UK Business Secretary Says Right To Work From Home Boosts Productivity (bbc.com) 59
Bruce66423 writes: Allowing flexible working and working from home creates a more productive, loyal workforce, the business secretary has said. In an interview with the Times, Jonathan Reynolds said employers "need to judge people on outcomes and not a culture of presenteeism." Labour is poised to unveil its Employment Rights Bill, which includes measures such as a right to "disconnect" outside working hours, a ban on zero-hours contracts and allowing workers to compress their contracted hours into fewer working days.
Business groups have raised concerns about the plans, warning it could push up the cost of hiring staff and have the unintended consequence of ending overtime. However, Reynolds said Labour's plans to address workers' rights should not be alarming for business leaders. Since April, workers have had the right -- introduced under the previous government -- to ask for flexible working as soon as they start a job, but firms do not have to agree.
Business groups have raised concerns about the plans, warning it could push up the cost of hiring staff and have the unintended consequence of ending overtime. However, Reynolds said Labour's plans to address workers' rights should not be alarming for business leaders. Since April, workers have had the right -- introduced under the previous government -- to ask for flexible working as soon as they start a job, but firms do not have to agree.
Do you like cheap gas? (Score:3, Interesting)
Want $3/gallon? How about $2/gallon? Well, you can have it, with WfH.
Re: Do you like cheap gas? (Score:2)
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For what exactly?
I've been working from home, remotely from everyone I work with for 17+ years....and I find no need to see or talk to anyone "in person"...and haven't found anything I can do with my co-workers in same office that I can readily do online and on phone with the meeting tools we have currently.
What do you find you have to have "in person" that you cannot get or do otherwise with WFH?
Re: Do you like cheap gas? (Score:2)
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For what exactly?
I've been working from home, remotely from everyone I work with for 17+ years....and I find no need to see or talk to anyone "in person"...and haven't found anything I can do with my co-workers in same office that I can readily do online and on phone with the meeting tools we have currently.
What do you find you have to have "in person" that you cannot get or do otherwise with WFH?
It is a matter of temperament. Many people who are programmers are introverts, that find being around other humans kind of stressful.
Others are Schizoids, who have no desire to ever be around another human, and are quite satisfied if they aren't. No, despite the unfortunate name, schizoids are not schizophrenic. Many such as myself, don't even consider it a disorder.
All that said, most humans are indeed social critters, and so need that interaction with other humans.
So while a majority of programmers
Re: Do you like cheap gas? (Score:2)
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And some of us are just really good at what we do.
Indeed. If a person is at the top of the skillset, they can dictate the terms, and the employer will happily accommodate them. That's a distinct minority though, unless we ascribe to the Prairie Home Companion model:
"That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."
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So, by networking, do you mean explicitly reaching-out to others in a manner where it's clear the motive is to gain some business advantage and there's no personal interest whatsoever?
Or have I missed the point?
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So, by networking, do you mean explicitly reaching-out to others in a manner where it's clear the motive is to gain some business advantage and there's no personal interest whatsoever?
Or have I missed the point?
I talk with co-workers and the supervisors. We talk about business and non business at times. Sometimes go out for a brew. We often become friends, or at least respect each other. We humanize each other in the process. We go out of our way to help each other. All that said, I chat a bit with the custodian as well as the director or politicians. Many people are intimidated by the higher ups, and rude to the underlings. Meh, all are just people. A person can do worse than treating everyone equally.
Make no
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Hmm.
I wonder if having an explicit purpose to the interaction makes it easier to do so and perhaps indirectly become friends rather than a non-specific <let's grab a beer>
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Hmm.
I wonder if having an explicit purpose to the interaction makes it easier to do so and perhaps indirectly become friends rather than a non-specific <let's grab a beer>
We do sometimes have shop talk.
What it does is really have you see the co-workers as fellow humans and care about them.
There is a really big issue now however. We used to have every Friday "Happy hours" at a local watering hole. It was a lot of fun. Co-workers, and the big guy would often stop by and buy a round or two for everyone. Beer-Bonding? 8^)
And then #metoo happened. Given that a degree of relaxation and alcohol was involved, many of the men were concerned that women might take offense at a
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Oh I hear you on that. I just save my "social" interactions for outside of work with my real friends and family....people I actually consider close and spend my non-work time with in meatspace.
While back in the day, I was "sociable" with my co-workers, a little idle chat getting coffee, maybe grab an occasional lunch with others....I have never considered co-workers as friends...no one I'd confide in or s
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Office chairs aren't going to warm themselves dude
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Strange...MY office chair in my office at home...is warned daily during the week....
The nice thing is...my employer saved money when they didn't have to purchase said chair, no pay to cool/heat the office where it sits.....
Re: Do you like cheap gas? (Score:1)
Do you see a connection between employer-rationality and employer-success?
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Humans need social contact.
Work is one place one can have social contact.
Nobody needs social contact specifically from work.
Re: Do you like cheap gas? (Score:3)
Join a club or something (Score:1)
Don't drag all of use down the tubes just to have someone to say "hi" to in the morning. I'm just gonna call it, that's a dick move.
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How can you have both "social contact" and "time alone"? A lot of modern offices are open plan these days so you have no time alone and it's very difficult to concentrate.
When you can work remotely (not necessarily from home), being alone is easy - you can stay home alone if your circumstances allow it, or you can find a place where you can be alone to concentrate.
When it comes to social contract, why does this need to be at work? You are there to work, not socialise. Do you not have any friends you can soc
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Let's be straight here.
There is no "Right to work from home".
One should stop prattling about that nonsense.
If your employer wants to give you an OPTION to work from home, GREAT!
But there is no "right".
Saving money on gas, using an EV, etc, are NOT "reasons to justify".
If the company owner wants you in the office, for WHATEVER REASON, prep for a commute.
You have one option with two outcomes.
Do the math.
If the option makes you more money, try for that.
If it COSTS you money, DO NOT DO THAT. And make sure you
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Then you misunderstand what "Right to work" means.
It doesn't give a prospective employee the right to make unreasonable demands to their contribution of labor.
Right to work means that an employer cannot take away their rights as employees. They cannot be made to remove the right to be paid for the work provided. They cannot be FORCED to provide labor FOR free.
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The only thing we can think of is that maybe the 'grounds to refuse' are being tightened. Otherwise this just seemed to be a re-announcement of something that already existed. The ban on zero
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Missing the point.
"It's another country" isn't an excuse to FORCE a company to open up a position with zero prerequisites in their hiring practice.
This isn't "Force them to gimme money"
Re: Do you like cheap gas? (Score:2)
If UK law says thereâ(TM)s a right to work from home, then, in the UK thereâ(TM)s a right to work from home.
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Sure. Except there is no such "right" in the UK.
You are offered an opportunity to take a job.
At which point the job is outlined.
If you don't like a facet, you're free to decline the job.
THAT IS IT!
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Well governments in various countries are taking measures to reduce CO2 emissions and other forms of pollution, and daily commuting is a big source of that.
Giving people the right to work from home would be a big step towards the CO2 emission reduction goals, and would also win a lot of votes in any democratic country.
Countries like the UK also have a shortage of housing, closing down thousands of unnecessary offices and turning them into apartments would go help solving that problem. Similarly allowing peo
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There's definitely no requirement to act rationally either.
In an environment where everyone talks about global warming "OMG, what ever will we do!!!) it's my view employers should be required to justify (in terms stronger than a paraphrased "Because I'm the Boss and can't figure-out how to trust the people I hire") why it makes sense to:
* waste fuel,
* increase emissions,
* waste time,
* decrease meal-quality and availability,
* decrease productivity due to: open-office-i
Re:Do you like cheap gas? (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's be straight here.
There is no "Right to work from home".
One should stop prattling about that nonsense.
If your employer wants to give you an OPTION to work from home, GREAT!
But there is no "right".
Saving money on gas, using an EV, etc, are NOT "reasons to justify". If the company owner wants you in the office, for WHATEVER REASON, prep for a commute.
You have one option with two outcomes.
Do the math.
If the option makes you more money, try for that. If it COSTS you money, DO NOT DO THAT. And make sure you can afford to forego the job.
It's frankly quite backwards to me that a government official is trying to hand us a right, and you're standing here arguing against it. Usually it's completely the other way around.
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It's frankly quite backwards to me that a government official is trying to hand us a right, and you're standing here arguing against it. Usually it's completely the other way around.
Calling something a 'Right' doesn't mean shit. The police and other government forces will do what they do regardless of anything that you call a 'right'. If you are lucky, you might be able to complain to a court of law about a violation of your rights. A few, out of millions, have succeeded. Good luck with your 'rights' and your efforts to get governments across the globe to respect them. (and of course, there are millions of individuals acting in an individual capacity who don't give a shit about your ri
I prefer free enterprise, thank you. (Score:2)
If employers choose to pay employees to work from home, I personally believe they'll reap a benefit in increased productivity and reduced operating costs.
If employers have decided to require employees to make themselves present in the workplace during working hours as a condition of employment, I don't think that (outside of a communist or socialist setting) the government has any reason to get involved. I disagree with their decision to support a "Right to work from home" - please notice the quotes there
Re: I prefer free enterprise, thank you. (Score:3)
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Why do you believe you _don't_ have a right to work from wherever you want?
I mean, for knowledge work, who cares?
If the company is secretly watching your every movement from cameras embedded in their monitors and then running machine learning to figure-out what makes you more productive or running covert drug-trials via the free coffee machine, sure.. then they might care but if your output is software or any other output of knowledge work, surely it's implicit that they're renting your ability to produce o
Re: I prefer free enterprise, thank you. (Score:2)
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Because a big reason gas prices are low
The UK is not the USA, and not only are gas prices not low, the current gas price doesn't have anything to do with work from home, much less EVs.
As for inflation adjustment, you can't just do that blindly - gasoline prices are a major driving force of inflation.
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Yes it benefits everyone - low gas prices, reduced gas consumption, reduced co2 emissions, reduced transport congestion, less wasted hours.
Here's what we did (Score:1)
Typing test for all non-field workers before we even consider hiring them
That's it. That's literally all we did and WFH people are just as productive. It's that hard.
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Implemented EXTREMELY basic benchmarks for "work done" performance, per department so we can compare between employees to see who's anomalously slow. Typing test for all non-field workers before we even consider hiring them That's it. That's literally all we did and WFH people are just as productive. It's that hard.
The cool part is that none of your WFH people ever slacked off, used the tie to babysit their children or had multiple employers. That's impressive that a typing test eliminated all the issues. You might consider opening up your own business teaching other companies how to achive that level of productivity.
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Yeah this.
I like how everyone wants to overlook it. I've known people who were WFH and literally would sleep, and wake up if their phone rang, and had excuses and whatever else for productivity, because the nature of the work wasn't something basic like data entry. There are a lot of jobs that can have difficult metrics to assign to an individual but if you can see them working in person you can get a sense if they're working or not a lot more than WFH.
There are absolutely WFH people who are driven and get
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Yeah this.
I like how everyone wants to overlook it. I've known people who were WFH and literally would sleep, and wake up if their phone rang, and had excuses and whatever else for productivity, because the nature of the work wasn't something basic like data entry. There are a lot of jobs that can have difficult metrics to assign to an individual but if you can see them working in person you can get a sense if they're working or not a lot more than WFH.
Yup, and it is difficult to keep track unless you implement a "Truman Show" type setup, which will generate a whole new round of "surveillance state" complaints.
And without saying any of our intrepid slashdotters would deal in such hanky panky, having been around a long time, I know slackers at work have always figured out ways to slack off, and every one I knew would jump at the chance to do WFH. It would raise their indolence to new heights. Even among the non-lazy, there are a surprising number of peo
That's his opinion (Score:3)
All that said it's a no-brainer that there will be niches for WFH, and other niches for in-person. The extent of each will probably never stop shifting to meet current needs.
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The point that is too often missed in the "productivity" debate is that a major benefit of WFH is work-life-balance. Saving 2 or 3 hours of a commute at least two or three days a week is a huge deal for employees. Speaking from experience, I'm much more willing to put in some extra hours when my commute is reduced to logging in and out of my laptop.
And a mixture of outsourcing/offshoring and the Covid lockdowns have, for many of us, debunked the whole "we all have to be under one roof" argument. When half m
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I think people would have a stronger argument if they said, well my commute is 2 hours. So instead of working for 8 hours for 200$, I'll work 9 hours for 200$ and WFH.
They don't. Usually its, I want to WFH, save the commute, and get paid the same. You're probably the exception. I've known people personally doing WFH jobs and literally sleep during working hours because the type of work isn't measurable in that way and they know how to not get caught.
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I think people would have a stronger argument if they said, well my commute is 2 hours. So instead of working for 8 hours for 200$, I'll work 9 hours for 200$ and WFH.
They don't. Usually its, I want to WFH, save the commute, and get paid the same.
Well the simple solution is to implement policy to force employers to pay employee commute time as part of working.
Bottom line is "Unmet Capital Gains" tax on commercial properties in cities around the world is become a reality which is forcing this emphasis on bringing people back into the office.
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Well the simple solution is to implement policy to force employers to pay employee commute time as part of working.
I think you're just arguing for the sake of arguing, as that likely would fail horribly. Companies would simply hire locally and suburbs etc would suffer. I won't go into the details of why that would end so horribly for a lot of people, like skyrocketed rents near companies that pay well etc.
I agree with one of the reasons they're trying to force people back into the office is the unmet capital gains. People are whining about empty office spaces.
I would just suggest if you're going to make a point for WFH,
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The company never paid the commute time, you were expected to just suffer that, or move closer to the office (if practical to do so). I used to live a 5 min walk from the office, intentionally to avoid commuting but i paid a much higher price to stay in that location.
I know people who sit and play games in an office, or even sleep in an office. Lazy workers are lazy workers regardless of where they are, and there are ways to game most systems.
I've encountered countries with hot weather where attendance (wit
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Yeah everything you said is accurate.
The problem is a common one, fuel to the fire. I disagree with the concept of 'They'll be lazy, let them do it anyway'.
It's like 'They'll do drugs anyway, just decriminalize it'. Yeah, because that never makes anything worse.
So as you add new mechanisms for lazy employees to be lazy, they'll exploit it, even more! I know, shock surprise right. In summary, because there are people who will abuse systems even more when given the chance, it ruins it for more productive peop
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Exactly this...
I have my work laptop set up on a desk, if i need to check something out of hours i generally will.
When i was commuting every day, the work equipment was either left at work, or left in the bag, so if any query arrived out of hours it wouldn't even be read until the following morning.
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This is an issue to settle out in the labor market. People can do studies and prove whatever they want, if they were actually predictive they would instead be called "investment analysts" and have the returns to prove their validity.
All that said it's a no-brainer that there will be niches for WFH, and other niches for in-person. The extent of each will probably never stop shifting to meet current needs.
Exactly, With all of the "WFH is the best work", it is pretty obvious that if it was true, companies would start refusing to hire in-office employees other than in situations where WHF cannot be performed.
They'd hand them a laptop and tell them to go home and not even give them access badges. A sudden major leap in productivity would instantly happen, and....
PROFIT!
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That PROFIT! you mock, will become painfully obvious when the traditional business owner is having to calculate the obscene costs of a commercial real estate loan, property taxes, and maintenance into their profit model..versus the competition who went 100% remote and does not have ANY of those costs.
I wonder which one Wall Street might be more inclined to follow..
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That PROFIT! you mock, will become painfully obvious when the traditional business owner is having to calculate the obscene costs of a commercial real estate loan, property taxes, and maintenance into their profit model..versus the competition who went 100% remote and does not have ANY of those costs.
I wonder which one Wall Street might be more inclined to follow..
I'm not mocking - just noting that if indeed, companies are seeing that WFH is as productive as the "studies" claim, they'd be demanding more employees work from home. I certainly could. Productivity gains are hard to come by, so if this is the real deal, they should not only have as many employees as possible do that, and as well, can perform the same amount of work performed by less people.
And that's what I have issues with, it doesn't make much sense these claims that as many people should work at ho
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Working from home does not need to provide increased productivity to be beneficial. Even assuming that productivity was the same or even slightly lower, you still have reduced costs (office space is expensive).
Where this breaks down is in companies that for whatever reason actually want to have that office cost. Either they own the building and don't want its value to drop, or they are stuck in a long lease they can't get out of and don't want to have to justify the financial liability.
And then there are ot
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Working from home does not need to provide increased productivity to be beneficial. Even assuming that productivity was the same or even slightly lower, you still have reduced costs (office space is expensive).
Where this breaks down is in companies that for whatever reason actually want to have that office cost. Either they own the building and don't want its value to drop, or they are stuck in a long lease they can't get out of and don't want to have to justify the financial liability.
And then there are others that are just resistant to change.
Conversely, there are a huge number of businesses that WFH simply isn't an option at all. In my hybrid case, even at the height of the plague, I had to be at a physical place for half of my work.
And for many of the businesses you note, they have a number of positions that are presence only, maybe hybrids like what I'm doing. Point is, the idea that the programmers are endangering the standard model of a workplace which if the programmers WFH, the building has to shut down is pretty much not going to hap
Not necessarily. (Score:2)
Those who lead companies are human, and so not entirely rational. For example, even if it can be objectively proven that working from home boosts productivity, some will simply refuse to believe the evidence. Some might accept the evidence, but harbor too much distrust and expect that they will be victimized by employees who just pretend to work. Some will even go so far as to say things like: "working from the office might be less productive, but the collaboration opportunities boosts the quality of wor
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From what I can tell the labour market is struggling. I get contacted by recruiters looking for people who can do hybrid home/office stuff, usually because the company has a lab with expensive gear they need to use. They never offer enough money to make it worth considering though.
Even once you factor in having to move within commuting distance of the office (my current one is a 3 hour drive away), you have to consider the massive cost savings from working at home.
It means they can only hire people who don'