something similar but what I wonder is how it works to build up relationships with people over Zoom as opposed to face-to-face. How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely? At present all the team members know each other well from the time we spent together in the office, but when will that knowledge expire?

I do not think it is far-fetched for _some_ market sectors to be looking at this, but the extent of how it is accepted may depend on whether people really want to work from home and how much their businesses trust them to do so.

A lot of what I see over here (Sweden) in my sector (IT) is that this could really work, but it opens up a bunch of challenges, not least in how teams will interact and relate to each other if they never meet in person. There is also a serious lack of accommodation that can stretch to having a dedicated office. We have a large-ish lounge and there was enough space for an Ikea desk. This is now ‘my office’ and I occupy that space when I am working. I try not to go there outside hours. Before that arrived, I had a chair that was part of the normal room seating and it gave me no separation between work and home.

Trusting employees might also be an issue. They’ll need to work over a VPN to on-site resources, or to secure cloud services, ideally on dedicated equipment that is provided and maintained by the company. If the company wants to minimse risk, they will need to take a bunch of transparent, strong measures to stop potential incidents (always on VPN, central management, GPO control, AV, you name it).

Most of all, it will take a shift in how people think about work, managing teams and employment. I know a lot of places where managers want people to be in, phiscally at desks where they can see them. Those people need to change their views.

I still think there is no substitute for face to face client meetings unless it’s a fairly transactional service that’s being offered, but probably 90% of what many people do on a day to day basis can be done remotely

Surely as there is a recession looming a lot of companies will realise that paying mega rents for fancy city centre offices is madness when many of their people can work from home

Although many will be locked into long agreements so even if they don’t work from the office, they will still have an obligation to pay rent on it.

I joined the account a week or so before lock down so had the slightly awkward ‘First Introduction’ meeting with some but not all of the onsite team but no time to really get to know them, let allow the much bigger offshore component of the team.

All bonds have formed remotely and much like in the office there are people I really like and others less so. Some seem keen to help and others seem keen not to do anything that might mean they do it wrong. Mentoring the team is possibly remotely and I have managed offshore teams for many years so I guess I have practice.

Team Bonding days I have been on mostly end up with the same people who are friends in the office working together and those who are not part of the group remaining that way. With a good and well bonded team you get a good team day but with a fragmented or distrustful team they can be awful.

James – not just rent on office, I am saving nearly £800 a month in train fares 🙂

I am a developer and I am job hunting. None of the jobs I am applying for are willing to accept WFH. I am not asking for 100% just 3 days, or week at home week on Site.

These are senior developer roles. I have lots of experience working onsite with clients so can clearly be effective. Not one has said they are willing to accept WFH. ~ 5 jobs over the last month or so.

How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

With difficulty in my 22yrs of wfh with the same Co, mind you they do such crass things as knocking off early on last day before Xmas without telling external engineers – we only find out when we get the out of office email responses 🙄

How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

Thinking something similar but what I wonder is how it works to build up relationships with people over Zoom as opposed to face-to-face. How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

I can offer some direct experience; I started a brand new role in a brand new team on the 1st April, i.e. the midst of lockdown. It’s hard, but doable; MS Teams still allows you to introduce yourself to people face to face, you can still speak to them, but you do miss the earwigging of conversations going on around you that help to get a picture of what goes on in and around the team. In terms of “team-building”, with a bit of thought you can still have casual get-togethers We for example have a call at about half four each day which is a general check-in/talk bollocks/take the pi$$ session, on Fridays folks generally have a beer with them.

I can’t see myself being in an office for more than a day or at most two days week for, well, god knows, if ever. I have a call booked with my boss later this afternoon about it actually, cos they’re trying to plan how any ‘back to the office’ might work when they need to keep the office utilization at 30% to allow the social distancing measures. It’ll be different teams in different days, staggered starts/finishes etc I bet.

Kind of ironic, cos I took the role as the commute was an easy option…

I still think there is no substitute for face to face client meetings unless it’s a fairly transactional service

I was a pre-sales technical consultant selling complex SLA software (salesmans techie sidekick) across Europe. Lots of mad trips to meet clients, sometimes 2 – 3 countries a day for F2F meetings. Then the main salesman I worked with broke his leg so couldn’t really travel for 8 weeks. We still started, progressed and landed deals and it was far more efficient and relaxed.

It does take a slight mind shift but no more than the move from telephone call to video and screen share meetings

Not for me, thank christ. Living alone and working alone is **** awful.
Thankfully, my (also IT) job involves some stuff that can only be accessed on site, so we’ll be back in the office when we can – big difference will be the flexibility to WFH when needed will be improved. (It’s rare that I’d need to though).

Got a couple of mates with WFH jobs, I just don’t think it’d suit me.

I’ve been in that position for a few years. The team I work in is spread throughout the UK and what we deliver is all done remote. We see each other a few times a year when we do a day of planning and socialising – rest of the time it’s a few video calls a week to check in.

The wider company is a specialist in Lync/SfB/Teams so most of our customers are a long way down that path – projects had already largely gone from needing bodies on site to being happy with our people working remotely.

The losers in this “new way of working” are those earlier in their careers. If you’re in your 20s you’re not likely to have a spare room to work from and you’ll lose out on the connections made at work, the quick questions answered, chance meetings with people in other departments, mentorships, etc. Companies need to think hard about how they make it work for them too.

How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

I’ve done it for 20 years now, on and off, yes some F2F is required, but not every day.

We’ll be reducing our real-estate for sure, any visit to any site requires ELT approval, even in countries where lock down is relaxing, plus I don’t think I’ll be doing 100+ flights this year (thank god).

TheBrick – when I joined this company in 2011 I was also told that WFH was not an option and not possible so contract stated I was based in the London office. First time I wasn’t on the client site I went to the office to be told – go home and do some online training or something.

Companies HR policies and the working realities are often different. HR want the right to demand you go to the office. The team management just want you to do the job and are often happy to let you have remote working.

My company are obsessed with getting us in the office. The whole company is normally in Mon – Fri from 8am with minimal flexibility.

They have IT in this week moving desks so we can return to the office as soon as possible.

Some management may have struggled to WFH through lockdown due to childcare, but my team are all childless and we’ve worked perfectly remotely. Very frustrating that there will be no option to continue to do so.

you’ll lose out on the connections made at work, the quick questions answered, chance meetings with people in other departments, mentorships, etc.

Agreed.

I see that happening in other ways too where people are given very specific roles with very specific skill sets and so don’t get the rounded learning and more ‘general knowledge’ that comes from doing many things

Mark88 – Are you in a position to suggest a WFH ‘trail’ for your team. You need to think of some measures that will show the benefits, not just that you can do the same at hoime as you can in the office otherwise there is no incentive for the senior management to change anything

I’m an IT consultant. I’m working with two clients now, in the US and in Finland. I probably would not have travelled to the US but I’m pretty sure I’d have gone to Finland by now. However the work is being done just the same. So yes – why bother?

Thinking something similar but what I wonder is how it works to build up relationships with people over Zoom as opposed to face-to-face. How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

It takes effort, and money, because I do think you need to meet people once or twice. Then it becomes far easier online. Also the ability to just mess about and talk bollocks online is vital. We use Slack, and some of our teams have general channels for just this purpose, and it really helps get people together just like STW does.

It’s something I have been working on for a while, and lockdown has strengthened my argument.

My manager is on board but there’s some teams that are less effective at home so it’s a battle to push for benefits for my team that won’t be on offer to other departments.

you’ll lose out on the connections made at work, the quick questions answered, chance meetings with people in other departments, mentorships, etc.

Honestly, I’d say yes to the chance meetings, less so the rest. You make connections by working with and talking to people; you still do that. You can ask/answer quick Q’s on Teams, Zoom etc and mentoring should be structured anyway so that can be, well, structured in.

I talk to people about ‘work’ stuff now as much as I ever did sat in the office. It’s the non-work stuff that doesn’t happen as much and that needs more attention, but there’s plenty of ways of doing that.

I do miss going in, I wouldn’t want to WFH all the time (mainly for the change of scene), but something like 2 days in and 3 WFH would be fine by me.

I still think there is no substitute for face to face client meetings unless it’s a fairly transactional service

That’s assuming clients will still want you on site in the future. I can see suppliers being banned from attending customer sites for quite some time to come.

I WFH for last couple of years
Was with a new company, so didn’t start in the office and then move home if that makes sense.
Doing IT work

Observations:
I often found living alone and WFH isolating/lonely
The flexibility was great though, and I did work when it was required and didn’t sit twiddling my thumbs during office hours. I think they got as much work out of me paying me for 3 days as they would have got in 5 days of sitting in the office.
I didn’t really make many friends at my company
When I got let go, I didn’t bother telling anyone or saying bye as I didn’t care about my colleagues – other than another WFH person who was up here in Scotland too (office in London).
I had productive working relationships with some other IT guys in our suppliers who I never met. Or even know what they look like. Probably better than the people in my own company, but they were still in the mass email chain style of communicating.
I am glad I am finished that job, and looking forward to a job that has more human interaction

I think there will certainly be a ‘new normal’.

We’re in IT Support.

When lock-down first came there was a huge panic, few were willing the accept it was happening until it did. Even after they announced Social Distancing most of our clients did nothing they were told “work from home if you can” and only thought “can I work from home without making any changes?”.

1 week later we were inundated by calls demanding to know why they couldn’t buy whatever crap laptop was left on the shelf in PC world and intermediately access all their usual tools and data in the usual way. We had to do a lot of explaining, a lot of quick solutions and a lot of “do you really need that?”

As the weeks went on we were able to put in place more permanent solutions in place, again it was all a bit rushed.

Now we’re at a stage where most are looking at permanent solutions, Business’s are not only looking at the costs of buildings, but accepting there may be no end to Covid in sight and the cold-hard-fact that offices were designed to cram as many bodies in as possible around fire regs etc, not 2m social distancing rules. Thinking of my own small office. There’s 15 of us in an office that could house 30+ (we’ve got large areas allocated for stock, storage and ‘Labs’ etc) it’s got a single stair case to the second floor, two toilets and a single entrance.

We’re helping to roll out completely cloud based platforms for clients, showing how to make Zoom secure, how to use Teams for internal use and recording ‘chat’ platforms. Security is a challenge as it the really tricky business of ‘oversight’. I think some middle managers are seeing the writing on the wall for them, I’m part of an IT sales group on FB some US manages are demanding anonymous access to webcams and mics to check on staff working from home. I would hope that would never become a thing in the UK, I would personally feel very strongly if we were asked to roll out that sort of thing in the UK.

Well, Twitter is looking at 100% remote if they can and so is AMEX. Companies will do what works and what delivers the best return for their shareholders and, in IT at least, that really should not mean paying for a big office.

I will definitely be WFH more when we eventually go back in. Not every day (I work 10 days over 9) but at least 2 days a week.

We already have an arrangement in my branch where people can work wherever they like, home, another office, but we are all at the same office on a Wednesday so we can interact with each other. The daily stand-up can be attended remotely. Its my responsibility/decision by the letter of company policy, but I will see what the staff want to do, let them identify and resolve any issues.

I don’t think I would do it all the time by choice, but I have two hours a day of my life back to ride my bike and haven’t used the car in two months (we called it early and all started WFH mid March)

I have to say MS Teams is a great bit of kit.

On a wide team call at the moment and a very senior manager is saying that “the old ways of five days in the office are gone”

It’s certainly going to go on longer than I imagined at our place – 7 month plan for drip feeding people back into the office – longer if required

I don’t need to be office based, but would still need to pop in once a week.

Happy if that was my future

I work directly with teams in 3 locations in England and 2 in India. I used to WFH 2 days a week. For me lockdown changed very little – I already had good friends in India that I’d never met and people in my office that are merely colleagues.

I’m lucky that I already had my home office set up and my employer already had good, secure remote access that they managed to massively scale.

I’m not going back if I can avoid it – 20,000 miles commuting a year, 3 hours a day to be in the office. I get to see my kids now as well rather than just briefly when I’m home in the evening.

I can work from both office or home as I wish so I tend to take my work home rather than staying in the office. I think I have done 80% of work from home for the past 20 years but can easily make this 100% no issue. However, I still prefer to print out from office …. coz they have nice colour laser printer.

The quick answers thing.

I actually find that easier now at home, simply down to the ease of screen sharing via Teams. No need for some half arsed description of what someone is talking about, just share your screen so I can see what your doing such a terrible job of describing.

Assuming I still have a job, I’m expecting 3 or 4 days a week WFH as normal. The other day or two will be wasted on meetings with no tangible output.

To be fair it’s not a shock that not everyone works (mentally and professionally) in different ways. As an IT / programming person, it’s a style of work that works for me. Possibly being a self employed contractor type means that I tend to get less close knit with the work teams anyway, though.

I appreciate that not everyone has the opportunity to work at home in an ideal environment and likewise not every office is open plan with no choice but to sit next to “Loud Bill” with his constant football conversations, but I’d say most of my programmer friends see this as a great relief and will be looking to continue WFH because they prefer it.

I’ve also friends living in the Western Isles who worked in companies spread all over the world, meeting in person only a few times a year. I think that setups like that have the ability to bring new life to a lot of remote and rural communities, where otherwise young people would be tied into moving away to look for work as they grew up.

I certainly agree that more can be achieved when the sales guy is out of the picture! 🙂

I have been doing 4/5 days a week from home for around 3yrs working in a SME/Technical PM type role. Lots of customer interaction required and meetings with team members but the thing is that they are scattered across the globe. Other than the London office I can go 12 months without seeing people i work with daily, sometimes hourly, other than on MS Teams video. It has has zero effect on my ability to do my job or form relationships with clients, and with this current situation it has actually helped the relationships. Sitting on a video call while a senior director from the client side bounces their child on their knee or cuddles their dog opens up a much more intimate relationship opportunity.

I think/hope that more companies will see the lack of impact that WFH has had on productivity and open their minds to its benefits. The fact that the company I work for is supportive of this is worth more than a significant pay-rise to me.

Moving all our (sofware) engineering teams to full remote permanently. Still figuring out how to train juniors properly…

It was already in the pipeline. I am Director of IT and Digital and “digitising” parts of the org has been like pulling teeth. Covid accelerated all the work we had planned and as we “evacuated” our offices the business actually realised the infrastructure was already in place. They simply began using it!

Work in R&D for a global telecommunications company

I’ve worked at home full time for a few years now.

Company ‘restructuring’ has resulted in a lot of globally split teams. I’m only working with one other person in this country at the moment. If I went to the office I would just be on webex/teams anyway. There are a number of people I work with who I have never met irl.

Remote teams need a lot of effort. Some things are really hard, starting up projects for example, where you need to explain abstract stuff and know that someone understands it. You can do it but it takes longer and is more effort. My situation would be dramatically improved with a monthly meet up, but the company are to tight up to pay the travel.

If you have a dedicated work space, keep to a routine, and have interests/friends away from work, it really is no problem.

Another IT worker here, for a big red Spanish bank. The news that’s filtering down to us is that we should expect WFH to become a much more usual thing – certainly at least 2-3 days/week. For me that would be ideal, I’ve set up an office in a spare bedroom, and quite like WFH. But I do miss meeting my colleagues, having lunch with them and the general chit-chat, and while screen sharing isn’t bad, it’s nothing like sitting down next to someone and solving a problem that way. So for me going into the office say Mon and Wed would be perfect.

We’ll see how it ends up, and a lot of Spanish managers definitely do like to see bums on seats to remind them how important they are – but I’m pretty sure that we won’t be returning to 100% FT office work.