Sure but ultimately everyone will either be vaccinated or infected.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
yea I know, but production, distribution etc. takes a long time. Here in Germany not everybody was able to get the jab yet and we started vaccination in december. Currently at around 60% van rate, which is awful. so my point is regardless of the ability to modify, there’s a huge challenge to make it available globally, which is kind of the key in a pandemic. National solutions are only nice temporarily.
Regarding meds, yeah, definitely, which is my point.
not impossible at all we might get both no matter what
I love epidemiologists on Twitter. Great thread on increasing vaccination rate vs booster shots.
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In the UK it seems like there's a push to get people back into the office, both now (as Sunak is repeatedly saying over the last few weeks) but also as part of a previous campaign that took place immediately after the first wave.
Whereas in Ireland the government leans in the opposite direction, with emphasis being on WFH continuing on post-Covid, as below:
Why the differing approach from even ideologically similar politicians in both countries? I'm assuming they're both pushing these narratives because it suits them but I don't get why WFH seems to suit one group of right & centre-right politicians but not the other.
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Whereas in Ireland the government leans in the opposite direction, with emphasis being on WFH continuing on post-Covid, as below:
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Why the differing approach from even ideologically similar politicians in both countries? I'm assuming they're both pushing these narratives because it suits them but I don't get why WFH seems to suit one group of right & centre-right politicians but not the other.
Everything about this group of Tories is 1980s. I
Wouldn’t be surprised if they brought back coal mining
Wouldn’t be surprised if they brought back coal mining
Maybe something to do with the economic impact of too few commuters?
Particularly in and around London a lot of services, cafes and retail presumably rely heavily on commuters.
So they can shut it down again for the lols
Well-off office workers will be fine with Working From Home. It the lower-paid admin/service staff who'll suffer most if city centre buildings are shut down.
If anything, this is more of a Labour policy.
If anything, this is more of a Labour policy.
Updated graphics on what's happening in the UK. The fall in cases is starting to show through in a fall in hospital admissions and what looks like the start of a fall in numbers actually in hospital. The cases v hospitalisations picture now is massively different to earlier waves - that's the vaccine at work.
Case rates aren't likely to fall back to the low numbers we saw last summer, the R rate now looks like it's wobbling around 1. What happens in the autumn/winter is still anyone's guess, but vaccinations and past infections are continuing to raise the number of covid resistant adults. As long as things remain like this, I suspect the policy will continue to be: get vaxxed or get covid, and if you do get covid try not to give it to anyone else.
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Case rates aren't likely to fall back to the low numbers we saw last summer, the R rate now looks like it's wobbling around 1. What happens in the autumn/winter is still anyone's guess, but vaccinations and past infections are continuing to raise the number of covid resistant adults. As long as things remain like this, I suspect the policy will continue to be: get vaxxed or get covid, and if you do get covid try not to give it to anyone else.
Tory's are massively reliant on donations from property management companies, and offices not returning at least partly would hit the industry hard. It's also an industry that London is utterly reliant on having returning in order to aid recovery - knock on impact too on TfL, food and drink sector, events/arts, etc.
He also did make a decent point about the impact remote learning potentially has on young workers/new starters in jobs. As someone who had a career change during the pandemic, I would agree with him on this (although suspect the former is the true reasoning behind this push).
But WFH benefits those who "have" far more than those climbing various life ladders, no doubt.
Well he's talking utter shite saying it will reduce costs.
I'm in a company of 700 people and it will cost more than 1 million to provide people with equipment to set up at home. The about 250k a year to ensure health and safety compliance on ongoing basis.
My internal data tells me that at least 70% of people want to come back to the office at least half of the time. So no savings for the company on lease rent or utilities.
Don't know where these savings are coming from
I'd say it's broader than that, because there's an age component.
A lot of older workers will prefer it, they may like the reduced travel, find it fits better with home life etc. As you say though, that assumes that home is an ok workspace.
For young workers, I can't see much good side to home working. A lot of training programs have collapsed. A lot of informal training and mentoring had gone. In some offices the young ones are in work and the experienced staff are at home, which is leaving some of the inexperienced staff doing the wrong jobs and under increased pressure.
Plus, if you combine it with a year of lockdowns and reduced contact then a lot of people will be missing out on the social side of work as well as the formal business.
It's been a bad time to be a young (office) worker if you've recently moved to a new town, or a new job. Of course, if you've been a young worker doing most other kinds of job - you'll have had a crap year as well - wherever you were or weren't working.
Is that for IT equipment or just desks, chairs etc? I don’t think it’s something you can measure over a period of one year. That equipment that’s purchased is going to last a decent amount of time and will be redistributed when employees leave.
The long term view will surely be downsizing the office and using hot desks, rather than keeping the same amount of space and paying the same rent.
I think it’s industry dependent though. The term “office workers” is pretty broad and obviously it won’t work for all. I would be annoyed if I was competent at my job, could do it just as effectively at home, wanted to be at home, but was forced back.
Yep, reading the reports on this, it felt like what he was really talking about was "what does London need?" I suspect Andy Burnham is feeling the same about Manchester.
Away from those city centre contexts though I'm not sure what we'll see. I'm hoping that we'll finally see more "3 days in, 2 days WFH" etc and flexitime schemes. But so much of it depends on the industry that I'm not sure how they'll reset that balance.
In the computer industry, a lot of the design/development and even the support side can be done in a WFH setup. But I really doubt that it's a good permanent way of full-time working. You lose a lot if people only really know their immediate colleagues, rather than the whole story.
If people want to come back to the office half the time, you can downsize your offices quite comfortably. What has your office done for the last year without spending 1 million?
We can't downsize we're locked into long term leases in all of our offices. Landlords will tell us to feck off.
We've spent a fair chunk on sending equipment to people's homes. This cost alot even in couriers.
But the majority of people paid for themselves as its not a company policy to fund people's home set up.
If it becomes law then we've got to think differently. And I work for a semi state so we are Gov funded.
We've an upfront cost of setting everyone up of over one million. Furniture and docking station with screens etc.
Longer term its health and safety staff to ensure legal compliance etc.
These costs will be prohibitive to us. We have offices all over the country so not paying capital city rent in the majority of locations.
Permanent WFH will cost us money. I've done the sums.
WFH will kill some jobs, once companies start actually logging the time of people working from home through software, they'll realise there's a good portion of office staff who spend half the day doing feck all anyway.
It'll be good for the hard workers, but those lazy buggers will get a shock.
Those wanting to go back to the office half the time are those who only do half the work their supposed to and think they can get it all done in those couple days in the office.
Hats off to those who get away with it though, I'm only jealous because I can't work from home
It'll be good for the hard workers, but those lazy buggers will get a shock.
Those wanting to go back to the office half the time are those who only do half the work their supposed to and think they can get it all done in those couple days in the office.
Hats off to those who get away with it though, I'm only jealous because I can't work from home
How long is your lease?
We've 12 leases around the country and the next one that expires is 2026.
So longer term we can look at that.
It'll all be different in a few years anyway
In my work place the split thus far has been in the opposite direction.
The key point with WFH for younger (and less well paid) staff is that it is a lot cheaper, allowing you to forgo commuting costs and/or having to rent in central locations. For example, the commuting costs I save WFH account for approx. a quarter of my rent every month on their own. The extent of that impact can be seen in the housing market, as house prices in less urban areas spike as people bolstered by Covid-savings and an ability to work further from Dublin try to buy homes.
Whereas (so far at least) the older staff have tended to miss the office more, as they're less comfortable shifting from that way of working and the office is a more central social outlet for them.
In the long-run the impact on career progression is the worry for younger workers, I think. Whereas impact of WFH on social life will be a hell of a lot less extreme once we're not in a pandemic and I'd happily take the boost of fewer costs and more free time in that regard anyway.
It was a great laugh for them the last time. Arthur bloody Scargill.
Because more WFH can help take the edge off the housing crisis which is a huge issue for the Irish government (where the majority of employment is centred around a single city) but not in the UK (where the inability of young people to afford property in London is old news)
If you’re keeping all the offices open long term, then of course money isn’t going to be saved. I would imagine that you might not need all of those offices in 10 years, even if only 30% want to WFH permanently.
But again, we’re talking long term visions. It’s clearly not a case of simply sending everyone home and closing an office.
On a side note, new employees working from home would have that written into their contract, meaning you might only need to provide basic IT equipment not desks/chairs etc.
It's complex to say the least and we are growing just to add to the complexity
This is the wider challenge for most normal businesses, leases prior to lockdown will determine the policy that business will follow. I feel we'll be back to a hybrid model but a full office on the key days of the week by September.
It is complex and the situation will vary a lot from company to company. The essential point remains true though. In general businesses will save money if they shift towards a model with more time spent WFH.
That's interesting and generally the opposite of what I've experienced in the two companies I worked with throughout Covid. Generally it's been older people with their own home, kids, to look after and drive places, dogs, prefer to cook for themselves, whatever who have been happiest at home and are more reluctant to go back to the office. A lot of younger people I've talked to are fed up working in a small room or in the same room as the people they rent with, and miss the craic of the city, work nights out, free lunches etc. and would much prefer to be back in town. That said I do work in IT which I respect as being a far higher earning profession than many others (including for our younger staff) so maybe that makes a big difference as savings aren't quite as important to them.
You’re right though @Massive Spanner young people are mussing out so much on the social aspect and the experience of getting it on with someone from the office
They'd have found the same if they logged people's working with software in offices too. There's an awful lot of pissing about chatting/making tea and coffee that goes on in an office.WFH will kill some jobs, once companies start actually logging the time of people working from home through software, they'll realise there's a good portion of office staff who spend half the day doing feck all anyway.
It'll be good for the hard workers, but those lazy buggers will get a shock.
Those wanting to go back to the office half the time are those who only do half the work their supposed to and think they can get it all done in those couple days in the office.
Hats off to those who get away with it though, I'm only jealous because I can't work from home
But management allow for that as those coffee machine chats increase well being, thus better output, but more importantly sharing of work information that may not have otherwise happened remotely. If you're constantly 'pissing about' then you will not last long. I know the hard way.
WFH allows you to get your laundry, cooking, post office runs, school runs, etc, done. Plus your constant Redcafe updates with no one watching. So when do you actually do your work? Past 6pm usually, that's when. And I'm beginning to hate it.
I'd agree with the bolded downsides too but from my POV at least that all becomes a lot more tolerable when you're just WFH rather than WFH in the middle of a pandemic. If my social life went fully back to normal in terms of going out, seeing friends, seeing family, travelling, playing sport, etc. then the extra money, free time in the evenings and later rises in the morning would outweigh the downsides, even just on the social side of things. Whereas in the context of being restricted in who you see and what you can do for 16 months, the craic of being in office looks more tempting than it normally would.
Yeah, I do think living situation plays a massive part, and in fairness I don't really know anyone who wants to go back full time. Most of the younger people I've talked to would still like at least a day or two at home, generally the 30-50 year olds then want pretty much all remote. I don't know many 50+ but I imagine they are a bit more of the old fashioned variety who want to be full time in the office as they've done it their whole lives and haven't adjusted as well. Probably their kids are grown up too and they miss the interaction?
As to why we're pushing it more in Ireland than the UK? Probably housing. The government are seeing house prices rise more rapidly outside of the cities (especially Dublin) and see it as an easy short term gain while they figure out how the hell to build more housing. The government are also spending a feck tonne on that rural broadband scheme which most people thought was ridiculous but could actually look like a great move if this continues. Still, the impact it could have on businesses in city centres is surely catastrophic?
I don't know, everyone works differently. If I've not done my work, then when the exhibition opens, people will notice. Because it won't open. So what I do with my work schedule is secondary, so long as the work is done when it needs to be. I'm sure a lot of people have different expectations, especially if they work in a sales environment rather than in a production environment.But management allow for that as those coffee machine chats increase well being, thus better output, but more importantly sharing of work information that may not have otherwise happened remotely. If you're constantly 'pissing about' then you will not last long. I know the hard way.
WFH allows you to get your laundry, cooking, post office runs, school runs, etc, done. Plus your constant Redcafe updates with no one watching. So when do you actually do your work? Past 6pm usually, that's when. And I'm beginning to hate it.
Yeah but if you're supposed to be working 8 hours and then cram all that work into 2 hours so you've got more free time, don't you think they'll then say "hold up, we will just pay for 2 hours work cos they've just fecked about for the other 6"
Because money.
imagine the hit London has taken from people purely not commuting. TfL, Rail companies and hospitality in particular. Imagine for example A city like London needs people spending. Spending on commuting, congestion charge, food, drink, tobacco etc.
I did chuckle at people thinking wfh was gonna become a majority long term thing. No fecking chance…
Even though I would never vote for FF/FG, to say they are anything near as bad as Boris & co. is pretty unfair.
You can’t discount the huge incentive for employers to not have to pay huge rentals on expensive city centre real estate. It’s in their interests in some instances to have their people wfh on a hybrid basis to reduce headcount in office at any one time.
Ah yeah it won’t be from the companies as long as the work is done. It’ll be government pressure. And even those huge rentals you talk about are part of it. All that tax benefitting you know who…..