Who Still Needs the Office? US Companies Start Cutting Space (reuters.com) 158
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Corporate America is downsizing its real estate footprint as companies allow more employees to work from home, a growing threat to the bottom line of owners of traditional office buildings and a sign that companies are looking for ways to cut costs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. A Reuters analysis of quarterly earnings calls over the past week revealed more than 25 large companies plan to reduce their office space in the year ahead, a move designed to reduce the second-largest expense after payrolls at corporations.
Energy company Halliburton Co said it intends to close more than 100 facilities. Financial services company State Street Corp said it is going to nearly double the workers assigned to one office before adding additional space, based on the assumption that a significant portion of its workforce will continue to work from home even after a vaccine for COVID-19 emerges. Bedding company Sleep Number Corp plans to slow the growth of its total square footage as more consumers shop online. Analysts say the plans to cut back on real estate are likely the first wave of cost-cutting measures to hit office workers as companies try to maintain margins going into what may be a long recession. So far, the majority of the 14.7 million U.S. jobs lost during the pandemic have been in hard-hit areas such as restaurants, travel and retailers. Reductions in office spending could likely be followed by layoffs and investments in technology that should help improve productivity with a reduced workforce, said Bill McMahon, chief investment officer of active equity strategies at Charles Schwab. According to Morgan Stanley, vacancy rates in New York will reach 10%-12% in the next two to five years from 8.7% now, while San Francisco will reach 7-9% from 5.8%.
"Green Street Advisors expects that office demand will be reduced by up to 15% as a result of work from home policies once the coronavirus pandemic is contained," adds Reuters. "That reduction in necessary space will most likely hurt real estate investment firms with large exposures in cities such as San Francisco and New York as workers are expected to be given more freedom by employers to live in lower-cost areas away from the coasts."
Energy company Halliburton Co said it intends to close more than 100 facilities. Financial services company State Street Corp said it is going to nearly double the workers assigned to one office before adding additional space, based on the assumption that a significant portion of its workforce will continue to work from home even after a vaccine for COVID-19 emerges. Bedding company Sleep Number Corp plans to slow the growth of its total square footage as more consumers shop online. Analysts say the plans to cut back on real estate are likely the first wave of cost-cutting measures to hit office workers as companies try to maintain margins going into what may be a long recession. So far, the majority of the 14.7 million U.S. jobs lost during the pandemic have been in hard-hit areas such as restaurants, travel and retailers. Reductions in office spending could likely be followed by layoffs and investments in technology that should help improve productivity with a reduced workforce, said Bill McMahon, chief investment officer of active equity strategies at Charles Schwab. According to Morgan Stanley, vacancy rates in New York will reach 10%-12% in the next two to five years from 8.7% now, while San Francisco will reach 7-9% from 5.8%.
"Green Street Advisors expects that office demand will be reduced by up to 15% as a result of work from home policies once the coronavirus pandemic is contained," adds Reuters. "That reduction in necessary space will most likely hurt real estate investment firms with large exposures in cities such as San Francisco and New York as workers are expected to be given more freedom by employers to live in lower-cost areas away from the coasts."
D'oh!! (Score:5, Funny)
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What do you call a racist that won't login to post?
A: Anonymous Coward
Can abuse of anonymity be cured? (Score:2)
Among other abuses, AC can act like a racist, whether from sincerity (and cowardice) or from a desire to troll. There's a new usage for baiting (political) opponents, but I can't recall the phrase just now.
I thought trolls had to at least create a sock puppet account and log in now? Is there any way to distinguish between the case of an unlogged user and a logged user who has selected the option to Post Anonymously? If there is a difference, then I can't decide whether or not it matters without some stronge
Rent (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome! Will those companies start paying part of my rent now that part of my home is being occupied by their home office?
I've worked from home since march and will continue for a few months at the very least and this home office has been a serious incroachment on my private life. It's okay for this temporary situation we're all in. But if they want to have this be permanent, they'd better start paying for the space.
Re: Rent (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't forget chair, table , PC, coffee, water, toilet, and everything else that they would pay if you were an independent contractor.
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Whoooshhh
Re:Rent (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably not.
I would hope they would provide us with a Work Computer, and at least a soft VoIP client so we don't need to rely on our cell phones.
However our homes and space is still ours and you are probably already saving net money from not having to commute to work. If you were to rent it to your company. They will give you demands such as perhaps having you store stuff there, make sure your wall has the company brand viable in the background...
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I would hope they would provide us with a Work Computer, and at least a soft VoIP client so we don't need to rely on our cell phones.
I haven't had any equipment provided by employers in many years. There is an expectation that we come equipped with the tools of the trade, which for us is a suitable home computer, a broadband connection, and a headset/mic/camera for conferences.
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There's a word for this: sucker.
You're paying to work for them.
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You can take a tax deduction for costs relating to a home office on your taxes in many countries, including the US.
Re:Rent (Score:4, Informative)
You can take a tax deduction for costs relating to a home office on your taxes in many countries, including the US.
Not in the US, unless you're self employed. [taxact.com]
Thanks, Trump.
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There's a word for this: sucker.
You're paying to work for them.
When I was an auto mechanic we were expected to bring our own tools. All those big roll-away tool boxes you see are owned by the individual mechanics.
As a software developer our tools start with a computer and a broadband connection. If you don't have these tools you are not equipped to practice your trade. Telling your employer you don't have these basic tools makes you look like a rank amateur.
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If you conflate personal work with the work you're doing for your employer, you're employer can lay claim to it. My computer is for MY stuff, and my stuff is configured with security settings that I like. If you want me to do you're work, using a computer that is locked down to your specifications, you'll provide me equipment to do it. I've never had an employer that expected otherwise.
It might be you that is the rank amateur.
Now, if you're doing consulting or contract work, that will be a different stor
Probably not (Score:5, Interesting)
BUT you can usually deduct the value of a chunk of your home dedicated to work from your taxes. Also, some companies are buying employees office furniture, or even computers, for their home. My company said we could take our really nice desk chairs home with us, but I'm buying a nicer one through a deal my wife's company cut with Herman Miller.
Re:Probably not (Score:4, Informative)
You can deduct the office space, BUT you have to be careful about how you do it, and you better believe the IRS is going to start red-flagging people now that a massive percentage are going to start claiming it. The office space basically has to be dedicated 100% to work. If it's your regular home office that you just happen to also use for work, then you can forget your deduction. Definitely check with your tax preparer before claiming any of your shiny new work-from-home expenses.
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Right. The upshot is, the company gets office space for free, provided by you. You're paying rent and utilities to work for them... and is it really more than the tax break, *if* you have a tax break, *if* you have a room that's only used for work for the company, and nothing else?
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The AC was going to run to keep it cool anyway.
There is a little bit of energy going to paying to run the laptop, but that is more than made up for by the gas I'm not buying to lug my butt to the office.
I get an hour a day of my life back (no, that commute time is mine, not my employers).
And, you think the IRS is going to come to your home and verify that you do nothing else in the spare bedroom that is now your office?
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It's not just a matter of finance. It's also about losing physical space. I live in a small home. If this were permanent, I'd probably have to move just to maintain the amount of living space I need for my private hobbies and life. Bigger houses cost more money.
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Potentially, but if you work from home you have more choice as to where your home can be, so you may be able to have a larger home for the same or less cost.
Re:Probably not (Score:5, Informative)
BUT you can usually deduct the value of a chunk of your home dedicated to work from your taxes. Also, some companies are buying employees office furniture, or even computers, for their home. My company said we could take our really nice desk chairs home with us, but I'm buying a nicer one through a deal my wife's company cut with Herman Miller.
The 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act significantly limited the ability to deduct home office expenses if you are an employee. The idea was to increase the standard deduction but remove / reduce a large number of other deduction opportunities. Since many more people are taking the standard deduction now, they won't be eligible for home office deductions anyway (unless self-employed).
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That's a rather unfair way to put it. You're completely dismissing the savings due to the increased standard deduction. A more accu
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That's a rather unfair way to put it. You're completely dismissing the savings due to the increased standard deduction.
It was an accurate way to put it, and I made no claims on whether the tax law increased or decreased overall taxpayer savings (I even mentioned how the standard deduction was raised to counterbalance the reduction in deductions). What it absolutely did do is take away that deduction for most employees who would have claimed it before 2018. They may or may not still be paying less taxes than they did in 2017, but in most cases their current tax burden cannot be lessened now by claiming miscellaneous business
Re:Probably not (Score:4, Informative)
That's mostly if you are a contractor (a real 1099 one).
You have a LOT more leeway on how much and what you can write off.
I've done 1099 for over a decade or so, and I don't write off the % of my house even though I could.
It usually raises flags at the IRS to take a closer look at you and it really doesn't save you that much money.
But if you contract and incorporate yourself, You can write off you internet, cell phone, etc...a lot of stuff the does add up.
Look into subchapter S-Corp, you can save money on SS and medicare taxes too.
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Deductions are not reimbursement. A deduction just means you don't have to pay taxes on the money spent. You still have to pay for your home office expenses out of your own pocket, you just don't have to pay taxes on the money you spent for those expenses (because it's been deducted from your income for the purposes of calculating your tax liability). Business-related expenses typically qualify for deductions
Re:Rent (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd gladly supply all my own office equipment if it means I don't have to commute or can commute less.
My home office is already better than any corporate office. At this point in the industry, at work I get a shitty laptop and hotelling space. At home, I have a private office, dual 32" screens, Aeron chair, music, my own kitchen, private bathroom, etc. etc. etc. And I am saving SO much money on gas, tolls, parking, lunches, etc.
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I'd gladly supply all my own office equipment if it means I don't have to commute or can commute less.
My home office is already better than any corporate office. At this point in the industry, at work I get a shitty laptop and hotelling space. At home, I have a private office, dual 32" screens, Aeron chair, music, my own kitchen, private bathroom, etc. etc. etc. And I am saving SO much money on gas, tolls, parking, lunches, etc.
This! Exactly. I have much better equipment than work will provide me, the bathroom is 20feet away, and I am saving over $300 a month on commuting costs, another $100 a month on lunches. But the really big one, is saving 2.5 hours a day commuting.
For anyone saying, "Move closer", I happen to live in a place where $1,000,000 CAN NOT buy a house, and I refuse to live under the thumb of a strata.
Not complaining, I love my home, and my job. Bot working from home is a massive win, win.
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It's not like I wasn't paying for the room, computer, Internet connection, electricity, heat, cooling, etc. already.
Did you usually keep the heating/AC on during the day when you weren't home?
Re: Rent (Score:2)
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Lol did you expect work to pay for your gasoline and car insurance too?
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I agreed on terms before starting employment. If the terms change significantly, the contract must change.
You just consider yourself lucky enough to have a job at all?
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You'd be paying for them all regardless. So claiming your employer is required to pay your electric bill is some real mental gymnastics. I guess you could always ask and watch them laugh.
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You just consider yourself lucky enough to have a job at all?
Under present conditions... Hell yeah, I feel lucky to have a job at the moment. I know many people who are out of work due to COVID right now.
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If they expect me to use it for work, yes. At least for the fuel.
And here they do. If I use my private car for anything work related, I get compensated per km driven for fuel and general wear and tear.
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Awesome! Will those companies start paying part of my rent now that part of my home is being occupied by their home office?
I would guess it's offset by the lower commute costs and time spent commuting.
I've worked from home since march and will continue for a few months at the very least and this home office has been a serious incroachment on my private life. It's okay for this temporary situation we're all in. But if they want to have this be permanent, they'd better start paying for the space.
This to me is the real issue. Work form home can easily become available 24x7 since you now have the ability to check emails, deal with the minor issue this evening instead of when you get in, have a conference cal at 4:30 AM to make it easier for someone in an office 6 timezones away, since you are at home and do not need to wait to login until you are in the office.
Having worked from home whenever I am not traveling the ability
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This is an issue by choice. The solution is this: don't check your email like you obviously did before. If management just assumes you are available, you need to correct that assumption because if you don't, they will just continue.
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I've worked from home since march and will continue for a few months at the very least and this home office has been a serious incroachment on my private life.
I have noticed a wide range of impact this is having on family and friends I have talked to about this matter. I for instance already had a home office, but I have a brother / sister in law who live in the city in a one bedroom apartment. They have a much harder time working from home with such less space. Even in my case I used to make sure my wife wasn't going to be home when I worked from home, because it was a distraction. Now I have no choice.
People who never factored in working from home when making l
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For many folks, working from home means:
1) No commute time. 2+ hours saved for some every day
2) Less wear and tear on your vehicle
3) Far less gas to buy
4) Lower insurance costs because you're not driving daily to / from work
5) You don't eat out with your co-workers every day
So there is already a pretty decent cost / time savings for many here.
If you want to get up extra early to slug it out in traffic everyday for the same pay, go for it.
I'm more than happy to trade off all of the above for the abilit
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I will take the time I would otherwise spend to get to work and the control over my work environment as compensation any time...
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Will those companies start paying part of my rent now that part of my home is being occupied by their home office?
Not going to happen.
In the UK, a company can pay you £6 per day tax free for working at home. I save an awful lot of money by not having to pay for train tickets, food at the office, and I save a significant amount of time. More likely they will try to hire cheaper because of the advantages of working from home.
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"Awesome! Will those companies start paying part of my rent now that part of my home is being occupied by their home office?"
Can't you deduct those costs from your taxes in the US?
In Europe most countries allow you to deduct rent or mortgage costs according to the surface area of your work-room compared to the total surface area, as well as lighting, heating and cooling costs, renovation, computer, software etc.
OTOH the underwear you're working in, are not deductible.
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So much this.
I said it at the beginning of the stay-at-home thing, that I would be yanking ALL investments out of commercial real estate because companies are now being FORCED to accept what should have been obvious: people can work just fine from home in MANY cases today. PHBs just hated the idea of all those damn workers 'out of their sight' that they successfully resisted it for ten years.
But the flip side to dropping $100k/mo commercial leases, as you correctly point out, is that they are now DEMANDING
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Awesome! Will those companies start paying part of my rent now that part of my home is being occupied by their home office? I've worked from home since march and will continue for a few months at the very least and this home office has been a serious incroachment on my private life. It's okay for this temporary situation we're all in. But if they want to have this be permanent, they'd better start paying for the space.
You must have a pretty unique situation. Most people I know are simply loving the fact that they no longer have to pay the horrendous costs (in both time and money) of shuffling themselves between home and the 2-3 sqm of workspace their company was providing them with, many times in the middle of some obscenely expensive urban centre. As WFH is becoming more permanent, many are loving the fact that they no longer need to compete with all the other commuters bidding up the price of housing to try to cut 15mi
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Did they previously pay for the cost of your commute?
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But if they want to have this be permanent, they'd better start paying for the space.
Sure, you can charge for it. Just expect them to come in and do and audit and mandate changes to improve the safety of the space. After all if you're going to try and transfer aspects of your home to a company expect them to have a stake in it.
Me, I got $1300 to outfit my office as part of the work from home policy. I heard that in the past they even offered to pay work from homers internet and phone line, on a plan of their choosing with limits of their choosing.
Be VERY careful what you wish for.
That is it? (Score:2)
Going from a vacancy rate of 8.7% to 10% is a 1.3% change. Commercial property tends to be highly profitable. I think they will be able to handle this shift in the market.
People are being laid off, companies are going bankrupt and people are working from home. Seems the impact on commercial leases should be larger...
Downward (Score:4, Informative)
The correlation to commercial property being highly profitable is that a couple of percentage points in real estate pricing could mean millions of dollars in lost profit. The good new is this should push existing real estate pricing down a bit, which would relieve some cost pressure on existing business.
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My hunch is that the real estate developers will be able to pivot from office space to larger "luxury" condos and apartments pretty quickly. Having a separate room to use as an home office just became VERY desirable all of a sudden.
Anachronisms (Score:5, Insightful)
The office is already an anachronism for many, many types of jobs. The sooner it is put out of our misery, the better. It would be stupidly funny, if it weren't so emotionally and intellectually painful, that we are required to gather in a common space to work remotely anyway. We come into the office to work on and with systems that are located in either totally separate buildings, cities, and even countries.
Idiocracy was supposed to be a warning, not a how-to manual.
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It was a warning. Unfortunately people en mass are basically rebellious teenagers so when you give them a warning their reaction is to give it a shot and see if it's true.
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It would be stupidly funny, if it weren't so emotionally and intellectually painful, that we are required to gather in a common space to work remotely anyway. We come into the office to work on and with systems that are located in either totally separate buildings, cities, and even countries.
It's already like that. I've been on many projects where we all met on Teams/Zoom meetings even though most of us were in the building. "Why did I commute three hours today so I can teleconference with someone on another floor of the building?!?"
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Idiocracy had a primarily services economy, so telecommuting wouldn't really work.
work from home in south Sudan for good (local pay) (Score:3)
work from home in south Sudan for good (local pay) but bad us pay.
We're still in a pandemic (Score:2)
Once the pandemic is behind us, if corporations still keep downsizing, we'll have a trend. At this point, it's too early to say whether people and corporations will want to go back. Many people like working from home, but many others do not.
It's not all or nothing... (Score:2)
So, just using numbers I have access to, some people's productivity tanked when they started working from home. Others, who were planned to be laid off in a great culling, had their numbers skyrocket. So the plan is very simple. Some people will work from home, others the office.
For most people, it's not going to be a choice..
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What if the people whose production went down were merely finding ways to take the credit, or were getting a lot of help from others?
There might be more to the numbers than you yet realize.
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A good warning.
In this example, there's not much of a chance of that. They're not working on a single project together. They're working on different projects with individually tracked metrics. There could be a result of them getting help. We'll see what happens when the people come back into the office.
It's most likely that they are getting help from being in a different environment, (less distractions, higher energy, more people) than help form an individual as they distract them. That also lines up w
Some key advantages. (Score:5, Interesting)
1. I actually have my own office, with a window. Not a Cube
2. I can relax on my dress code. My shoes that I bought in March are still like new.
3. I can control the temperature to my liking.
4. Pets are welcomed
5. Need to take a quick nap, or a shower no problem.
6. You want to listen to music, no need for head phones. Or if you do have head phones no worries about your boss sneaking up on you
7. Saving a lot of money on Car expenses. Gas and Oil changes are much less now.
8. I don't have to seem happy and friendly all day.
9. I can go for a walk, just as long as I respond to emails and messages on my phone, it is like I never left the office.
10. Don't have to get involved in office gossip or politics.
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I've been working from home long term. I think I'd like to go to the office a couple of times a week.
Working form home nearly 100% is going to cause all sorts of changes. Take cars for example. I think a lot of people will be happy with an older car if they aren't using it much, no more £400/month leases. All the shops that used to sell lunch to those staff will be in deep trouble as business dries up.
For some people it will be quite hard on their mental health too. I've been working from home f
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Reduced commuting is a huge benefit for the environment.
Shops will still sell lunches, they just need to be in different locations. Sure you have more freedom to prepare your own lunch at home, but some people also like to eat out. When i'm working from home, i usually take a walk at lunchtime to get lunch.
Why do you need social interaction with your colleagues during worktime? It's better to concentrate on work, you might not even like your colleagues... After work, you can have social interactions with fr
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Fun fact, 10 didn't stop. You just have to opt in now. Or don't believe and find out when raises/promotions come around.
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And don't forget the occasional afternoon wank.
Nah, you need a live in partner. Just be sure to cover the camera on the conference call when you take a "break..."
I do (Score:3)
I quite frankly can't motivate myself to work when I'm at home. At least not on a semi-permanent to permanent basis.
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I quite frankly can't motivate myself to work when I'm at home. At least not on a semi-permanent to permanent basis.
Your performance review and pay isn't motivating enough? What is it about the office that motivates you? Looking busy in the hope of ignoring others who may otherwise talk to you?
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Performance reviews are annual de-motivators for me, and I suspect a great number of others. I would gladly take a small permanent pay cut to never have to deal with another self-assessment, farcical goal setting, or actual review with my manager.
I find it jarring to have to switch from home/casual mode to office/professional mode while sitting in my own home. I also have to balance kid care priorities with work priorities much more than ever before, a situation many parents now face due to the collapse o
The space will be filled (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the strongest wave we'll see of working remotely, but it will fade away the same reason every other one did. Remote work just doesn't work for most people. My house is a madhouse with 2 small kids. The office is my refuge. It's a clean, well-decorated professional environment full of people who dress in business casual attire and showered, shaved and got ready for work that day. It motivates me to be professional when the work doesn't. RedHat had a mostly distributed workforce and many focused to live in the middle of nowhere. They never had much of a culture...just a lot of idiosyncratic contributors. I used to contribute to their projects and go to their conferences and was shocked at how unprofessional they are. The lack of physical interaction with colleagues led to tolerance of verbal abuse and many other bad behaviors. They had no control, no sense of identity or culture. They only interacted with their coworkers for work purposes...and thus fought a lot. People underestimate how powerful of a motivator it is to have to look at your coworker the next day after you get upset at them....how it motivates you to not say anything you'll regret.
As much as introverts love this, and I am even mildly autistic, our experiment with 4 months of everyone telecommuting has impacted our schedule tangibly. People collaborate better when in room than in zoom. Some coworkers are less motivated than others. I have to visit their cube to remind them we need something from them. Those same coworkers ignore slack and e-mail and even me calling their phone. For that and dozens of other reasons, our projections are behind by 10-20%. Morale is also down because those of us who do our job get called later and later at night because people have such blurry boundaries....before, calling me after 6, it was only for emergencies....but now, my boss is IM-ing me at 9, 10, 11PM asking mundane questions and asking for routine status updates....he wouldn't hold it against me if I didn't respond, but it still adds to my stress having to push back.
I will be very glad to go to the office...drink someone else's coffee, eat someone else's cooking, just get visual stimuli besides the same 5 rooms + the grocery store I see today. I will be very glad to have a better sense of what our leadership is thinking. I will be very glad to socialize in the coffee room with those 2 levels above me as it is a networking opportunity and a chance to get on better projects.
Without a doubt, corporate America is shuffling their office plans and trying out new things. They will try smaller distributed offices or allowing full time telecommuters and they will get bored of it in a few years. Also consider that it is quite common for a company to start in a city near a university, but establish larger offices in the suburbs where there's more parking and cheaper rent...usually closer to the boss's house. Companies, just like people, get old and slow down and can't handle the energy and intensity of the city.
That premium real estate? It'll get filled by startups and people in different industry. When manufacturing buildings emptied around MIT, they tore down the old warehouses and factories and now it's a dense city full of pharma and tech companies, constructing large 10 story and above office buildings. Premium real estate near public transportation won't be idle. If it's not filled by the obvious candidates, it will be filled by startups and maybe even some new industry we didn't anticipate. Within 5 years, all these vacancies will be filled and we'll be seeing another wave of overcrowding in cities when the economy picks up. Even larger companies reinvest in the city when the economy is booming and they need to hire young talent. Many companies that were in the burbs 10 years ago, opened major offices in Boston and Cambridge in order to attract talent because no one wants to buy a car and commute to Waltham if someone 5 stops down the subway from you is hiring.
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"coworkers ignore slack and e-mail and even me calling their phone."
"our projections are behind by 10-20%."
" Morale is also down because those of us who do our job get called later and later at night because people have such blurry boundaries."
We're 94% WAH right now, and performing beyond projections. Mind you, our industry is facing continuing 25-35% reductions in revenue, and I expect my team to be trimmed by next year, as revenue tracks demand for us.
But having said that, if you think your organization
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This among other responses. Let's call it "your experience may vary".
Our company went 100% WFH from March -> June and since then we're on a weekly half-on-half-off rotation for people who really want to be in the office (anyone with their own actual offices can be there whenever). Most people are still choosing to stay home and earliest we're looking at rolling back the "optional" part is this fall but might be even 2021 at this point. Our company already had a very friendly WFH policy and we have sever
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The office is my refuge. It's a clean, well-decorated professional environment full of people who dress in business casual attire and showered, shaved and got ready for work that day. It motivates me to be professional when the work doesn't.
YMMV. My office is a dump. Open-plan, with a far-too-thin wall separating me from 2 departments that are on the phone all day long. Then there's the coworker who insists on playing music all day long.
Business casual attire doesn't impress me. I don't have a desk to myself any more (more employees than desks) so when I'm at the office, I'm at a desk that's at the wrong height and at the end of the day my back hurts.
My home office, on the other hand, has been set up for my needs exclusively. The ergonomics ar
looking for ways to cut costs (Score:2)
or, perhaps, realizing, that for many positions that were considered to be necessary office positions, remote working turned out to work well, so "save on rent" would describe better than "cut rent costs"
Studied Work from home. (Score:5, Informative)
For my MBA I did a lot of research on Work From Home. (Different classes, that seemed to had put me to study the topic, not by my choice but by the professor, so I didn't just hand in the same paper over and over again)
However the research for Work From Home is actually very promising, being the work culture, and the especially lower management need to see their employees during the work hours the only major hurtles.
However the savings are huge, As physical space is a major expense for companies.
In terms of performance there is little correlation
There is a decline in teamwork, but a lot of team work is actually group think, so you actually get better quality.
Proper expanded use of IT Resources with some relaxing uses of the technology which can allow for Water Cooler types of conversations also do a lot to bring real team work back up.
In short it is a net positive. With the Micromanaging Middle Managers being the big problems.
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However the savings are huge, As physical space is a major expense for companies.
Did your research look into the fact that while the companies are saving money, that there are additional expenses pushed on to the workers? Having a dedicated home office costs money for heating/cooling, lighting, power, internet, home maintenance etc, as well as non-tangibles like loss of utilization of that area for personal use (or perhaps requiring to buy/rent a larger than normally needed dwelling). As a contractor I know that the proportionate physical costs can be written off on my tax, but I'm n
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While I agree there are some companies that are not doing right by their employees, My transition (in Feb) from going to office 100% to WFH 100% went smoothly. I was given a docking station, new laptop (mine was 5 years old), 2-24" monitors, I could have brought a keyboard and mouse (I use my own), and a video conference device. I already owned an office chair and I spent 25 dollars at Costco for a 2'x4' folding table which I setup in my office. My Internet I already had so no big deal.
Literally when I a
Re:Studied Work from home. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes it did research that. The general savings to the employee from their commute $100 a month on average compared to an increase of around $30 a month for extra power from you being there. Has given the employees a net $70 increase of pay for them a month.
Getting a new building or whatever is really a luxury expense for the person and not a necessary. (As I am typing this on a folding coffee table, in a bedroom)
If you are working in a 6x6 cube (36 Sq feet) vs a standard American Room of 12x12 (114 Sq Feet) there is normally enough empty space for them to setup an office.
The difference between a W2 work from home employee and a 1099 contractor, is one aspect of needed storage. as a 1099 you are your own business, so you should have room for storage of extra stuff needed to handle the administrative duties of your job. There is a lot of extra Paperwork a Contractor will need to do vs a W2 employee. Who will normally just need the resources needed to do the job they were hired for. Often just a Laptop.
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I generally have zero respect for MBAs. They learn about the past, not the present nor the future, and they caused many of our financial crisis. Often because they only look at one tiny aspect of the ecosystem.
In The Real World, you can't just hire a bunch of remote contractors and build a winning company. You build a team, meaning a common culture with enough high-bandwidth communication, including face-to-face and non-work (i.e. water cooler, lunch times) interactions to create mutual trust and respect
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We see about a 10% drop in productivity with WFH. Our rent costs are ~10% of payroll. In financial terms there are no savings to the company with WFH. Our “middle managers” are doing fine with their responsibilities, although business development has taken a little hit with the more extroverted in the group.
Our biggest challenge is that Remote Desktop does not work well for one of our core apps, but it effectively requires SMB shares to operate. This leads to significantly slower speeds over th
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Then this is a poor design. Crappy (relatively, cheap, non-powerful is what I mean) laptops and have everyone VPN into VDI infrastructure would make work much more productive. Pulling large amounts of information, via SMB shares, to remote work places is a horrible security and network utilization method. That information should be centralized, and controlled, and on quicker networks.
Your company may not invest, have the expertise, planning, budget, etc. to implement this. However this will solve many o
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The specific software does not work well in VDI, and yes is crappy. (Autodesk)
They have a cloud solution for one of their packages, but the other links files based on the full network path and not just drive letter or relative.
A VDI solution for 50 people was going for upwards of $150k last I checked, and still had the constraints of remote desktop. Not sure if it was a multiple-monitor support issue or graphics acceleration.
Sure, Microsoft Office is easy though...
Another upside is housing costs (Score:2)
Who still needs an office? (Score:2)
Anyone who works with/builds physical equipment and/or products. Not everything can be done remotely.
I'm not about to fit a huge production prototype or a processing line in my home office.
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Our datacenter staff still show up, but apparently on a 14 day on-off schedule, working at home the off weeks. Yeah. Otherwise, that building, which also housed tech staff, is empty. Meals delivered safely.
In fact, of the 7,000 staff in our organization, in this area, no more than 75 are in an office building any day. Many of those are security. The building I was in is empty, 2-3 security visiting it. 94% or so of us are able to work at home, and those who are not have been paid and alternative work found
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Major metros will face either abandonment or relocation and fragmentation.
LOL ok now look up public transit capacity, and then usage by industry.
Work from home ... (Score:2)
As my children cry/scream/sing down the hall... (Score:3)
I think one thing that many companies are going to find out if their workforce is 100% remote is that its much easier for employees to feel disconnected from their employer. If a person feels less engaged, less connected, they're going to be more likely to jump ship to look for that somewhere else. Right now most of my connection with my employer is through Zoom meetings and slack threads with my immediate team. If I didn't have a good manager and a decent product owner my engagement level would drop completely and I'd be looking for the door. Either to another team within the company or outside the company. When you work in the office its much easier to feel the energy of the other teams even if you don't work with them all the time.
I think long term there will still be a need for office space. Maybe companies will be more tolerant of working from home. But, in order to maintain that connection to people there will still be a need for centralized offices.
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+1. When schools/daycare/camps/etc get back to normal operation in 6-18 months it will be much better.
Right now as a parent of a 2nd grader I know I am doing the best I can and still feel like I am exhausted and failing both as a parent and an employee.
Some parts of work are better, it is far easier to do a deep dive on a technical problem without someone popping into your cube every 15-20 minutes. Collaboration that would normally happen on a white board however or crowded around our layout engineer's mo
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It's hard to focus on the task at hand when someone stubs their toe down the hall and it's the end of the world for them.
Understandable. But let me ask--what happened when you were at work and the same thing happened? Granted, the difference is "Parent isn't home so I have to deal with this myself..." versus "Hey, Parent is just down the hall..."
The other thing with kids is that, since everybody is doing it, I've found co-workers (and myself) are pretty understanding if you need to bip out for five minutes to take care of some home emergency in a meeting. While, sure, it isn't "professional" when, during a meeting, we hear
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But let me ask--what happened when you were at work and the same thing happened? Granted, the difference is "Parent isn't home so I have to deal with this myself..." versus "Hey, Parent is just down the hall..."
Wut? The child would be at school, daycare, or summer camp.
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Everyone I've interacted with since this adventure began has been more than ok with th
Real estate (Score:4, Interesting)
Where I live, there's been an excess of commercial real estate for a long time. It goes back at least a decade, which is when I started paying attention. But I think it could go back further, indicating more of a structural issue. The last job I had was in a building from the 1980s. Half the floors in the tower are unoccupied, the bank downstairs had a 6 or 7 lane drive-thru that nobody ever used, which they finally closed last year. So now a quarter of the land area stands empty as well. People don't even park on it since there's already a garage - it's just a totally empty, barren concrete field.
The neighborhood wasn't particularly high-crime. It doesn't seem like a Detroit scenario where people are fleeing from violence. It seems like some kind of failure in the market. Plenty of empty units in the strip malls, ample parking. But if you go to the apartments around there? Anything reasonably priced is at max capacity. Parking lots overflowing. Rents that have nearly doubled in the last decade. You have to go way down the freeway to find any place where new housing is being built. So that's where people have to live. That's why the commute takes an hour. The largest freeway in the world - 14 lanes - it's still not enough.
People have to live somewhere, unless you're proposing to kill them, or stop subsidizing people having kids. But it doesn't seem like they need all this commercial space. I feel it's a testament to how much of the work there is useless paper shuffling anyway.
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Sounds to me like "zoning" happened. You can always leave it up to government officials to screw things up. Check most zoning boards and city councils. They are rife with real-estate agents. You get more money for a parcel of land if it is zoned commercial vs residential. Soo. . .
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The city in question is Houston, which is renown for its lack of zoning laws. The particular neighborhood where I worked was Westchase. So, it seems likely that the problem lies somewhere else.
Another odd thing I've noticed in the past few years, it seems like hotels are popping up everywhere. It's not exactly a tourist destination, and I've seen new hotels being built like crazy. Way outside of downtown, where you could conceivably see people coming to the stadiums. Five and six story hotels being built ou
We're blessed that we can work from home (Score:3)
We're blessed that we can work from home. So many others have seen their jobs and businesses destroyed by Covid.
I've been mostly remote for years. It makes it a lot easier to juggle kids and work, and it saves hours of daily commuting time. All my projects have distributed teams so we are never in the same room anyway. It's nice to visit the office sometimes but it's mostly just a social visit. I'd be fine if I never went back.
Read the study. It's bunk. (Score:3)
Yawn!!! Another "study" saying that the oceans will freeze, or alternately boil, by 2022. That everyone will have 10Tb internet on their phone or that we'll run out of energy by 2025. Oh goody.
Let's pretend... just fake it folks, but pretend, that this is /., where we know about "data". In this case...
The study headline is generally meaningless. You have to read much deeper to find the value, or in this case, the true fully-vapid lack-of-value.
TFA are only about SF and NYC .. others as well (Score:4, Interesting)
I honestly think other parts of the country are in for it worse than a 1-3% hit. I consult at several companies (remote) and have had 6 clients since new years. Each of them are larger multi national companies with multiple offices throughout the country. Every one of them is looking to cut their office space (either entirely or massively like 75% SqFt reduction) for satellite offices.
One client which has a main headquarters in CA, and like 10 offices in the US is looking to close all 10 office locations and reduce the size of the headquarters.
One of the biggest things this COVID-19 stuff has shown us is that butts in seats in offices only helps old school managers.
Effect on economy (Score:2)
Also those investors in commercial real estate are going to start looking for places to park their money. If they're not carefully regulated they'll take on risky investments and we'll
One day... (Score:2)
Future generations will look back in amusement at the notion of people getting cars, sitting in traffic for hours, only to arrive at some huge building to sit in a walled cubicle all day. Technology now makes it possible for many tech workers to ditch the office completely.
I say this knowing that some people actually enjoy going to the office. There are social benefits and networking benefits from seeing people in person. For me, I get plenty of social interaction without setting foot in an office. I prefer
So, 2008 again (Score:2)
Hope and change baby ... empty offices everywhere, remaining companies doing what they could to cut costs.
This too will pass.
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Splitting the schedule between remote and in-person would work for a lot of companies. I've never had the opportunity to work remotely, but I did take several online classes while getting my degree. I would definitely say that remote learning is lesser. Actually being on campus did great things for motivation and mindset.
It's of course going to vary job-to-job. But for a lot of them, certainly all the office jobs I've had, 90% of the work could be done remotely. Most of the "getting-to-know people" stuff an
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I want to see those security guards protecting those inside with pride.
Really? I'm impressed. Where I work the security staff all look like they want to kill themselves.
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