WFH

Recently my son was preparing for an interview presentation where the interview topic was about flexible working and how that will play out now post covid.

Its a situation where you have to speculate what the future will be like which is something I’ve thought about doing in various subjects in this blog.

Sometimes making future predictions is fun. Looking back on the 1960s prediction of us all going round in flying cars seems funny and obviously totally wrong. Although the communicators on Star Trek in the 1960s looked almost identical to flip top mobile phones so some things weren't far off.

For me, I feel pretty sure that the main thing that will hit us when we look back in 2,000 years time (assuming the human race can survive) is this. One, that how we thought we knew everything but in reality how little we knew. And two, how shocking it was that we allowed a small minority of people with wealth and power to destroy the ecology of the planet to the detriment of everyone. That’s my main prediction.

But the future prediction I want to write about is working from home and our working hours because that is a current live topic that’s under discussion post pandemic.

Working from home has evolved. Going back 20 years home working was a thing but it was

something limited to new industries such as IT where certain tech contractors could perform their work from home. Office based employees for larger companies where their IT networks were eventually made secure enough so that you could log on from anywhere could eventually did odd days work from home but it wasn’t common.

I can remember being in an office based job and occasionally working from home but it was viewed with scepticism. The day after working from home I would end up justifying to my line manager and colleagues that I had used the day constructively and done some work. But jokes were made about you skiving.

The prevailing view at the time was that to work you needed to be in the office with your colleagues. Your line manager watched over you. They could see the personal calls you made and if you spent too long at lunch or in later years, too long online shopping. And in many offices presentism meant that it became a competition to sit at your desk the longest, whether you were doing anything productive or not.

So this is what I would call the “traditional” view of work. Traditional because it’s the way it has been post WW2 as the economy transitions from less manual work to more service industry.

I don’t think this traditional way of working came about because of scientific research that proved it to be highly effectual. But just because it evolved that way. Much like the 5 day week didn't come about because it was the most productive for office workers, but because Henry Ford could sell more cars.

Where does this traditional approach come from? My belief is that it stemmed from Victorian times. The industrial revolution took people off the land and put them into factories. Clearly this work needed to be in the factory because this is where the big machine was that you spent all day on. If you turned up and operated a machine you were definitely productive. If you didn't turn up, you weren't.

In other cases you had workhouses. These places of work were closer to prisons than and it was obvious that you’d be in a building being watched over by the capitalism master to ensure you were doing tasks.

This is where we came from as we moved into the knowledge economy that we are now in. Big machines are no more. Work can be done with a laptop and internet connection. You can collaborate with colleagues on a single job or project, including simultaneously working on single electronic documents, you can all be on screen at the same time and talk while working. Do we still need to turn up to the workhouse?

Some tech companies are more likely to be at the forefront of this change. The company I currently work for has teams spread across the world. My direct colleagues are scattered across the U.K. and Ireland with a couple in Portugal.

When the company recruits it’s clear that English is the language spoken (Unfortunately American spellings are used but I’m working on resisting that). Projects that span borders are done in English. Internal comms meetings typically are repeated 3 times during the day to suit all time zones operated in. Client projects fit the clients time zone. So in these circumstances, joint team working using technology across international borders is clearly possible.

I, and colleagues overseas could drive to an office in our own countries to speak to each other via screen, watched over by a manager checking that we are working, or we could be trusted to do the same from our homes.

Strangely other tech companies seem to want people back in the office, Apple for example. But perhaps this is because they think engineers need to be together to build and collaborate and perhaps there is an element of truth in this.

The media is current reporting that various employers are demanding that employees get back to work. The Government is one, Goldman Sachs another. Some reporting has said that employees demanding to work from home are workshy skivers. Others report that they are monitoring number of staff using their card entry systems being significantly down on pre-pandemic levels.

The man who runs the country... from his home... says that he cannot work from home because he cannot stop eating cheese which in turn makes him forgetful:

Its interesting because previously, I thought that thinking whilst moving around was a common thing that stimulated creative ideas and thought which in turn would be useful to any employer, but no, apparently it makes you over eat and forget.

The civil service and other large employers who are vocal about people coming back to work are measuring desk occupancy and turnstile numbers. But these metrics don't monitor how productive or how profitable the business is. It seems strange to me that people are not measuring productivity. If it was measure and if it was shown that working from home is more productive, why would you change it?

Another aspect that I find strange is that not renting expensive offices but instead letting people work from their own place that they pay for and provide is cheaper for companies. So profits will increase. Plus, over the longer term, you don't have to pay so much. If employees have £10k extra in their net pay because they no longer need to by a train season ticket, then pay doesn't need to be so high. Good for profits.

In addition to this, plenty of employees are saying that it overall better for their health, mental health, family life and well being.

So at this stage in 2022 we've reached this point:

1. No company profits have fallen as a direct result of home working.

2. The lower level of travel is better for the environment.

3. Employees are healthier.

Yet the Government and others wants people back in the office. They want to do something that may be less productive and will lower profits. Thats strange, whats the motive here?

It seems to me that empty offices mean that large landlords will end up with empty property. Tenants would be unable or unwilling to pay huge rents. Banks who lent the money for the property would see default, and its not point re-possessing an asset that no one wants to use. This seems to me to be the real reason that people are being forced back into the office. Because vested interests are worried, and the fact that it lowers profits generally, or makes people unwell is irrelevant. Thats the reality of the capitalism we live with today.

So this is my prediction of how office work will develop over the next 20 years for knowledge based workers who can work from a laptop.

Home working will be the norm. A 3 or 4 day week will be the norm.

Office workers will be paid an allowance that would allow them to rent a desk for 2 or 3 days a week in an office. that office will be a shared space where workers from all sorts of employers work, but it will allow people to socialise and connect.

The concern about workers not working will fade as Gen Z and Gen Alpha come into the workforce, both generations who were excluded from school but continued to work but who will therefore be reluctant to be told to turn up as adults. Employers who insist of office based workers would have been forced to change as they are spurned by the generations of graduates coming through.

The offices left empty will be re-purposed into homes which in turn will maintain the businesses that had originally located nearby for the office workers.

People will have less need for a personal vehicle because they no longer have a commute.

And this change is starting today.

Thats my prediction for the future of the workplace in 2040.