Work From Home for White Collar is basically permanent now

[Johnny2X2X]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/charlie-munger-we-are-never-going-back-to-a-five-day-work-week-in-the-office-212348086.html

Only 3% want to go back to the office full time.

My company has been WFH for 2 years now and we were scheduled to go to a WFH Monday and Friday and return to office Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. based on 3 full weeks after our county goes to low transmission per the CDC website. Probably would have been to this model by April.

Boss just confirmed with me that fulltime WFH will be an option for us going forward. It's what people want and what it will take to attract talent going forward. I live in a mid sized Midwest city, cost of living is relatively low, WFH gives me many more options for employment in my industry (Aerospace engineering). With WFH I can live here and work for a company on the East or West coast. And likewise, we can hire some young engineers who would love to work for us, but don't want to live in the Midwest.

It's a brand new ball game now. FWIW, I will still probably start going into the office a couple days a week when it's allowed, I miss it. Either your company will be on the leading edge of WFH, or they're going to get left behind, especially in tech industries. What I fear is this will just create more division in this country between blue and white collar workers. But I think phone jobs can easily transition to WFH too.

The implications of this are massive on society.

[Phoenix61]

1. You mentioned young people who don't want to

live in the mid-west. The flip side is young families who want to buy a home but can’t afford one in more urban areas moving to more rural areas.

[Johnny2X2X]

3. Exactly

You can work for a Silicon Valley tech giant and live in a rural community with affordable homes. Of course, if you're living in Iowa, but working for Google, you aren't going to get the same salary as your coworker who's living in Northern California, but I'd bet the salary will still be much higher than tech firms in Iowa on average.

My city has large aerospace companies, 1200 and 800 workers at each, those are my options for changing jobs and still staying in my field while not moving. Those options just got much bigger, there are companies all over the country I can apply to with WFH now.

[uponit7771]

22. The Tech companies are doing a 5% max variance, My Niece is going through something similar

... and they're trying to match salaries and they're spiking cause now tech talent doesn't have to be local.

it's world wide now ... that's good for American workers.

[Johnny2X2X]

28. Great point

And my boss said the company is going to start looking at compensation packages because of this. If my employer has to compete with salaries from all over the country, flat out I am getting a raise.

[Demsrule86]

31. My future son in law works for a tech company out of California. He lives in Ohio and would not

leave as he is an only child/son and has older parents. He makes great money for Ohio and the California company is still paying less than they would to someone in California.

[Johnny2X2X]

32. I was thinking of this very thing

Some young people will stay in their hometowns to care for their parents now when they would have had to move to the big city to pursue their careers before.

[lagomorph777]

19. That may have interesting electoral consequences.

It might fuck up all the freshly Gerrymandered districts.

[Phoenix61]

38. How funny would that be?!? nt

[themaguffin]

21. There are many non-coastal cities that are much more affordable and could use the boost

[OneGrassRoot]

2. It would be nice...

if all that office space now available could be converted into affordable housing. I agree that it is a new world but the commercial real estate industry is really pushing to get people back into those offices. I wish they would just convert them and look at the bigger picture.

[Johnny2X2X]

5. Agree

I think you'll see a commercial real estate bubble that's already started to burst. But these office spaces can be repurposed.

Also a big unknown is the income tax implications. If I'm working in Michigan, but I remote into servers that are in Chicago everyday, where do I pay taxes to? I think there is already law that establishes that, but what about the revenues lost to big cities if workers pay taxes in their rural towns going forward, and vice versa.

[lagomorph777]

29. Retail to residential is already happening on my area.

I expect the next wave will be office-to-residential conversions.

Commercial real estate is generally built to a much higher standard than homes; this would likely put some price pressure on the upper end of the rental market. Would that propagate downward?

[bucolic_frolic]

4. OP is very timely

It's described as an option, but now becoming a trend and near universal option. Knowledge to pocket.

[PJMcK]

6. I've been working remotely since before it was called that

I went independent in 1992 with a laptop and a cellphone and haven't looked back since. Although I've maintained an office through my partnerships, I don't have a supervisor so I can work from anywhere that I can get cell service and WiFi. I've worked from home, my studio, our country house, my in-laws house and hotel rooms all over the world. Actually, in my first tech setup, I could fax documents from my laptop through the cellphone! Thankfully, it's easier with today's tech.

My clients don't really care where I am or even what I'm doing as long as I take care of their businesses and continue to keep them profitable. Remarkably, the years of the pandemic have been inexplicably successful for us and I feel very grateful for the opportunities we've had these past couple of years.

However, consider that not only are companies reevaluating their workers' office needs, the commercial real estate business will probably go through a massive readjustment. In NYC, where I live and work, office space had gotten very expensive. With many people working from home or elsewhere, there might not be such a demand for office space resulting in lower commercial rents.

I've been incredibly fortunate in the past 30 years.

[Johnny2X2X]

10. The first Winter of WFH

The Winter of 2020, a couple I work with announced they'd be working from Vail, Colorado for 6 weeks and were taking some vacation time so they weren't going to be available every day. Basically took a 6 week ski vacation and barely missed any work because they could dial in 30 hours a week from their room. Right then I knew that people weren't going to ever want to go back.

It's a game changer, sounds like you've had quite a nice work life balance for 30 years, that's what I am seeing right now too. Worked from the in-law's up North one week.

And the benefits of not having a commute are immense too. Less time wasted, less wear and tear on my vehicle, no gas expense. Lunches in my kitchen are cheaper than the work cafeteria or going out for lunch. Work clothes ae now pajamas.

Some of the old school people I work with are struggling accepting it, but it's just the way it is now.

[gldstwmn]

15. The commute aspect may help climate change. Public transport here has had far fewer riders than two

years ago. And the food in my kitchen is definitely healthier than what I might get in an office. There are so many upsides.

[Johnny2X2X]

20. Being able to wake up and be at work is amazing

I wake up at 7:40, brush my teeth, and pour a cup of coffee and I'm ready for work.

And my dog, she's decided I'm never going back! She has a bed in my office she sleeps in most of the day and after lunch I usually take her for a walk around the neighborhood for 15 minutes.

At the end of the day, I turn the light off in the office and do my best not to think of work again. If there's a late meeting on the West Coast I have to dial into, I can eat dinner and log back on later without having to remain at the office like I would normally do.

[gldstwmn]

24. My schedule is flexible so the days when I can take the dogs

for a walk or do some yoga, ride my bike or even take a nap are glorious. It's really good for my mental health and a morale booster for all employees I would think. Happy employees are productive employees.

[OhZone]

7. A lot of companies are not as nice as yours, OP.

[Johnny2X2X]

11. They aren't doing it to be nice

They're doing it because they have to do it to be competitive. Our industry relies on talent and innovation, the talent wants WFH so you're going to have to accommodate then to attract the people you need to be competitive.

[OhZone]

12. A lot of companies are not as smart then.

A lot of companies are phasing out that option, whether they lose talent or not.

They value a be-in-the-office principle over almost anything.

[gldstwmn]

16. They will eventually capitulate. They can't stop a runaway train.

[Johnny2X2X]

18. Yup

It's a runaway train already. And it was trending this way before Covid even, Covid just put everything in a time warp.

And the competition for workers right now is accelerating it.

Just before Covid we lost a brilliant young engineer to a company from Colorado because they let him stay here in West Michigan and work from home. Companies were already starting to do this for talent acquisition reasons already.

[OhZone]

33. I don't think so.

I think they'll just put more work on those remaining who have less opportunity.

Things will suffer.

Incidents will increase.

But the management I know will blame the remaining workers.

There are some that never learn or care.

[The Revolution]

8. Right before the pandemic

My company had just rolled out a new policy that would let you work from home one day a week (this was literally like a few weeks before everything shut down).

Now pretty much everyone wants to work from home all the time, and the company is going to go along with that. We still have not officially reopened offices. The building I was working out of was even sold (though we retain a small space for the handful of people that eventually go back.)

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. Unfortunately, this will probably make the divide

between those who can work at home and those who absolutely must be at the workplace (think nurses, cops, fast food workers, store clerks) even greater than it is now.

[Johnny2X2X]

26. I do worry about this

The pandemic's economic effects weren't felt by all, in fact for many office workers they saw economic benefits because they were working from home. I've put like 3000 total miles on my car in 2 years, that's a lot of money in gas and wear and tear saved. Meals and clothing expenses went down. I mean I saved a few grand a year in car expenses alone.

All while others were laid off with no hope of working from home. Or others who were forced to work in dangerous situations because of the pandemic.

But what I am also hoping is that with WFH here to stay, young people will begin to gravitate towards careers where WFH is going to be an option, we still have an insane shortage of engineers and tech workers in this country.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

34. You may well be right about people gravitating towards WFH careers,

but then there will be no one working in those other jobs. And even if everyone buys everything online, that will merely move those who used to work in stores to warehouses. And there are still plenty of jobs that simply cannot be done from home.

I worked shift work most of my working life, so I'm very aware of this issue. I also noticed that office workers seemed to be oblivious to the fact that real people were working evenings, weekends, and holidays, making it possible for them to take a trip some where, stay in a hotel, eat at a restaurant.

[Sympthsical]

13. Yep. We're both WFH now

Not 100%. Partner does have to travel to regional locations once in awhile to check on projects maybe once every two or so weeks depending. I do have to go into the office here and there depending. There are just some things that need doing in person where a zoom call won't cut it.

But I'd say maybe 95% of the time we're both at home. He always kind of was. He did more traveling to locations, but now a lot of locational meetings got moved to zoom. I was not WFH - I went to an office everyday. But with Covid, it suddenly became, "Do we really need to be here?" And the answer for my position was, "Only sometimes."

There are others in my department who do need to be there in person, because someone from the department has to be on site as long as production is. Just not me and some others.

[gldstwmn]

14. I was just saying this in a different thread. Things have changed and some companies

are going to have a difficult time adapting to the changes in the labor market. I don't plan on ever setting foot in an office again but I have been WFH for about 5 years now. I am definitely more productive and will never miss the workplace politics. It's pretty easy to tell if people are working so that objection doesn't really hold water either.

[Johnny2X2X]

23. Agree on accountability

We have work we have to get done, people aren't going to goof around and still stay on top of their work load. Just takes good managers to stay on top of what work people are doing to make it productive. Mostly though, hiring the right people and empowering them ensures some ownership of work.

People always ask me if they have monitoring software on my laptop, of course they don't, they trust us to do our jobs, if we don't do our jobs it will stick out like a sore thumb.

[uponit7771]

25. +1, if management in a company needs the other 3 human senses to manage people then most

... likely they weren't being effective at too many things or just bus driving.

It's pretty easy to tell if people are working so that objection doesn't really hold water either.

+1

Managers have to manage closer to SMART parameters now vs intangibles like gender and race and hair

[uponit7771]

17. K&R, Wifey just got the news today !! WOW

[Johonny]

27. I find working from home sucks compared to being at work

But I'm a hands on Aerospace engineer. The guys doing review and design all WFH. The hands on guys are all working on site. There's no other way to do it.

[Johnny2X2X]

30. We have some labs for testing

The labs are on site, no way around it, but we do have some portable development environments and emulators people are taking home with them too. But for anything we do with real avionics hardware, you're on site in a lab. 1200 people employed at our location, 1000 engineers, probably 900 can be WFH at least part time.

[Hekate]

35. Unless your micromanaging boss has a pressing need to observe you actually working....

… because he believes people don’t work unless they are watched.

OTOH, your computer will tell on you from home these days as well.

[bullwinkle428]

36. Research and development, which is the field I work in, requires collaborative

efforts to genuinely maximize resources, as far as I'm concerned. I do laboratory work, so I have no problem at all working on site for the rest of my career (10-15 years at most), but I have to wonder if the younger employees are going to gain as much from the experienced employees as they would have under the traditional workplace schedule.

[Johnny2X2X]

37. I think that will be a struggle

When I was first starting out, shadowing someone was invaluable. Heck, even when I've changed positions within the same company shadowing someone for meetings and activities here and there was important.

And there's something to be said for the things you hear over the cube wall, find out all sort of new ideas just by listening to co-workers. New processes, new better ways to do things, new ideas.

[OhZone]

39. We're starting lose people at my company -

which is trying to bring people back into a new office, closing off the opportunities for working remotely for those who moved away from offices or had offices close in favor of the new central office.

Some good people too.

Morale is collapsing for many, but management thinks we want to play team building games rather than work efficiently.

I'm more an extrovert than a lot of people but I have a long commute so it's not fun in that respect, and I can be social on teams or the phone without having to look at people. Not that I don't mind looking at people. ha

But I can smell some major incidents coming down the pike. I've seen this before in another company I worked for, in which we ended up calling someone who retired and had no reason to help us, but he did anyway.

[Johnny2X2X]

40. In my opinion it's either be on the leading edge or lose

Especially if you're employees are professionals, highly skilled, or technical. It's intense competition for companies to find young talent right now. My own company is understaffed and cannot find people with the skillset we need and we've got some huge contracts coming in that we need to staff. If half the young engineers we want tell us they're only looking for WFH jobs, we will have no choice.

For my company it's really a matter of adopting WFH quickly so we don't wither on the vine. They have no choice.

And as has been mentioned in this thread, it's really a cat is out of the bag situation, people simply aren't going to go back to the office.

What firms need to do is reimagine what an office can be, make it more like a communal space where people can come if they like or for certain meetings or events. More like a campus than an office. And teams will have to develop and utilize technology to keep collaboration up while people are remote. The companies who adapt quickly and with the most creativity are going to have a huge competitive advantage.

[tenderfoot]

41. But those jobs will be outsourced!!!!

According to some of our resident disruptors.

[Norbert]

42. I was WFH at the beginning of the pandemic. That all changed.

They 'promoted' me to a position 40 hours on site I 'volentold' to take temporarily and the promise was I would return to my regular position 'soon'. I was lied to and this temporary position became permanent. Had I refused I would have been walked out of the building eventually. The manager I worked for wanted 'her' people as her staff. I was a holdover from the previous two managers.

This manager has made changes from afar (meaning she is here probably one months worth of time the entire year) and has a particularly difficult time following company policy which doesn't seem to matter. She has made changes that increased non-value added functions within the company. This has added to the divide between WFH and essential workers on site. I now need to cover another position because we are losing people to other companies. I am at the age where I no longer want to look for other work because I am close to retirement but I may need to rethink this because the skills set I had and loved at the previous position within the company does not mesh very well with the new position. Simply put, I work hard and well at the new job but need to focus more at what I do now whereas it came much easier in the position I loved all these years. I have yet to see an attorney but am seriously contemplating it pending a couple of updates we are doing on our home.

The communication at the workplace has never been great but it has really fallen off since the COVID lockdown of a couple years ago. So excuse me if I am not all that thrilled with this news. Possibly from another vantage point I could welcome it but not here, not now.