[Closed] Working From Home forever?

Surely as there is a recession looming a lot of companies will realise that paying mega rents for fancy city centre offices is madness when many of their people can work from home

Thinking something similar but what I wonder is how it works to build up relationships with people over Zoom as opposed to face-to-face. How do you go about "team building" when you work remotely? At present all the team members know each other well from the time we spent together in the office, but when will that knowledge expire?

I do not think it is far-fetched for _some_ market sectors to be looking at this, but the extent of how it is accepted may depend on whether people really want to work from home and how much their businesses trust them to do so.

A lot of what I see over here (Sweden) in my sector (IT) is that this could really work, but it opens up a bunch of challenges, not least in how teams will interact and relate to each other if they never meet in person. There is also a serious lack of accommodation that can stretch to having a dedicated office. We have a large-ish lounge and there was enough space for an Ikea desk. This is now 'my office' and I occupy that space when I am working. I try not to go there outside hours. Before that arrived, I had a chair that was part of the normal room seating and it gave me no separation between work and home.

Trusting employees might also be an issue. They'll need to work over a VPN to on-site resources, or to secure cloud services, ideally on dedicated equipment that is provided and maintained by the company. If the company wants to minimse risk, they will need to take a bunch of transparent, strong measures to stop potential incidents (always on VPN, central management, GPO control, AV, you name it).

Most of all, it will take a shift in how people think about work, managing teams and employment. I know a lot of places where managers want people to be in, phiscally at desks where they can see them. Those people need to change their views.

I still think there is no substitute for face to face client meetings unless it's a fairly transactional service that's being offered, but probably 90% of what many people do on a day to day basis can be done remotely

Surely as there is a recession looming a lot of companies will realise that paying mega rents for fancy city centre offices is madness when many of their people can work from home

Although many will be locked into long agreements so even if they don't work from the office, they will still have an obligation to pay rent on it.

I joined the account a week or so before lock down so had the slightly awkward 'First Introduction' meeting with some but not all of the onsite team but no time to really get to know them, let allow the much bigger offshore component of the team.

All bonds have formed remotely and much like in the office there are people I really like and others less so. Some seem keen to help and others seem keen not to do anything that might mean they do it wrong. Mentoring the team is possibly remotely and I have managed offshore teams for many years so I guess I have practice.

Team Bonding days I have been on mostly end up with the same people who are friends in the office working together and those who are not part of the group remaining that way. With a good and well bonded team you get a good team day but with a fragmented or distrustful team they can be awful.

James - not just rent on office, I am saving nearly £800 a month in train fares 🙂

I am a developer and I am job hunting. None of the jobs I am applying for are willing to accept WFH. I am not asking for 100% just 3 days, or week at home week on Site.

These are senior developer roles. I have lots of experience working onsite with clients so can clearly be effective. Not one has said they are willing to accept WFH. ~ 5 jobs over the last month or so.

How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

With difficulty in my 22yrs of wfh with the same Co, mind you they do such crass things as knocking off early on last day before Xmas without telling external engineers - we only find out when we get the out of office email responses 🙄

How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

Thinking something similar but what I wonder is how it works to build up relationships with people over Zoom as opposed to face-to-face. How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

I can offer some direct experience; I started a brand new role in a brand new team on the 1st April, i.e. the midst of lockdown. It's hard, but doable; MS Teams still allows you to introduce yourself to people face to face, you can still speak to them, but you do miss the earwigging of conversations going on around you that help to get a picture of what goes on in and around the team. In terms of "team-building", with a bit of thought you can still have casual get-togethers We for example have a call at about half four each day which is a general check-in/talk bollocks/take the pi$$ session, on Fridays folks generally have a beer with them.

I can't see myself being in an office for more than a day or at most two days week for, well, god knows, if ever. I have a call booked with my boss later this afternoon about it actually, cos they're trying to plan how any 'back to the office' might work when they need to keep the office utilization at 30% to allow the social distancing measures. It'll be different teams in different days, staggered starts/finishes etc I bet.

Kind of ironic, cos I took the role as the commute was an easy option...

[i]I still think there is no substitute for face to face client meetings unless it’s a fairly transactional service[/i]

I was a pre-sales technical consultant selling complex SLA software (salesmans techie sidekick) across Europe. Lots of mad trips to meet clients, sometimes 2 - 3 countries a day for F2F meetings. Then the main salesman I worked with broke his leg so couldn't really travel for 8 weeks. We still started, progressed and landed deals and it was far more efficient and relaxed.

It does take a slight mind shift but no more than the move from telephone call to video and screen share meetings

Not for me, thank christ. Living alone and working alone is ****ing awful.
Thankfully, my (also IT) job involves some stuff that can only be accessed on site, so we'll be back in the office when we can - big difference will be the flexibility to WFH when needed will be improved. (It's rare that I'd need to though).

Got a couple of mates with WFH jobs, I just don't think it'd suit me.

I’ve been in that position for a few years. The team I work in is spread throughout the UK and what we deliver is all done remote. We see each other a few times a year when we do a day of planning and socialising - rest of the time it’s a few video calls a week to check in.

The wider company is a specialist in Lync/SfB/Teams so most of our customers are a long way down that path - projects had already largely gone from needing bodies on site to being happy with our people working remotely.

The losers in this “new way of working” are those earlier in their careers. If you’re in your 20s you’re not likely to have a spare room to work from and you’ll lose out on the connections made at work, the quick questions answered, chance meetings with people in other departments, mentorships, etc. Companies need to think hard about how they make it work for them too.

How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

I've done it for 20 years now, on and off, yes some F2F is required, but not every day.

We'll be reducing our real-estate for sure, any visit to any site requires ELT approval, even in countries where lock down is relaxing, plus I don't think I'll be doing 100+ flights this year (thank god).

TheBrick - when I joined this company in 2011 I was also told that WFH was not an option and not possible so contract stated I was based in the London office. First time I wasn't on the client site I went to the office to be told - go home and do some online training or something.

Companies HR policies and the working realities are often different. HR want the right to demand you go to the office. The team management just want you to do the job and are often happy to let you have remote working.

My company are obsessed with getting us in the office. The whole company is normally in Mon - Fri from 8am with minimal flexibility.

They have IT in this week moving desks so we can return to the office as soon as possible.

Some management may have struggled to WFH through lockdown due to childcare, but my team are all childless and we've worked perfectly remotely. Very frustrating that there will be no option to continue to do so.

[i]you’ll lose out on the connections made at work, the quick questions answered, chance meetings with people in other departments, mentorships, etc. [/i]

Agreed.

I see that happening in other ways too where people are given very specific roles with very specific skill sets and so don't get the rounded learning and more 'general knowledge' that comes from doing many things

Mark88 - Are you in a position to suggest a WFH 'trail' for your team. You need to think of some measures that will show the benefits, not just that you can do the same at hoime as you can in the office otherwise there is no incentive for the senior management to change anything

I'm an IT consultant. I'm working with two clients now, in the US and in Finland. I probably would not have travelled to the US but I'm pretty sure I'd have gone to Finland by now. However the work is being done just the same. So yes - why bother?

Thinking something similar but what I wonder is how it works to build up relationships with people over Zoom as opposed to face-to-face. How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

It takes effort, and money, because I do think you need to meet people once or twice. Then it becomes far easier online. Also the ability to just mess about and talk bollocks online is vital. We use Slack, and some of our teams have general channels for just this purpose, and it really helps get people together just like STW does.

It's something I have been working on for a while, and lockdown has strengthened my argument.

My manager is on board but there's some teams that are less effective at home so it's a battle to push for benefits for my team that won't be on offer to other departments.

you’ll lose out on the connections made at work, the quick questions answered, chance meetings with people in other departments, mentorships, etc.

Honestly, I'd say yes to the chance meetings, less so the rest. You make connections by working with and talking to people; you still do that. You can ask/answer quick Q's on Teams, Zoom etc and mentoring should be structured anyway so that can be, well, structured in.

I talk to people about 'work' stuff now as much as I ever did sat in the office. It's the non-work stuff that doesn't happen as much and that needs more attention, but there's plenty of ways of doing that.

I do miss going in, I wouldn't want to WFH all the time (mainly for the change of scene), but something like 2 days in and 3 WFH would be fine by me.

I still think there is no substitute for face to face client meetings unless it’s a fairly transactional service

That's assuming clients will still want you on site in the future. I can see suppliers being banned from attending customer sites for quite some time to come.

I WFH for last couple of years
Was with a new company, so didn't start in the office and then move home if that makes sense.
Doing IT work

Observations:
I often found living alone and WFH isolating/lonely
The flexibility was great though, and I did work when it was required and didn't sit twiddling my thumbs during office hours. I think they got as much work out of me paying me for 3 days as they would have got in 5 days of sitting in the office.
I didn't really make many friends at my company
When I got let go, I didn't bother telling anyone or saying bye as I didn't care about my colleagues - other than another WFH person who was up here in Scotland too (office in London).
I had productive working relationships with some other IT guys in our suppliers who I never met. Or even know what they look like. Probably better than the people in my own company, but they were still in the mass email chain style of communicating.
I am glad I am finished that job, and looking forward to a job that has more human interaction

I think there will certainly be a 'new normal'.

We're in IT Support.

When lock-down first came there was a huge panic, few were willing the accept it was happening until it did. Even after they announced Social Distancing most of our clients did nothing they were told "work from home if you can" and only thought "can I work from home without making any changes?".

1 week later we were inundated by calls demanding to know why they couldn't buy whatever crap laptop was left on the shelf in PC world and intermediately access all their usual tools and data in the usual way. We had to do a lot of explaining, a lot of quick solutions and a lot of "do you really need that?"

As the weeks went on we were able to put in place more permanent solutions in place, again it was all a bit rushed.

Now we're at a stage where most are looking at permanent solutions, Business's are not only looking at the costs of buildings, but accepting there may be no end to Covid in sight and the cold-hard-fact that offices were designed to cram as many bodies in as possible around fire regs etc, not 2m social distancing rules. Thinking of my own small office. There's 15 of us in an office that could house 30+ (we've got large areas allocated for stock, storage and 'Labs' etc) it's got a single stair case to the second floor, two toilets and a single entrance.

We're helping to roll out completely cloud based platforms for clients, showing how to make Zoom secure, how to use Teams for internal use and recording 'chat' platforms. Security is a challenge as it the really tricky business of 'oversight'. I think some middle managers are seeing the writing on the wall for them, I'm part of an IT sales group on FB some US manages are demanding anonymous access to webcams and mics to check on staff working from home. I would hope that would never become a thing in the UK, I would personally feel very strongly if we were asked to roll out that sort of thing in the UK.

Well, Twitter is looking at 100% remote if they can and so is AMEX. Companies will do what works and what delivers the best return for their shareholders and, in IT at least, that really should not mean paying for a big office.

I will definitely be WFH more when we eventually go back in. Not every day (I work 10 days over 9) but at least 2 days a week.

We already have an arrangement in my branch where people can work wherever they like, home, another office, but we are all at the same office on a Wednesday so we can interact with each other. The daily stand-up can be attended remotely. Its my responsibility/decision by the letter of company policy, but I will see what the staff want to do, let them identify and resolve any issues.

I don't think I would do it all the time by choice, but I have two hours a day of my life back to ride my bike and haven't used the car in two months (we called it early and all started WFH mid March)

I have to say MS Teams is a great bit of kit.

On a wide team call at the moment and a very senior manager is saying that "the old ways of five days in the office are gone"

It's certainly going to go on longer than I imagined at our place - 7 month plan for drip feeding people back into the office - longer if required

I don't need to be office based, but would still need to pop in once a week.

Happy if that was my future

I work directly with teams in 3 locations in England and 2 in India. I used to WFH 2 days a week. For me lockdown changed very little - I already had good friends in India that I'd never met and people in my office that are merely colleagues.

I'm lucky that I already had my home office set up and my employer already had good, secure remote access that they managed to massively scale.

I'm not going back if I can avoid it - 20,000 miles commuting a year, 3 hours a day to be in the office. I get to see my kids now as well rather than just briefly when I'm home in the evening.

I can work from both office or home as I wish so I tend to take my work home rather than staying in the office. I think I have done 80% of work from home for the past 20 years but can easily make this 100% no issue. However, I still prefer to print out from office .... coz they have nice colour laser printer.

The quick answers thing.

I actually find that easier now at home, simply down to the ease of screen sharing via Teams. No need for some half arsed description of what someone is talking about, just share your screen so I can see what your doing such a terrible job of describing.

Assuming I still have a job, I’m expecting 3 or 4 days a week WFH as normal. The other day or two will be wasted on meetings with no tangible output.

To be fair it's not a shock that not everyone works (mentally and professionally) in different ways. As an IT / programming person, it's a style of work that works for me. Possibly being a self employed contractor type means that I tend to get less close knit with the work teams anyway, though.

I appreciate that not everyone has the opportunity to work at home in an ideal environment and likewise not every office is open plan with no choice but to sit next to "Loud Bill" with his constant football conversations, but I'd say most of my programmer friends see this as a great relief and will be looking to continue WFH because they prefer it.

I've also friends living in the Western Isles who worked in companies spread all over the world, meeting in person only a few times a year. I think that setups like that have the ability to bring new life to a lot of remote and rural communities, where otherwise young people would be tied into moving away to look for work as they grew up.

I certainly agree that more can be achieved when the sales guy is out of the picture! 🙂

I have been doing 4/5 days a week from home for around 3yrs working in a SME/Technical PM type role. Lots of customer interaction required and meetings with team members but the thing is that they are scattered across the globe. Other than the London office I can go 12 months without seeing people i work with daily, sometimes hourly, other than on MS Teams video. It has has zero effect on my ability to do my job or form relationships with clients, and with this current situation it has actually helped the relationships. Sitting on a video call while a senior director from the client side bounces their child on their knee or cuddles their dog opens up a much more intimate relationship opportunity.

I think/hope that more companies will see the lack of impact that WFH has had on productivity and open their minds to its benefits. The fact that the company I work for is supportive of this is worth more than a significant pay-rise to me.

Moving all our (sofware) engineering teams to full remote permanently. Still figuring out how to train juniors properly...

It was already in the pipeline. I am Director of IT and Digital and "digitising" parts of the org has been like pulling teeth. Covid accelerated all the work we had planned and as we "evacuated" our offices the business actually realised the infrastructure was already in place. They simply began using it!

Work in R&D for a global telecommunications company

I’ve worked at home full time for a few years now.

Company ‘restructuring’ has resulted in a lot of globally split teams. I’m only working with one other person in this country at the moment. If I went to the office I would just be on webex/teams anyway. There are a number of people I work with who I have never met irl.

Remote teams need a lot of effort. Some things are really hard, starting up projects for example, where you need to explain abstract stuff and know that someone understands it. You can do it but it takes longer and is more effort. My situation would be dramatically improved with a monthly meet up, but the company are to tight up to pay the travel.

If you have a dedicated work space, keep to a routine, and have interests/friends away from work, it really is no problem.

Another IT worker here, for a big red Spanish bank. The news that's filtering down to us is that we should expect WFH to become a much more usual thing - certainly at least 2-3 days/week. For me that would be ideal, I've set up an office in a spare bedroom, and quite like WFH. But I do miss meeting my colleagues, having lunch with them and the general chit-chat, and while screen sharing isn't bad, it's nothing like sitting down next to someone and solving a problem that way. So for me going into the office say Mon and Wed would be perfect.

We'll see how it ends up, and a lot of Spanish managers definitely do like to see bums on seats to remind them how important they are - but I'm pretty sure that we won't be returning to 100% FT office work.

I still think there is no substitute for face to face client meetings unless it’s a fairly transactional service that’s being offered, but probably 90% of what many people do on a day to day basis can be done remotely

Totally agree - I'm an IT trainer currently WFH, much of what I do can be done from here but long and involved training sessions really need face to face, IMO, people just switch off in a lengthy webed.

One of my jobs is classroom teaching, currently (for last 2.5 months) giving classes via Meet. It is going ok but there are some aspects of learning that don't easily work online (at least with my level of technical ken).
Not that it really matters - I commute the 10km either by bike or running, the rent is cheap and few/none of the students arrive by car, so the footprint is minimal other than paper usage.

My company are obsessed with getting us in the office. The whole company is normally in Mon – Fri from 8am with minimal flexibility.

This was our company. Massively focussed on presenteeism over productivity.

Big global manufacturer. It's quite interesting seeing this forced change on us & it's opened up discussion on this as a matter for the future. I have no need in being in the office daily, for sure.

I would like to be in a position in the future where I am in the office only one day a week. Interesting to see what the future brings.

Full-time WFH is not for everyone. I've previously turned down interviews because I would have to work from home (US based HQ's).

I don't really expect to return to the office until I can do so without the need for social distancing, PPE or whatever our company introduces. Realistically, that's a very, very long time from now. I'm not relishing that prospect at all.

I also work in IT for a government department who have a very lavish five floor city centre property - the argument for getting it was to attract talent as the civil service is seen as burocratic and boring (who knew!) But apart from a few testers who physically need a particular BT connection in the office the place has been deserted since lockdown so it begs the question....why bother with it at all?
Pretty sure home working would attract people just as much.
I'm not planning on going back 5 days a week for sure, although I do miss the cycle in....I'm getting fat!

On a wide team call at the moment and a very senior manager is saying that “the old ways of five days in the office are gone”

Yeah, I've heard that too, this is one area that worries me slightly.

On the face of it WFH offers both employees and employers lots of benefits that, IMHO out weigh the negatives. A reduction in costs for both sides, reductions in commuting etc, but of course a lot of business are run by complete psychopaths or worse are so large that morality is completely lost.

It's really not safe to assume that more flexible working hours, means less working hours.

Heard through the grapevine (so it may not be legit) that the local Police county HQ has been sold, so all the support staff that were WFH due to the virus will be continuing as there is no office to go back to.

I think a big problem will be for people to have the space for a better,permanent set up at home. Most friends I know that are WFH are using dining room tables/ picnic tables as stop gaps. Not everyone has the benefit of a spare room/study.

If you're WFH- does the company still have a responsibility under DSE? Would laptops etc be covered by work insurance the employee house ins?

What was it somebody was saying on here about everybody being a "chunk or hunk" after lockdown?

Obviously that's dreadfully sexist and I would be livid if I thought the blokes at work were saying that about us - but it is stuck in my head now. I have to think of an excuse for smirking in every branch heads video call. Shameful...

One of the big advantages of current technology is that we can work from almost anywhere.
One of the big disadvantages is that we can work any time!
As far as team building/bonding goes that's never really been an issue for me. I work for a global company and I've never met a manager of mine or a team mate in probably more than 5 years now. I'll probably work at home more in the future.

I think now would be a great time to invest in shared office space businesses. Lots of employers, including mine, likely to close big head offices and there will therefor be more demand for local hub type shared space where people can work if WFH is not possible/preferable for them.

Shared local offices with decent coffee, decent desks, printing and some banter will be in demand.

I work in IT for a big American bank. 100% of what I do can be done from home. 10-20% of it is probably better f2f.

I have a dedicated office at home, but Mrs Dubs is working on the dining table so not ideal. She's a PE teacher though, so not much long term prospect of her WFH long term 🙂

FWIW, I have heard some tales of folk who are supposed to be WFH not actually doing much so there is a bit of a push to get back to some office working, but it's going to be just 25% of people to start with.

I already have a contract amendment to have 2 days a week WFH, I doubt that will change.

I used to work from home 4 days a week , up until I got made redundant 5 years ago.

I’be had three jobs since then where WFH was not an option. Possible yes, but not with the culture at those places.
Then in August last year I started contracting for the company that made me redundant in 2015. WFH was very much back on the table, I’d do one or two days a week WFH. Since mid March I’ve been full time WFH, and I’m now also back on their payroll as an employee.

Our department (IT) has a very positive view of WFH, other departments were less keen. I suspect that may change now that it’s been proven to work, but not to 100% WFH for all departments; I suspect we developers especially will continue 5 days a week from home, probably until at least the end of the year. Then very slowly returning to office maybe one or two days a week, but only if absolutely necessary.
Not a city centre office, we’re a manufacturing plant just off the Motorway

It’s really not safe to assume that more flexible working hours, means less working hours.

Well, no, at best it would be fewer working hours 😉

Still figuring out how to train juniors properly...

This is the main issue for me. I'm a Civil Engineer and great thing about having people around is being able to bring the young guys through and give them proper experience with proper supervision. There's nothing better than just being able to lift your head up and ask a question. Similarly theres nothing worse than listening to someone giving really bad advice to someone learning the ropes. If you cant hear them because WFH how can you guide them...

I won't be going back in the office full time after this but we'll need to be in for a few days a week.

Thinking something similar but what I wonder is how it works to build up relationships with people over Zoom as opposed to face-to-face. How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely? At present all the team members know each other well from the time we spent together in the office, but when will that knowledge expire?

This a problem for me. We work on projects that typically run for 18 months, then disband and start another with another random group of people.

Also the new starter/graduates will be a struggle.

I'd like the office to be optional, I do miss it. Ideally perhapse they would split the week so you had to clock in for 16h or 20h rather than 40 and the rest could be WFH.

I suspect productivity will nosedive at some point in our company once everyone either stops doing 12h days to compensate or just bruns out as a result.

I'd be quite happy to do four days at home and one in the office.

I work on the sales side of a manufacturing business and after a couple of days of "novelty" we've all settled down and got on with it.

The Government want to spend a few million upgrading the motorway junction near my house, I'd rather that they spent it on better broadband!

I’d like the office to be optional, I do miss it. Ideally perhapse they would split the week so you had to clock in for 16h or 20h rather than 40 and the rest could be WFH.

That wouldn't work - at least not for team building. You all need to be there at the same time. I can see offices deciding that Monday is for team A, Tuesday for team B, etc. Does mean hot desking of course, which is pretty crap, but then I suppose all of your team resources will have to be online anyway.

I think a lot will depend on the cultural thinking of management / leadership teams etc. Those that could develop a WFH culture but choose to oppose it will largely be shortsighted IMO. Whereas those that already do it or actively encourage or explore it will likely find ways to make it work. Plenty of variables / factors involved though.

I say that based on WFH on and off (increasingly more) over the last 20 years. Current (contracted) role is 100% remote working with teams around Australia, the US and Europe. It helps that 1) I know how to make it work and 2) the organisation in this instance are very people-centric.

It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea but there will be a sea change for many methinks.

Our work, conference production is 100% live events and people meeting face to face. If we can survive the fact that we currently can't work at all then the WFH may work for us in that people and teams will need to be brought together at times and these meetings may well be in the typical venues we work in if companies no longer have the facilities in house. On the other hand we might be stuffed.

One thing that would concern me for those working from home is that individuals may be far more susceptible to bullying managers and how much worse will it be for people under stress never to leave the place where they experience it. When the workforce are a bunch of disparate individuals who don't meet in the kitchen or canteen or pub after work to slag off the boss they are in a weaker position and can be played off against each other very easily.

A lot of the comments seem to follow a trend of "I can work from home but would like to go to the office to meet real people / socialise / be seen / team build"

I think this comes from the feeling of comfort you get with doing what you always did. It is like a lot of retired people still go shopping on weekends because that is when they shop rather than during the week when there are less people around. People add to the experience.

Possibly a better example for this forum are the people like to watch their TV programs on certain days at specific times because they are used to the schedule and streaming the shows on the wrong day just seems wrong. 10 years ago we all watched to schedule but now we expect to watch what we want, when we want. Attitudes to adjust over time.

If you have done the WFH for a reasonable length of time you do all the team building and stuff on line as quite a few people on here have said. It just changes how you do it a bit.

The same is true for teaching / training. Yes it is easier F2F but can be just as effective done remotely. You just have to do it differently. BTGW did you kow there is an option in MS Teams for the host to monitor your video stream and automatically identify if you are not paying attention?

WFH is much better when everyone is doing it, so you're not missing out on the action in the office.

We may be moving towards it, from some stuff the MD has said.

I think my level of comfort with it comes from not having a stable consistent office for ages. My wife mentioned last night about needing to go back into her office to clear some things out of her desk - I’ve not had a permanent desk in an office since about 2003. Even the long term projects I’ve worked on where I had to be on site I’d be scrapping for a hot desk with everyone else.

I would agree with ADS678, being in a room with other engineers of different levels of experience is great for sorting out problems you've not experienced before. I've learnt over the years a lot from this method than I would have siting at home. Also being all able to sit around and go over an A1 drawing. Yes, I know there are electronic ways to do this, but my organisation still works off not much further on than back of fag packets....

My organisation was moving towards greater home working and closing offices (my commute will go from 3 miles to 20miles), so this will accelerate it. We do a lot of work over the phone and with skype and now MSteam. So this will increase.

Its more what facilities I have at home. I've a 3 and 5 year old, and I'm using a camping table in my son's room. I need to be able to do CAD, so a proper desk and chair and second monitor would be good. And an A3 printer. And a door I can lock!

Can any one recommend a low cost garden office/shed with a wood burning stove to keep it usable in winter?

I see a lot of summer houses being sold in the next few months for conversion to home offices. If I ran a shed / summer house company I would be advertising them like mad. Same with stand alone power such as a solar with big storage batteries and a generator back up for those who can't run cables from the house.

If I didn't already have an office set up in the house I would be SO tempted to make a tree house in the garden and work from that

Hmmm, there is a big oak tree at the bottom of the garden. I wonder if I could rig up something like this?

Working from home in style

Today is the first day I've been utterly ****ed off, sitting at home looking at ridiculous faceless emails that don't contribute to anything, doing spreadsheets and reports for the sake of making our managers look good.

I spoke to a peer colleague and the thought is that its just not being able to bounce ideas around, or have little/comedy grumbles to people who understand your position which is mentally challenging.

I might have a beer in a minute.

Kryton - arrange a day long meeting with the colleagues you like.. Just leave your microphones open and do your normal day job. You will here what the others are talking about and doing and can chip in when you want. Just remember to mute for private stuff. You will soon realise how mundane it all is.

A more realistic approach might be to have a group chat window open where you can just post random stuff up, work or non-work.

If you have done the WFH for a reasonable length of time you do all the team building and stuff on line as quite a few people on here have said. It just changes how you do it a bit.

Yeah, I'm sure you can do the team building stuff and all that, but personally I'm not thinking about it from my employer's PoV - it's me being selfish, I miss chatting with my workmates. Our quick after lunch stroll where sometimes we talk about work, but could just as easily be talking about the plans for the weekend. Having a coffee with them. That bit.

A more realistic approach might be to have a group chat window open where you can just post random stuff up, work or non-work

I'm sure our managers won't like that.   I think moreover I've had a tough day, with a manager/management who despite the fact that we are 2 in a former team of 5 seems to think we sit about all day doing nothing, when the opposite - with double my sales numbers to achieve this year - is the issue.   On top of that and because of that I'm not really taking breaks either - which is my issue I know.

The genie is out of the bottle, the world has changed. As someone else said earlier, "the old ways of five days in the office are gone" which is bang on the money and like with any major change it just requires people to accept it.

Obviously some jobs can't be done remotely, you're not going to get many WFH car mechanics and there's merit to putting people together for mentoring and training. But the days of going into an office solely because "we've always done that" are surely over.

How do you go about “team building” when you work remotely?

Why do you need team building at all when you're not sharing an office?

I think I've met my boss twice, both years ago before he was my boss, and I've met my partner-in-crime colleague a couple of times at conferences. I don't think the juniors in the team have met our boss at all. We get on famously, not once have I thought "you know, this team would work so much better if we spent an afternoon building a bridge out of drinking straws."

To be fair it’s not a shock that not everyone works (mentally and professionally) in different ways. As an IT / programming person, it’s a style of work that works for me.

Yeah, and this is a big one, differing personality types. There's a meme doing the rounds, to paraphrase, "Introverts: check on your extrovert mates, they're not used to this, they're not OK!" and whilst it's a silly joke it does rather highlight that half the population think differently from the other half. There's folk on here already missing going into work, my workplace is 15 minutes away and if I never have to go in again I'd do the Dance of Joy.

Programming is a good example for me too. At work I could generally spin multiple plates on sticks all day (and still be able to spod on STW), but programming required my undivided attention. Someone coming along going "have you got a minute," well sure, why not, you've already just cost me the last half an hour.

Kryton - Sounds shit. I don't think is sounds any better if your are not working from home though.

It is funny how managers assume people will default to skive mode even though they have measurable deliverables and targets. Perhaps it is because they do not have the appropriate measures of their own performance. They can only hit their target if you hit yours. If they WFH and don't do anything but you work hard they still hit their target. They might be worried someone will spot that

The same is true for teaching / training. Yes it is easier F2F but can be just as effective done remotely.

Around 50% of what I do is workshops/teaching.  I agree with WCA in that it can be done remotely. But not the same as you did it F2F! I re-wrote all the material to suit shorter sessions with lots more polls/interaction. Also employed my daughter who manages the chat and writes transcripts (very useful for reflective people who may not want to talk in the session)

Two projects with people I’ve never physically met. Expected issues but we got through it. Learned a lot as well. Rest of my work is with people I know and it’s easier.

Since I work for myself, I’m pretty relaxed about it. I don’t think I’ll be getting on any university campuses for a few months. I’ve WFH when I’m not on site for years anyway so all set up. Appreciate it’s harder if you haven’t been/don’t have dedicated space.

My view is I’ll do what the customers want. Been fun adapting and I don’t miss the travel (but I do miss the people)

Alex - that is what I meant. Well done for understanding the changes required. Perhaps you could prepare some training material on the subject

Oh and what happened to managing by output not input? If managers are worried about staff they can’t see, they’re not good managers for the most part. Lack of effort agreeing objectives/deadlines etc.

Well done for understanding the changes required. Perhaps you could prepare some training material on the subject

🙂 Strangely, I’ve ended up running some sessions for other consultants for us to share what works and what doesn’t. That’s been really valuable.  I’ve learned from them and I hope vice versa. Also lots of tips on best collaborative products to use etc. As I say, been fun adapting.

Totally agree – I’m an IT trainer currently WFH, much of what I do can be done from here but long and involved training sessions really need face to face, IMO, people just switch off in a lengthy webed.

I switch off for all IT training, I find it just as easy to be bored in a classroom as I do on webex

If the only reason to go to an office is one of trust, you either have the wrong manager or the wrong staff.

This is something else that's going to have to change, the clock-watchers really aren't going to like it. We're going to have to start measuring people by their performance rather than the raw hours they have their arse at a desk possibly doing SFA.

I'm really lucky in that's exactly how I'm managed. My boss knows that a given task should be (say) a day's work, so if I'm efficient enough to do it in six hours then lucky me I get a short day, conversely if it takes 10 then that's my own fault for being crap.* By the same token it (usually) doesn't matter if I do it in office hours or from 6pm till 2 in the morning so long as the work gets done on time. If I were to swing the lead it'd become very apparent quickly due to my lack of output rather than because I'm not online on Teams at 8:31am.

(* - this could be abused if my boss was to regularly underestimate times and essentially have me working for free, but in practice it doesn't happen for me personally and I'd absolutely be claiming overtime if it did.)

Oh and what happened to managing by output not input? If managers are worried about staff they can’t see, they’re not good managers for the most part. Lack of effort agreeing objectives/deadlines etc.

A lot of the problem comes from this old-School idea that if you’re really, really good at your job you’d be the perfect person to manage other people doing the same. Rather than seeing management as a job within itself.

You can hardly blame people, a lot of places either have a fixed pay rate (or narrow scale) for any given role. For some people the only way to advance financially is via a step-up to management.

Management ain’t easy, measuring people based on timekeeping is.

Why do you need team building at all when you’re not sharing an office?

Well, it depends if you are actually a team or not. A team is a group of people who work interdependently towards a shared goal. If you are just a bunch of people who happen to do the same thing, then you aren't a team so don't need team building.

In the bad old days of IT, projects had 'analyst teams' and 'dev teams' and 'test teams'. Those weren't teams at all, just collections of people performing tasks that someone else assigned to them. Today more agile approaches try to actually have teams who collaborate to achieve their goals, and setting them up wholly remotely is difficult. But not impossible.

I have been WFH since about 2008 with the amount of time on client sites steadily declining. Totally works for me now and I really couldn't face an office-based role anymore.

I find I can control my time better and ensure what I have planned for the day gets done rather than reacting to some fake emergency that the office drama drones have come up with.

A disturbing trend recently has been the use of video; when I started WFH video was very rarely used, so I have adapted to never shaving and working in shorts and a T-shirt. But for some reason along with a move from Skype to Teams, even people I had previously thought sane, balanced individuals are insisting on displaying their unshaven faces as they gaze out of the window or surf the web on the 'big' screen (not the one with the camera attached). I was finding this all a bit off putting, until I found the button in Teams that allows you to switch off the incoming video - all good now.