OT - Going back to the Office
Thought we could start a talk about what each of us are experiencing in relation to going back to the office. If you can, include who you work for, what role you have, and if you have a timeline yet to go back into the office. If you do, what things are your company saying about your return and what it will be like.
I work for Salesforce as a director for technical support for the America's for one of their products. My job really doesn't require being in the office, but prior to this, I was in the office 2 to 3 days a week. I live in the Atlanta area and am 37 miles from my door to the office. I take what passes for mass transit here and my commute averaged 1.5 to 2 hours each way.
We've been notified that we can work from home through the end of the year, but offices will open up depending on what the local situation is. You just don't have to go in if you don't want to. When we do return, things will be drastically different. We had 'open seating' before and from what I can tell that will remain, but distancing will be in place. My guess is while we had 5 desks in a row before, it'll be bumped down to 3 with large spaces between them. We developed an application called Work.com because of the pandemic. It's essentially a scalable app which allows organizations from 2 people to as many thousand people as you want to control your workforce.
At Salesforce we'll be implementing work shifting. This is where you'll be assigned to a group which will have set days to come in to the office. When you arrive, you'll have to go through a health check every day. This includes temperature taking. We'll be doing antibody testing at all sites. Not sure if that's a 1 time thing, annual thing, or (God forbid) monthly/weekly. We'll have scheduled times to ride the elevator to limit exposure between people. The work.com app allows for you to maintain a contact tracing database. The idea behind this is if someone becomes sick, you'll have a database of people who they had contact with that you can tell to remain home in self isolation till the sickness spread is reduced to a safe level (Or entirely).
The concept of the office for businesses that don’t require a physical presence needs to die, or at minimum, become optional
How many jobs are really suited to be 100% work from home from career start to retirement? I work in finance so we are remote pretty much indefinitely, but our team have all been in our current roles for over two years.
Having just finished our audit, having younger staff on the audit side not able to communicate face to face cause a massive amount or re-work, re-explanation and an a waste of time we didn't really have.
I understand why the office isn't a good idea right now, and that an expansion of working remote long term would be positive, but removing the office entirely would have a massive impact on employee training and in my case has also led to getting random calls at home during lunch, dinner, and other non-work times.
Right - while we probably won't see offices eliminated entirely we'll definitely see an expansion of at home work with people going in when they need to be there in person and doing what they can from home.
I work for a company that was deemed as essential so I never had to work from home.
There were a couple people who were forced to work from home so we could get the office down to meet the social distancing guidelines, etc.
I can do about 90% of my job from home but am required to be in the office everyday.
I must say I am thankful to have not lost my job but if I had to choose, I would rather work from home...at least a few days a week. Even though there are only a handful of us here and we are all well spread out, I would feel more comfortable working by myself in my home office.
I would also be against the removing of offices entirely though. It would be a huge detriment for new employees and would also eliminate other office jobs.
Either way, hope everyone stays safe and hopefully we get to watch the maize and blue run out of the tunnel in the fall.
I don’t think you can 100% eliminate it. But you can certainly stagger it where people work 2 days at home, 3 in the office or have just 1 day a week where everyone goes into work and spend the rest at home.
This is such a small inconvenience to pretend like this shatters the idea of remote working is hilarious. New people needing explanations is not new, set aside time or make a system. 50-75% of people in offices have probably been there completely unnecessarily.
I was planning to retire from my 30 yr job and move out of state, and continue working maybe in a different field, etc. But now I see an opportunity and I’m hoping that I can just move and keep my job while WFH permanently in another state. And I think it could happen.
I was able to move to another state and work remotely for my company since last May and it has been awesome. My wife is a journalist, and with that comes frequent relocation. In her business, usually if you want to move up you have to move to a bigger market city. I was tired of changing jobs every couple of years and have an awesome relationship with the company that I work for so after some planning and negotiation they gave me a stipend to set up an office and fly me into Atlanta when there is training or important meetings that need to be face to face.
My wife's latest gig is fully remote as well at the national level. Her company set up a recording studio in her office that allows her to record her podcasts here at home. There were some hurdles, but being empty nesters we were able to set up separate offices on separate floors of the house. It's been nice. I do miss face to face interactions and water cooler chats, but other than that I have enjoyed it since May. The biggest reward has been being back where I raised my daughters and being able to see my grand kids frequently (Before COVID at least).
My biggest issue is I want everyone to get back to the office because since the company has had everyone working from home the VPN traffic has been insane and connections have been slow.
has also led to getting random calls at home during lunch, dinner, and other non-work times.
+1
Been hearing this from many people.
People have lost their minds when it comes to respecting others' personal time and work/life balance. My Firm thinks I'm available now literally 24/7 since I'm WFH and not on a plane/have a commute. I got off of work 7 hours ago and here I am back in front of my computer again.
Yeah, it is weird. When I was working in the office and dropping off kids, and pciking them up, and going to hockey or skating or whatever, it was easy to shut my computer at night and not open it up until I was at work the next day. I'd have maybe a meeting or two a week with China at night.
Now that I am working at home, I am waking up and getting on my computer right away and attending meetings almost all day. I will sign off, and then get phone calls. I then, am tempted to get back on my computer to check responses or get a jump on any new issues as everyone seems to have extended their work day by multiple hours.
I never put my email on my phone for this reason, to cut myself off. It is one of the few downsides of working from home.
Yeah, my job is sort of the definition of WFH-able (software development), but you do lose a ton of productivity not being in the office. Much like distance learning, I think people are over-stating how productive they are at home compared to how they would be in the office, which leads to this idea that they're not missing much being remote. But I've had so many random additional meetings that could have been remedied with a 2-minute talk at my desk, and all that context switching has hurt my output even if it isn't obvious. I get that some people can and will continue to work remotely more often, but I also think once this pandemic ends you'll see people move back into the office simply because of the culture and efficiency benefits.
Name checks out... musta been punched in the face too many times!
Humans are social creatures, and most don't know how to properly communicate their ideas despite high level education (just look at this fuckin' Blog). Though I think that each field should make improvements for "work from home" scenarios, much of what we do as humans cannot be accomplished via distancing...food, textiles, electronics, social services, medical services, home repair, car repair...in other words anything that's not sales related... because we're a fuckin lazy ass society with our thumb up our lower posteriors.
Hopkins Grad
There is plenty that is not sales that can be done from home. Lots of consulting, legal, financial, software development. Even things like medical have adapted with telemedicine.
This pandemic has really opened executives eyes to the fact that many jobs can be done remotely and be just as productive. The problem is that companies have invested a ton of money into real estate. For instance, Salesforce just broke ground on a new tower in Chicago. 59 stores. Just finished a tower in Atlanta. Currently building the tallest building in Australia. new towers going up in Dublin and Tokyo. That's a lot of money for them to just ignore. I think this is the death spike to commercial real estate. within 5 years may mid size organizations will either downsize their real estate footprint dramatically or all together. Larger organizations will take longer to do it, but commercial real estate is going to crash over the next 5 years.
I wonder if this will slow or even reverse the trend of high-density urban living. There are definite cultural positives to living in a big city but having to quarantine for months in an urban high-rise has to be rough.
I agree, commercial real estate is going to take a big hit, although there will likely be a lag due to long term leases. This pandemic has shown that many more people than perhaps originally realized can function and keep working remotely, so if the choice is to greatly expand your footprint to allow for social distancing or keep some of your staff remote, that choice will be fairly obvious for the c-suite to make.
Commercial real estate is going to crash? I don’t think so. Sure, there will be a correction for some assets but CRE will rebound. In fact, some the assets I’m selling Starbucks 7-11 have held value or slightly increased.
There can be a lot of productivity loss and rework under your scenario.
20% of positions can always be eliminated/consolidated anyways. I hope this period will help shine light and foster that process
I live in Houston. We are by nature physically distant from other folks. Houston downtown is one of the emptiest.
My company is looking to open next Monday. We will be work shifting as well. The last paragraph is similar to what we have been told might happen for us as well. I used to take the express busses to get to the office. I will most probably shift to driving. I believe a lot of folks will do that as well.
The company for which I work has already notified us that we will not be required to return to the office until October at the earliest. For now, all of our offices are open, but we are strongly encouraged to work from home for the time being.
The offices never actually "closed," but they were/are ghost towns. I suspect that won't change any time soon. The company surveyed employees on what employees would need to see before they would be comfortable returning to offices. Overwhelmingly, the response was "testing, testing, testing" of employees (both for the virus and antibodies). Other companies who are doing these surveys are likely seeing similar results.
I'm a professor in NY. Education is a phase 4 activity, so I'm not expecting to go back any time soon.
That sounds brutal and a biiit over the top.
I work at Gordon Food Service in HRIS. We're working from home until the end of the month at least, but I am so ready to go back. It would be nice to go into the office for a day or two at least per week.
I haven't heard of any changes at the office, but wouldn't be surprised if there will be, it's a huge office. Hopefully not as strict as Salesforce!
Hey, I work at the warehouse in Brighton. Small world.
Nothing is over top when irrationality takes control and fear/lack of intelligence plays second fiddle
I work for a large auto manufacturer on the Sales and Marketing side. Most states have declared Dealerships an essential business and have allowed them to stay open or re-open. I have been working from home for three months as of today. At first, I hated the idea of being away from my team. ZOOM has changed that for all of us and has made the process easier. I find myself getting up earlier and starting work much earlier than pre-pandemic.
Our leadership has discussed the idea of a soft-re-open, but nothing more than that. As of now, I fully expect to be virtual until at least early July if not Labor Day. The entire industry is struggling, obviously, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. The way we track the overall condition of the industry is Total Industry Volume or TIV. It is essentially the total number of vehicles sold to end customers in a given period. The last few years have averaged approximately 17 million units per year or just under 1.5 million units per month. This includes vehicles sold to Enterprise, Hertz, etc. The last two months have been sobering at just 900k and 700k, respectively. Many analysts think that number will start rising as people begin to venture out into the world.
When we return, I think we will need to restructure how we sit and allow much more flexibility with working from home. With a headset, ZOOM is pretty much just like having an in-person meeting, so that shouldn't be an issue. We'll save a ton on travel expenses by having virtual meetings instead of onsite. It will take some getting used to, but we can definitely do it.
I work for an A/E firm and they have told us they’re going to keep us home as long as possible just because of all off the precautions that would be required in the office. I’m perfectly fine with it and there are frequent ongoing talks about our flexibility and how this could become a long term solution. After this is all said and done I can see myself working 60% home 40% office whereas before it was basically 95% office.
We are an essential business in manufacturing, so we have been able to make client facing visits throughout this process. There was a short period of time where we were exclusively having Microsoft Teams/Zoom meetings.
We are still expected to wear masks, wash hands, not shake hands, etc...and must have the client co-sign on a document for every visit. This has changed the way we do business though, and I expect web meetings/demonstrations to continue beyond this situation because of the ease of use.
Also, we use Salesforce and it is excellent!
I'm at a Big 4 firm. Nationally we're working remotely until end of May at least, and locally we've been told that our Detroit office is likely going to be closed much longer. We are already setup for working remotely, since we often spend time at client sites or WFH before the pandemic, so there is no rush to go back into the office for like 90% of our work. When it does open back up, if there are masks required, health checks, elevator schedules, it will not be worth being there, and nobody is going to require us in the office, so I'm expecting to work remotely until the end of year.
There are interesting prisoner's dilemma type decisions that will come up once offices re-open (assuming it's optional and in an industry where in office work isn't critical). (1) on a firm level, there can't be an advantage to going into the office (e.g. sucking up to the boss) otherwise we defeat the purpose as everyone will eventually figure out they have to be there. (2) on an industry level, firms shouldn't gain a competitive advantage by reopening their offices. (1) is something I generally trust my bosses to do, but I also think there are plenty of psychopath partners in professional services who would consider risking virus infection to be "going the extra mile for our clients." (2) I have no idea how this would be enforced. But again, we risk shooting ourselves in the foot if one company sees an opportunity to gain market share by ramping up before a competitor.
"There are interesting prisoner's dilemma type decisions that will come up once offices re-open ..."
+1 Insightful
Also, OP: Could you ask Marc Benioff to shorten the San Francisco tower by about thirty stories? It kinda @#$%ed up the skyline. Thanks.
I can't take credit. It comes from this tweet:
https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/1260289682744565760?s=20
"there are plenty of psychopath partners in professional services who would consider risking virus infection to be "going the extra mile for our clients."" I worked in public accounting for 12 years. I do not miss these partners at all.
Same. Big 4 but on the Advisory (non-auditing) side in NY. WFH has been an easy transition as we are used to not being in the office. Last year i was only only in the office maybe 50% of the time and traveling the rest. Not expecting to go back any time soon. I'm pretty sure we are officially closed through May, as well but I'm not expecting the offices to open in June. When we do open, it will only be at like 15-20% capacity from the outset. I'm not sure we'll ever return to full office occupancy. We've done hoteling for years to reduce the footprint of our office needs and they need to space out the people, it just doesn't seem feasible to have to get additional office space. Also I have a feeling hoteling and having roaming people sitting in different areas all the time will be a casualty.
I also think a lot of the old guard, face time in the office is important partners have aged out and retired and the last few are nearing retirement age. The younger partners don't operate that way. If they want to go full WFH unless you have to travel, I'd be perfectly fine with that from a personal, as well as business perspective
I work in finance at an Ortho implants company. Technically speaking we are allowed in the office, but it has been strongly discouraged and the company has been good at getting people who could work from home the equipment they need to do so. Right now there is no talk of work shifts. It really doesn't seem like it would make sense. One person gets corona and we would have an entire shift on quarantine for 14 days.
I work at a law firm in DC, and we have been told that the office would be open on 6/15 at the earliest, but that in-person attendance wouldn't be required. I think mid-June is ambitious at this point. The Mayor Bowser in DC keeps pushing back the "peak" timeline, and now says she expects peak to be in mid-July. Not sure I believe that, but if it happens, I would be surprised if we are back in the office before October.
In cities like DC, the role of mass transit is going to be key. The DC metro system (which is jointly funded by DC, MD and VA as well as the feds) has already suggested that they don’t plan to be fully reopened until 2021. This plan depends heavily on significant telework.
As for my job, I work in DC and my boss is pretty well known. It may not come as a surprise, our plans are currently unclear, but at the moment we are pretty much 100% teleworking. I suspect we’ll move away from this gradually. Not sure when it will begin, or if in the end there is more openness to broader telework.
If that's true re Metro, then I suspect that will mess with a lot of plans to re-open. In MD, Governor Hogan is opening things up, but also allowing MoCo and PG to open up slower than the rest of the state.
Here is a link to the plan. I don’t really think it has to mean messing with reopening. As this thread points out, many companies that have work that is amenable to working from home plan to do so. If DCs largest employer, the federal government follows suit, it doesn’t have to slow down an opening. It will however be another huge blow to DC area restaurants.
Double post shame.
I do estimating for a construction company. Currently we have no return date to the office. A lot of us were pushing for remote work before this happened. No idea what changes will be made, but i was told by my boss that he expects us to work from home far beyond when the order gets lifted.
I work for a law firm handling their e-discovery projects here in Canada. Thankfully, my job can be done 100% from home, and thus, I have been told I can work from home until the end of the year. My son is immune compromised, so they do not want me travelling on the train back-and-forth between our office and home. They have also advised us they do not anticipate opening any of our offices until September. Beyond that, I have not heard how they will manage spacing people once we do re-open.
I go back full time Monday. I have no idea how it is going to work. I'm a prosecutor and it is basically necessary I have contact with the public daily. I'm not looking forward to it. We will be wearing masks but I'm not sure how Court proceedings will go. It just doesn't work have people covering their mouths when we trying to take testimony and having the information recorded. It will be a learning process.
that cant be a comforting feeling, good luck. Hopefully they sort out a workable and safe process
Seems like lying would be a lot easier with their faces covered.
Speaking of not being able to read peoples faces due to masks one of my managers is a sarcastic asshole so its been a pain in the ass dealing with him with a mask on. You cant tell if he is furious and about to fire you or just being sarcastic about kicking people out. What a pain in the ass
Never stopped going to the office and everything pretty much stayed the same. Only difference is I keep my door shut and people don't just stop in. Don't really need to come to the office nor am I required to but I'm 100 times more productive when I don't have kids screaming and a wife thinking I'm on vacation.
This. My entire life has been essentially the same as before “lockdown-palooza”
I agree on being much more productive in the office. But, even if my wife wasn't working too (we are both WFH for now), I am pretty certain she would kill me if I left the kids and their distance learning to her everyday.
Same here. The biggest difference I see is - NO TRAFFIC! I'm in St.Joseph, so rush hour isn't that bad anyway. But I used to have to leave early enough to beat the Whirlpool crowd heading from SJ south to Stevensville. Now 5 pm looks like 11 pm used to look.