Anybody else now permanently Work From Home?

Big announcement from HR and Risk this week. Sounds like there are still some details to work out, but it sounds like my company will not give you a permanent desk unless you're in the office 80% of the time (4 days a week - doesn't actually have to be 80% of the time). Of course, as my team is spread between Miami, Orlando, Jacksonville, Cincinatti, and London, it really doesn't make one iota of difference where the guy in Chicago is parking his butt.

This will effectively make many of us full time remote. We'll have to schedule time in the office; for me, that means I'll schedule time in Florida 2-3 times a year when they allow travel again. No reason for me to go to the office in Illinois. I'll probably go in once a month to keep up badge access, but I don't really need to, and I wonder if it will even be available for me. I'm happier about this than full time in the office, but I wish I could have a designated spot - even just a cubby, and it doesn't sound like I'll have that.

I need to go into the office to get some pictures I have up. 

Im being told that we will be doing permanent work from home as well, except when in the field. That makes it harder when i am in tbe field, or when im having printer issues, as they're won't be area offices to use. 

DW was sent to WFH in early March of 2020 and is not back yet.  Her employer has announced that they will not return to "normal" before end of July 2021, if they ever do, which they may not.  She can do about 90% of her job from home, and goes in once every 2-3 weeks.  As long as there is someone available on site to run paper around for wet signatures when needed, she could do 99.5% without ever setting foot in the office again.

I could probably be 75% WFH but it really is easier and better in the office for me.  Plus I need to go to physical job sites about once a week regardless.

Makes the potlucks difficult. 
If I were still working that would be awesome.  

I started working from home in early March of 2020.  It is looking like my employer is going to make permanent telework an option for the employees that like it and can make it work.  We are working on a pilot "hoteling" plan that will provide temporary desk space for those that need to come in but aren't on site enough to warrant a permanent office.

I wish they would make it permanent. We are being told that everyone will be back in the office full time by August with no options to continue working from home but I hope that changes to allow some flexibility. 

Been working from home since the day the NBA canceled the Thunder game and everything went crazy. In December they announced they were moving HQ from the Bay Area to Austin and we could WFH permanently. We already worked from home 2-3 days per week before COVID.

I recently found out they laid off all the billing department in OKC and now let the Manilla office handle it all. So that's 8 less bodies in the office, if/when it opens again. 

We are all curious if they will ever even open the OKC office again and if they will resign the lease when it's up. It's already probably the smallest office in North America, and if most are going to choose to continue to work from home, it doesn't make a lot of sense to keep the office space. 

I wouldn't mind going back into the office 1-2 days per week just to get out of the house, but don't know if that will happen.

In reply to mtn :

I've been full-time remote since around the start of 2016, and had been gradually transitioning into it over the previous 6-months. I love it & think I'd rather be broke & homeless than have to revert back to working in an office.

I am going to do everything in my power to continue to work from home. And I'll probably be able to pull it off. I think I've been in the office 3 times in the past year. I really don't need face time to do my job. 

I'm lucky enough to have the ability to do everything either remotely or in my own shop, so I've set myself up for this to work. Not accidentally. 

My company is classifying jobs right now as in office, hybrid and remote. If you are classified as hybrid or remote you won't have a space, you will book time in a shared space. That being said the remote sites don't seem to be doing that (which is where I work). I would prefer to stay completely remote but there are some weird office politics with it. Very few people at the remote site have been working primarily at home which makes me an anomaly and that is usually not a good thing.

I am classified as able to work from home but be local (within commute distance).  Some positions are allowed to be anywhere in the US, with the same pay.  I am curious how many will bolt from CA and keep their CA pay in cheaper areas (I am sure going forward, new remote hires will have pay adjusted for location).

Its a slight shame.  Although working from home is super efficient (I am pretty close and it will still save me almost two hours a day when you add up full commuting time, not just the drive time) it's also a bit sad because they JUST built out new, rather nice offices, and there where monthly free events at the campus (food trucks etc.) that where quite nice.

The lack of general social contact will likely make things a more difficult for less seasoned workers.  It's going to be pretty hard to jump areas if you cannot just walk over and visit. Not a concern of mine though.

Training (my area) is also going to be a bit weird, requiring all options to effectively be online, so as not to disadvantage remote workers. Fortunately, I primarily focus on digital content.  The in person trainers are in for a bit of a challenge though.

I would not want to make my living from commercial real estate these days.

I'm 99% remote going forward.  I have to go in once in a while to evaluate prototypes, see actual product, brainstorming, etc.  

I hope we stay WFH even after the office opens. I'm a lot more productive, and my work habits have gotten so bad (videos, calls, pants, etc) that I'm worried that I'd be fired in a week if I went back.

Plus, having shown that I don't have to be at the office, my next step is to get approval to live somewhere that isn't Michigan. People here are intentionally miserable and the climate and terrain are both horrible. If I can move to a swing state somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon and either on the property or within walking distance of a kart track, I will. 

Duke said:

I would not want to make my living from commercial real estate these days.

Not these days but I don;t think it's long lived. I had that discussion with one of my friends during the initial shutdown. He pretty much declared commercial real estate in Toronto to be dead, and WFH to be the new normal. I don't agree. There may be a lull, but I think within a few years, and a few exceptions,  it'll be mostly back to normal. A lot of companies here are already telling their employees WFH will not be a permanent situation.

In reply to mtn :

My wife has been told that she will be working from home for the foreseeable future. ( basically until she retires). 

Mr. Peabody said:

Duke said:

I would not want to make my living from commercial real estate these days.

Not these days but I don;t think it's long lived. I had that discussion with one of my friends during the initial shutdown. He pretty much declared commercial real estate in Toronto to be dead, and WFH to be the new normal. I don't agree. There may be a lull, but I think within a few years, and a few exceptions,  it'll be mostly back to normal. A lot of companies here are already telling their employees WFH will not be a permanent situation.

Those companies haven't seen the productivity numbers Banks, insurance,  and other businesses have.  
    Average of 34% more productivity and 23% lower operating costs. 
     With the new keystroke loggers and video conferencing, etc.  typical objections to working from home are moot. 

My company is doing something similar with sorting out who can and can't work from home, but I know that the loss of efficiency and work effectiveness in some areas has been noted. What I wonder is if that loss of efficiency is more or less of an impact than the savings of not having to maintain and operate the office spaces. For now, still full time from home at least through the end of this year.

Duke said:

I would not want to make my living from commercial real estate these days.

 

Much of commercial realestate  will be converted to housing. There is an estimated shortfall of housing in excess of a million units. 

I work for the governmental organization established to prevent the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates from suffering harm or injury.  Obviously we do not own our building, though we paid for it.  We pay another governmental organization $62 a square foot to rent our building from ourselves.  Shortly after getting a window office again, COVID hit and I now work from home.  I have two windows now though and I am no longer required to wear pants to work.  We were notified this week that it is likely permanent, which is great.  I'm saving a ton of money on pants and pants related accessories alone.

Have been for the last 14 years so nothing is changing in my world. Heck...The closest office to me anymore is 6 hour drive so not a big deal anyways. I was surprised that I didn't get a pay modification when I moved from Denver to Omaha so no complaints for me.  

I talked to one of our HR people last week and management is still undecided. The issue we have is we now have more employees than we have desks in the office for them, so some level of WFH will have to be permanent.  For personal reasons I wouldn't mind going into the office one or two days per week (some things I occasionally do after work are closer to the office than my house).  But at this time, most of what I do can be done at home. 

What we are learning from this conversation is that a non-trivial percentage of GRM forum members are pants-adverse. Keep that in mind while reading the forum :)

Duke said:

I would not want to make my living from commercial real estate these days.

 

Right!

Those of us in commercial construction have seen this coming...

I think having an office is useful, and there are some employees who'd definitely prefer to be there all the time. Most hybrid systems should be along the lines of "occasional drop-ins and occasional weeks in the office" rather than "Joe will be in the office Mondays and Tuesdays, Jane Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Bob Mondays and Wednesdays, Brianna Thursdays and Fridays" because that loses the collaborative advantages of having an office. It would be better for the boss to say "Joe, Jane, Bob, Brianna, let's all go to the office Thursday for this client meeting, and it'd be convenient to also have a brainstorming session on Project X11 that day and move the staff meeting to the afternoon." For 50/50 home/office work, it'd also be better for scheduling to have teams either be "in office on pay week" or "from home on pay week."

Three important matters should stop any employer from going back to "5 days a week, 50 weeks a year in office." First, productivity goes up substantially from home because you've effectively given everyone without little kids at home all day a corner office to concentrate and get work done. Second, accommodation of disabilities just got a lot easier and cheaper if most employees work from home most of the time - it would be easier for most teams to have 100% remote members. Third, time lost to traffic was virtually nonexistent last year - a big factor in avoiding a general commercial collapse because operations could be more efficient, and also a possibility for governments to save a huge amount of money on not having to increase road capacity.