Posted on 06/21/2020 7:34:01 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
Slack, the online messaging company, will allow most of its employees to permanently switch to remote work. So will Twitter. Facebook envisions up to half of its workforce eventually working remotely. Nationwide will close offices around the country this fall, moving many employees to parament telework. “The notion of putting 7,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past,” according to the CEO of Barclays.
I’m skeptical.
The future of remote work is over-hyped. Companies that are rushing to move their workforces remote are making a mistake. There is some preliminary evidence and a widespread perception that remote work is working, but that evidence takes place in a context — a once-in-a-century global pandemic — that will not be enduring. Managers shouldn’t overlearn lessons from the pandemic...[P]eople — including me — who are surprised by how well remote work is working should remember that teleworkers mostly already know each other. That wouldn’t be true if the trend continues.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Second of all, businesses don't have to worry about false claims of harassment if people aren't around each other to harass them or to make innocent remarks about how nice someone's hair looks.
I do think camaraderie and loyalty to a company will take a hit due to so many people working from home.
Many firms already have teams all over the nation or world - I guess Mr Strain isn't familiar with this dynamic. And guess what? They don't need an ankle bracelet to be productive.
I get Mr Strains point about new workers. But his skepticism strikes me to be more about his own comfort level vs that of the firm. If you don't like the weather, move.
Thirdly, once (or now that) we’ve been reminded to manage by results rather than appearance, most of the office-y logistics and expense just aren’t needed.
Why NR doesn’t like it: hard to enforce groupthink without the threat of unemployment forcing everyone together.
With so many working at home I guess companies don’t have to have workman’s compensation coverage for them.
The Zoom format is far superior to a classroom, and the class size was nearly double. No parking, carrying books, scrambling for dinner etc. I can run my business while the instructor talks in the background and only tune in when relevant information is presented.
Education can be done from anywhere at a fraction of the cost.
I’ve noticed accelerating lack of productivity in the remote workers I engage with. It is becoming a critical issue.
Great thought on sexual harassment. Loyalty to the company went down hill when companies didn’t show loyalty to employers. I would hope people are out for themselves now.
Haven’t reported to an office regularly in nearly 20 years— in fact in my life of work it’s unheard of
I do travel quite a bit and so a lot of face to face meetings but that is generally necessary when dealing with CX level clients but it’s rapidly moving toward less face to face
The upside or downside depending on how you look at it is we are very rapidly figuring out who’s actually producing and who is superfluous—and it’s likely that 33% of the people employed at the beginning of the year are unnecessary
It sucks for some but it’s reality
Yup Yup Yup.
It all depends on how your is structured as to whether you can work from home or not.
How many jobs consists of someone sitting at a computer screen and pulling up reports off of a network, and doing something with that information? How many jobs consists of attending meetings which then are converted into Zoom meetings as people work from home?
How many people sit at a computer and write reports and then email reports to someone else for approval?
Many jobs have aspects of these functions but how many jobs are exclusively structured this way?
Is National Review incapable of getting anything right? Remote work “works” for a great deal of jobs, and it was doing so before the pandemic. Commercial real estate is in for a world of hurt. The remote setup will work better and more completely for some businesses over others, but just about all will have more telecommuters going forward.
People don’t know their co-workers anyway. Multiculturalism has seen to that. Company loyalty and comaraderie? Modern management has seen to that being nothing more than a joke. Loyalty, sure, tons of it as I train my Indian replacement. No thanks. I’d rather work from home; much more difficult (though probably not at all impossible) to be accused of sexual harassment that way, too.
Interesting statement. Labor laws may have to be revised to facilitate the movement towards remote work.
I’ve worked remotely since 2006 in the computer tech industry....
Working remotely works and works well....
My last contract was supporting Exxon Mobil’s voice network for the Asia/Pacific region, my support tickets were from places like Papua Papua New Guinea, Australia, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lampur....etc....I did all the work from my home office in Florida...
I worked remotely a few years ago thanks to a bedbug infestation at the office. I was given a company laptop with a webcam and could participate in most of my job functions with a few exceptions. I found myself hooking up the laptop to my home tv monitor so I could read the tiny print of office chats.
I tilted the webcam towards the ceiling (we did this at our office desks too) and would take bathroom and snack breaks when needed. I could also follow live sporting events with the sound off which I couldn’t do at the office.
I lived alone but I can imagine folks with children, parents or spouses milling about would be a constant distraction. I came to despise neighbors that pulled into their parking spaces and blared their crappy music way too loud for as much as 30 minutes before going inside.
Personally, I missed the structure of an office and the banter between employees. However, as workplaces become more PC, being at home felt safer. Only, you had to be careful what you typed or said since they had proof.
Have you heard of Zoom? Sale professionals across the globe have learned to sell by Zoom. Rotary clubs, Chambers of Commerce and business networking groups have learned to Zoom. Corporate Board meetings, legal and accounting conferences, in fact almost ALL of the white-collar world has been trained over the last 4 months how to do this. The data is in, remote work is OK. More, now that the democrat left has shown how unattractive a “defund the police” urban center looks like (CHAZ/CHOP being just one example), we do NOT want to go back to the urban jungle.
Remote work, like any other kind, will work exactly as well as your ability to pick the right people.
Screw loyalty to the company. They’re not loyal to you.
That’s what I’m seeing also. An issue that previously was solved with a two minute conversation in the hallway now requires an organized conference call that must fit into everyone’s schedule. Everything takes three times as long.
Zoom? That POS Communist Chinese operated software? There must by American alternatives.
Companies are afraid of lawsuits if someone gets sick. My company is terrified of lawsuits about people getting sick.
Well, based on what’s been happening, look for a crash in commercial real estate. With these trends, how many companies are going to continue to rent expensive office space in office buildings in downtown areas of major cities?
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