Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MillCreek on June 26, 2022, 10:03:33 AM
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https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/as-microsoft-is-showing-workers-may-never-come-back-to-the-office/
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-wants-more-workers-in-office-to-ramp-up-production-not-everyone-wants-to-go-back/
Two of the employment powerhouses of Washington state are having problems getting people back to the office.
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A couple years ago we were hearing that work-from-home made employees more productive, and it was the wave of the future. Guess that was a little overblown.
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https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/as-microsoft-is-showing-workers-may-never-come-back-to-the-office/
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-wants-more-workers-in-office-to-ramp-up-production-not-everyone-wants-to-go-back/
Two of the employment powerhouses of Washington state are having problems getting people back to the office.
Many things CAN be done working from home - but then, you're not really under management's thumb, which is more important than your productivity. And my job included lab work, so that part of it couldn't be done remotely.
But ultimately, there were three things that kept me going to the office before I retired: paycheck, insurance, pension credit.
Dangle these in front of employees and I expect most will come back to work rather than quit.
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I had to teach almost a year from home. It was awful IMO for everyone. Learning was impacted and I had to work harder and longer trying to help them all. If I were put in that situation again, I'd leave and find a classroom to teach in person.
On the other hand, I did work as a consultant, and most of my time was writing in a cubicle. Occassionally, we'd have meetings to discuss projects and progress. This could easily have been done remotely--and in fact, I did during the summers when my kids were out of school.
Depends on the job, expectations, and how someone works unsupervised.
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This mostly affects the people who think that having meetings about meetings is a work product.
It doesn't affect the guy at the store selling the actual product, or the three dozen Mexican women who assemble it.
I could see phone support, etc., as being easily outsourced...
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I had to teach almost a year from home. It was awful IMO for everyone. Learning was impacted and I had to work harder and longer trying to help them all. If I were put in that situation again, I'd leave and find a classroom to teach in person.
On the other hand, I did work as a consultant, and most of my time was writing in a cubicle. Occassionally, we'd have meetings to discuss projects and progress. This could easily have been done remotely--and in fact, I did during the summers when my kids were out of school.
Depends on the job, expectations, and how someone works unsupervised.
My wife spent the past two years teaching fifth grade remotely and that was the major factor in her retiring this year.
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You can't bean a dozing kid with a loaded eraser over the internet...
(you know, I just had an idea... Should I sue the catholic school I went to? You did NOT go to sleep in some of the teachers' classes...)
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This mostly affects the people who think that having meetings about meetings is a work product.
It doesn't affect the guy at the store selling the actual product, or the three dozen Mexican women who assemble it.
I could see phone support, etc., as being easily outsourced...
I figure my job is sort of 50/50. There are a number of day to day things I could do at home. However, there are quite a few where being there and seeing things in front of you means a lot.
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A couple years ago we were hearing that work-from-home made employees more productive, and it was the wave of the future. Guess that was a little overblown.
For some people, I wonder if the productivity per hour is better when you include commute time into the equation. Some people I have worked with put up with some pretty long commutes. There comes a point where it would be better to take a local job for less money if it means more free time.
That also applies to two-income families. I imagine more than a few took a second look at their cost vs benefit as far as going back to commuting at the pay rate they were getting. I figure it applies quite a bit to people with kids looking at going back to hiring day care services.
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You can't bean a dozing kid with a loaded eraser over the internet...
(you know, I just had an idea... Should I sue the catholic school I went to? You did NOT go to sleep in some of the teachers' classes...)
I went to Catholic school too, and remember two instances of a nun throwing an eraser (a CHALK DUST loaded eraser, not a whiteboard eraser) at a kid.
In the first case, after hitting the kid with it, the nun turned back to the blackboard, whereupon the kid (OK, it was me. :angel: ) planted it right between her shoulder blades. White mark stayed on the back of her black habit the rest of the day. She was not amused, but like I told her - she set the example. :rofl:
In the second case, the kid ducked, and the eraser hit the girl sitting behind him. Nun screeched at HIM for ducking! :rofl:
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I could see phone support, etc., as being easily outsourced...
Phone "support" typically is outsourced already. To India, mostly to people who barely speak English and can only read from a script. And all of whom use fake American names that they can't even pronounce.
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I'm going to mostly blame the employees. I think the covid people thought they were going to work from wherever forever. There's a difference between telecommuting from your home an hour from the office and your home four states over. A lot of these tech people figured they could pack up and move to Jackson Hole or wherever and remote in until retirement. Or expect their employer to pay the airfare to come into the office once every one or two weeks.
I'm willing to bet most of these employers would be fine with a part time telecommuting schedule, but I'm betting that many employees moved too far away to their house on the lake to make it practical. Else there likely wouldn't be this much pushback if they only had to drive 10 minutes to their office.
I think a part time telecommuting schedule is fine for many people. I loved telecommuting on my desk days, when I was writing crappy reports or doing analyses that got done much more efficiently without someone knocking on my office door every 15 minutes. I still had to "go to the office" most of the time, since you can't telecommute to a boat or aircraft, so I lived 20 minutes from the office instead of an 8 hour airport day from the office.
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Terry with feet on coffee table taking a picture of another picture of Terry with feet on coffee table.
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I've never left the office. Given what I do, I can't work at home. So, every day during the 'rona was just like every day before the 'rona.
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Honest answer, I’m more productive on the tasks I need to do, but have a lot of free time to surf the web and watch tv. Also have more opportunities to do things around the house that I’d have to do after work. Finally, it gives me the opportunity to spend more time with my grandsons as my wife watches them on Monday and Tuesday.
What working from home does for me is cuts down on the other meetings and conversations I don’t need to be in, or get sucked in because of my possible programs relationship to others. That takes a lot of time away from what work I need to accomplish.
That being said, as a Program Manager in an Air Force acquisition office, I’m doing more oversight on our prime contractors in regards to cost, schedule and requirements decomposition and not doing the actual work so it makes it easier to work from home. As it stands right now, I only go in for important face to face meetings or TDY to the contractors worksite for meetings and program reviews.