It’s embarrassing stuff. This government has consistently attacked the civil service to detract from their own failings and people are all to happy to believe it.
Current Affairs The Conservative Party
- Thread starter Ashtonian
- Start date
- Status
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
I agree with you both, redundant buildings and travel are an unnecessary cost. I oversaw the development of video conferencing equipment within one of our companies so do appreciate it. Having also spent months with my granddaughter on school zoom lessons I really do appreciate the benefits. However I also have concerns when unions start to demand it as a right and also for the development of junior and middle management. People learn from other people, how they behave in meetings, technical knowledge, learning how to do a more senior role. This will all be watered down by too much wfh and will reduce organisational capability. I would also suggest that if wfh is so efficient, why hasn’t headcount already been reduced or services greatly increased. The truth of the matter is that public services have gotten worse and headcount has ballooned……
Haydn
Player Valuation: £15m
I’d guess that Thatcher would have said, that Government have no place in dictating how organisations work, to operate most efficiently. The market will decide,
If the commercial world decides that a hybrid model, including wfh is best for them and their employees, the Civil Service have no choice but to follow suit.
Not only to compete in the recruitment of the best candidates, but also to demonstrate adoption of best practice from the private sector.
It’s a different way now. People are learning from others in new ways and technology is improving at an insane pace.
Organisations have to adapt. The most sought after employees will likely want to wfh, so if organisations want to keep talent, they will have to adapt with it. In my position, the organisation spent loads on comparative tests of productivity which all showed no decline. They want people back in the office as they own several massive office buildings, which would essentially be rendered as obsolete if no one is coming in. From internal surveys, 92% wanted to stay working from home, obviously they focussed on the 8% wanting some office time.
People are leaving already for full-time working from home. I reckon I have to pay an extra 150 a month for travel and parking not to mention I have more free time so will happily take a pay cut to do so.
The thing is, I don't think any organisation is doing 100% homeworking (that I know). It's all so called 'blended'. I do two or three days in and the rest at home. It's about right. For me anyway. I'm a bit of an introvert in terms of how I work, so missing the usual office bullshine really helps me. I guess for those who love meetings, talking everything (and I mean everything) through etc It's less great.
Back on point, Johnson, Mogg etc aren't doing this for anything else than their own interests feel. Be it whipping up popular needle fights or, in Mogg's case (so it is rumoured), have investments in rented office space lol.
Oooo, I like that. Use their own ideology against them.
And this is what will happen. It’s just dinosaurs holding it back for the time being. There’s always resistance when change like this happens.
The government should be looking at what these changes mean to the demographics of our cities and putting measures in place to ensure that cities are desirable places to live. This won’t happen of course.
I think there is also a strong element that Johnson is such a dishonest and lazy turd that he assumes everyone else is, so just because "he" was distracted and unable to work properly from home, he assumes everyone else is just as feckless as him. It's an incredibly childish manner of leadership as there is a huge amount of data on this with dozens of studies on the impact of remote working during the pandemic. There is really no excuse not to take an evidence-based approach, and yet he's blundering ahead anyway because he's an utter moron.
Exactly. The sector I work in is choc full of hyper driven self starters and remote working has long been a feature. It's probably been revelatory in other areas that treating folk like adults results in adult behaviour. It's also kinda laughable that no one in the office ever slacks off or finds distraction. I've found it near impossible at times to work in open plan offices.
As Johnson demonstrated when he missed all of those COBRA meetings despite being "in the office", how well you work is less a matter of where you work and more a case of the kind of person you are.
I'd have a little bit of caution with regards to wfh. It might just be a novelty for a lot of people. We don't really know what the long term psychological impacts of being unable to separate your home from your work will be. When there's a room in your house that you dread going in. It's like tradesmen with their work vans. Sometimes when you drive the van on the weekend you just get this feeling that your at work, even though you're nipping to the shop because the wife has taken the car.
I agree to a degree. We will also start to see more monitoring software to check employee activity like tech to follow eye movements and stuff although there will be (and is) inevitable kick back on this. Depends on the company and the job role.
This is the problem with tech, when something becomes available then it just gets implemented and we all become slaves to it just a little more. The laws of unintended consequences.
Yeah, that is a downside. I know a very well regarded professor of organisational psychology and work looking at that very issue. Hence the blended approach is the recommended way to go.
Honestly mate I think the entire Western world has utterly messed up the work life balance. Whether that's modern arrangements like wfh or older issues like child care and maternity leave. I think so long as it effectively requires 2 people to work full time just to keep a family housed and fed then we're doing something wrong.
It wasn't always this way and I'm not suggesting we go back in time but we definitely should be doing something different.
- Status