Could Commuting as we know it soon end?

[fowler9]

I just wish the people I deal with who work remotely would answer their phone or reply to e mails. This is why I can't see working from home happening for a while. I had a lady on the phone to me with a complaint today saying there must be something else I can do when I said I had heard nothing back from e mails or phone calls. Like what? Carrier Pigeon or an owl with a message taped to its leg perhaps?
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To be honest, if the meeting is that bad it should be cancelled. Far too much time is wasted in meetings. Indeed, many people seem to do this:

On the other hand, Scrum-style "standups" (obviously done sitting down) of fixed length, say 30 minutes with 15 minutes dedicated to the pure Scrum stuff (what did you do yesterday, what are you going to do today, any impediments) and the other 15 to quick clarifications, are *very* effective for remote-working project teams. And instant messenger is quite good for those "wander over and have a chat" conversations.

Neil
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There's a phrase for that - "bad management" - or rather management that's driven by who is there (presenteeism) rather than what is achieved, and/or excessive micromanagement.

Neil

Yeah tell me about it. Since we have just won a new contract for the next 5 years I can't see it changing soon.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I just wish the people I deal with who work remotely would answer their phone or reply to e mails.

Ohh dear. Sounds like they are perhaps shirking from home rather than working from home.

Neil

 

[fowler9]

Ohh dear. Sounds like they are perhaps shirking from home rather than working from home.

Neil

I couldn't possibly comment. Ha ha. In some case they are simply overworked. At the moment I can not physically complete my work in my alloted hours. Working longer would not improve things because at this time of year I would just be expected to take more complaints as opposed to clearing my case load. This is a problem with the time of year, the problem with remote workers lasts all year long though.

 

[Nym]

So I gather. And where you've been driving. No fun van driving anymore.

Oh I still managed to do fun van driving, I just took the most direct route where I was going as the crow flies, just so happened that it took me on some rather nice routes. Still, delivering around rural North Yorkshire I managed to get in some very nice sights.

To be honest, if the meeting is that bad it should be cancelled. Far too much time is wasted in meetings. Indeed, many people seem to do this:

On the other hand, Scrum-style "standups" (obviously done sitting down) of fixed length, say 30 minutes with 15 minutes dedicated to the pure Scrum stuff (what did you do yesterday, what are you going to do today, any impediments) and the other 15 to quick clarifications, are *very* effective for remote-working project teams. And instant messenger is quite good for those "wander over and have a chat" conversations.

Neil

When I was working in Maintenance Engineering we had very direct meetings like this, a daily morning briefing meeting for the days non-scheduled maintenance and scheduled heavy maintenance, progress on long works etc and a round the room with every section head from the depot present.

Instant Messenger on the other hand only works if the engineers you want to talk to actually use computers, took HR eight months to contact one of our mechanical engineers who simply doesn't use his computer at all.

Our project managers like the proper meetings, with power point presentations and everything like that for them. I can never be bothered with that kind of stuff and usually try and avoid them. Or just sit in the back corner until they want to know something about what I'm working on (usually the topic of the meeting to get me there in the first place).

We only have three electrical engineers on our team, and we all sit together so questions get answered very quickly; graduates on placement with us sit opposite me (as I normally manage their workload). Apparently we tried the whole intermingling of PMs and Engineers before, it really didn't work...

 

[Busaholic]

There is more office building taking place in London than ever before - rents in the City and Canary Wharf are rising fast, traffic in Central London is back up exceeding pre- congestion charge levels, commuter traffic by rail and underground into London goes up on almost all lines year by year, so where is the evidence for this? I cannot believe the London experience is at complete variance to the rest of the country either.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Not going to happen.

1 - We can't yet replace face to face discussions. I don't care what anyone says, you still can't beat those for certain conversations. Especially as the person can't hide when you are standing next to his desk!

2 - 80Mbps fibre and 24Mbps ADSL2+ may be available in some places, but certainly not everywhere. Even in central London the fibre rollout isn't as universal as many people may think! Even in areas that have fibre there are often cabinets that have not been upgraded. And what about those who live in areas where even 1Mbps is a dream?

And that is ignoring the human contact / social side of it, which fair enough isn't really a priority and I realise there are many jobs where you don't see anyone else all day anyway, but for jobs that are currently quite social it will be very difficult to move them to a state where there is very little human contact at all.

 

[Clip]

That would be the zero hours contract route. The 1% get richer whilst the 99% continue to be dragged into corporate servitude. Glad I will be out of the rat race in a couple of years. Still it's what the people want and have continually voted for.

Hmm you seem to have fallen for a classic bit of misdirection.

Do you know what defines the top 1%? How much that is in wages per year?

There was a thing on CNN about it and states that for this claim to be true then you only need to be earning $34,000 per year to be classed as in the top 1% of the world. So that would include many of you.

Obviously this is a skewed system of how to measure the wealth of the world given that there are larger parts of the world who do not have a decent income compared to the rest of us but to say that you are part of the 99% is false.

Plus this whole work from home malarkey will never get off the ground for most of us.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not going to happen.

1 - We can't yet replace face to face discussions. I don't care what anyone says, you still can't beat those for certain conversations. Especially as the person can't hide when you are standing next to his desk!

Maybe not - but it is a fact that I do an IT job almost 100% remotely and it *is* workable. You lose human contact, you gain back commuting time. Swings and roundabouts.

2 - 80Mbps fibre and 24Mbps ADSL2+ may be available in some places, but certainly not everywhere. Even in central London the fibre rollout isn't as universal as many people may think! Even in areas that have fibre there are often cabinets that have not been upgraded. And what about those who live in areas where even 1Mbps is a dream?

Most business applications require a tiny amount of bandwidth. I used to work remotely using a 56K modem. *Any* domestic broadband is more than adequate - it's not as if you are streaming video[1].

[1] Videoconferencing has time and time again proven itself to be a solution looking for a problem - screen sharing and collaborative virtual whiteboards are far more useful.

And that is ignoring the human contact / social side of it, which fair enough isn't really a priority and I realise there are many jobs where you don't see anyone else all day anyway, but for jobs that are currently quite social it will be very difficult to move them to a state where there is very little human contact at all.

You don't remove the contact, you change how it works.

I'd definitely say any 9-5:30 type office job could be done remotely with some changes in how communication and management operate. Call centres would be perfect for that, for instance.

Neil
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I couldn't possibly comment. Ha ha. In some case they are simply overworked. At the moment I can not physically complete my work in my alloted hours. Working longer would not improve things because at this time of year I would just be expected to take more complaints as opposed to clearing my case load. This is a problem with the time of year, the problem with remote workers lasts all year long though.

Sounds like your company is absolutely terribly managed.

Neil

 

[underbank]

Too many people just can't function without face-to-face meetings and I can't understand why! I get it all the time at work - simple things that could easily be dealt with by phone or email (or even post), but the client just has to have an appointment. Some are so bad, they make an appointment, just to hand over a piece of paper that isn't even important (I can understand things like passports, but not a photocopy of a gas bill!) - things that could easily be scanned and emailed!

Managers in big organisations are by far the worst. They can barely function at any level other than face-to-face. It's clear that they spend all their days in meetings and can't see an alternative.

It'll be a decade or two before the "ipad" generation come through to become managers themselves and start to change their organisations and get away from the inefficiency and waste caused by relentless meetings.

 

[deltic]

Too many people just can't function without face-to-face meetings and I can't understand why! I get it all the time at work - simple things that could easily be dealt with by phone or email (or even post), but the client just has to have an appointment. Some are so bad, they make an appointment, just to hand over a piece of paper that isn't even important (I can understand things like passports, but not a photocopy of a gas bill!) - things that could easily be scanned and emailed!

Managers in big organisations are by far the worst. They can barely function at any level other than face-to-face. It's clear that they spend all their days in meetings and can't see an alternative.

It'll be a decade or two before the "ipad" generation come through to become managers themselves and start to change their organisations and get away from the inefficiency and waste caused by relentless meetings.

Maybe because they are drowning in emails and instant messaging! I try to walk around to see someone to ask them a question rather than emailing them - my biggest bugbear is someone emailing you a question who sits along side you. I have seen in many organisations management by email and it doesnt work - you often cant see how someone feels in an email conversation - you dont pick up personnel problems. The classic is usually someone is asked to do some vital task by email and it doesnt get done because they missed your email in amongst the 100 junk corporate missives, the missing mugs and x's birthday cakes/drinks emails the latter of which is taking place in another office (sometimes not even a different country) and the 20 people who have replied all to the drinks invite and the 20 people complaining about the 20 people who have replied all etc - if only you had a quick face to face meeting it would never have happened

 

[AM9]

Too many people just can't function without face-to-face meetings and I can't understand why! I get it all the time at work - simple things that could easily be dealt with by phone or email (or even post), but the client just has to have an appointment. Some are so bad, they make an appointment, just to hand over a piece of paper that isn't even important (I can understand things like passports, but not a photocopy of a gas bill!) - things that could easily be scanned and emailed!

Managers in big organisations are by far the worst. They can barely function at any level other than face-to-face. It's clear that they spend all their days in meetings and can't see an alternative.

It'll be a decade or two before the "ipad" generation come through to become managers themselves and start to change their organisations and get away from the inefficiency and waste caused by relentless meetings.

I think that there's a lot more to effective communication that just data. Communication in person between human beings comprises three elements:
1) the words, - i.e. that actual words and/or numbers being transferred
2) the music, - the tone and style of voice used
3) the dance, - the body language exhibited, including facial expression, actions of the hands, fidgeting etc.
According to those experienced in the field, the words convey between 5% - 10% of the information in a conversation, the music between 30% and 40% more and the rest (50%-60%).

If all that is being communicated is straight numbers or other unambiguous information, then e-mail or other impersonal channels will probably do. But if there is any issue of uncertainty, dispute, incredulity opinion etc. about real world information then according to most experts in the field, the actual voicing is importance along with eye contact. So even telephone conversation can inadequate for effective dialogue.
The effect of the information shortfalls is clearly demonstrated on this form when throwaway comment lead to misunderstandings and sometimes acrimony whichwouldnever occur in a fact-to-face discussion. Even the internet custom of smileys after such comments are a poor substitute which in themselves can introduce problems. It would be an unwise businessman who committed anything more than a very carefully selected subset of normal business transactions to remote communication channels.
That is the real reason why most business is undertaken in a shared physical environment rather than this utopian idea that has been promised for the last 50 years.

So commuting will continue to wax or wane in line with the volume of business irrespective of the availability of electronic communications just like the electronic office has failed to remove the need to print most things.

 

[table38]

Where I used to work, it suddenly became fashionable for managers to have a mail filter that moved anything that they were only CC'd on into their read folder, thus reducing the amount of mail they had to read.

The upshot of this was that you could CC your manager on something you didn't really want him to see, but you felt you should tell him about in order to cover your ar$s in case it all hit the fan later

 

[Tom B]

No reason why you cannot be home based, tasked from home then set off into the van to whichever hospital you have been sent to and visiting stores every couple of weeks or so to stock up on spares and going back home at the end of shift to do the paperwork.

You might say, "but I work for the hospital and am based there". Once upon a time there would have been hospital telephone technicians employed by the NHS there and based there maintaing the hospital PABX (internal telephone exchange). Almost certainly that will now be occasional visits in a van from a home start technician (employed by a telecom company)

But arguably that depends on how the job has changed. In your PABX example, once upon a time all the phones would be hard-wired and the exchange would be Strowger-type, so it'd require regular maintenance and servicing, and if someone's phone went wrong it'd need swapping over by somebody semi-skilled. Nowadays most switches will operate happily unattended with some sort of automatic fault-reporting to an engineer, or a call if it all goes kaput from the site! And you can swap out the phone yourself for a spare one and give the broken one to the engineer when he's next in (perhaps not every desk bod, but a nominated person in facilities or IT).

There are advantages to having a person on-site dealing with some things. Speed is one although I presume redundant equipment is provided in a medical situation! There is also a limit to how many spares can be carried in a van, and if everything is centralised at one outsourced warehouse it suddenly becomes a lot more complicated then "oh, it's a fault with this board, I'll just go and fetch another one from the basement". It is unlikely that they will be unproductive in quiet times as most technical/maintenance job will have tasks to do when there's nothing urgent happening - preventative works, low priority repairs, improvements, auditing equipment etc.

A lot of my requests for work come in as I'm passing through and a member of staff says "Ooh, I just noticed earlier and I thought I'd tell you" or "has anyone told you about X?". Familiarity with staff helps!

 

[Welly]

No reason why you cannot be home based, tasked from home then set off into the van to whichever hospital you have been sent to and visiting stores every couple of weeks or so to stock up on spares and going back home at the end of shift to do the paperwork.

You might say, "but I work for the hospital and am based there". Once upon a time there would have been hospital telephone technicians employed by the NHS there and based there maintaing the hospital PABX (internal telephone exchange). Almost certainly that will now be occasional visits in a van from a home start technician (employed by a telecom company)

Supporting medical equipment is not quite as simple as you make it out to be - it's too long for me to go on in the thread; Basically I service equipment, I help the users choose the right equipment, I help with the disposal of old equipment and I am expected to respond quickly to equipment failure in critical areas such as theatres, intensive care and neo-natal intensive care - much face to face talking required and not possible to carry out 30 minutes drive from the hospital. Oh does anyone suggest the nurses can work from home?

Telephones are used everywhere, literally all over town so it does make perfect sense to have technicians in vans going round doing them - in fact I have never met a "hospital telephone technician" in my 15 odd years in the NHS.

 

[Rapidash]

Considering that in Devon the three largest employment sectors are: Healthcare, Agriculture & Fisheries and Tourism, it might be bit hard to get everyone working from home!

 

[Abpj17]

It depends on the nature of the job still. While working from home a day or two a week would be nice, I can’t see the rest of the week changing dramatically. Being in the office to talk to co-workers is still an important part of my job (knowledge transfer) as it meetings with senior stakeholders / committees with representatives across multiple organisations. We already use conferences calls for some, but when it’s for two hours or more then comfort breaks and socialising before/after are important. Going into the office once a week would definitely not be sufficient. Nor, due to sensitivities, can we print at home or use our own devices or have access to work iPads etc.

Some companies aren’t quite willing yet to pay for light/high performance laptops

(I’m not paid by the hour, and it would be difficult to measure work done and this is despite a two hour commute each way!)

 

[dcsprior]

People should be careful what they wish for. If a job can be done wholly from home then it can likely be done from a country with a far lower cost of labour.

I work 2 days a week from home, doing a long-distance commute on a weekly basis. This works well for me and my employer, as I can manage my workload between things where I need to collaborate and things where I'm best being uninterrupted.

There will be many other ways people arrange their working patterns other than 5 days/week in the office - but as I say, 100% homeworking could open a huge can of worms.

 

[Puffing Devil]

I work from home when I'm not on the road. I travel about 60% of my time as part of a global team with no central office. I keep in touch with the team by video and audio conferencing, phones and some face to face meetings. I've done this for the past 25 years - things have got easier as I've progressed from 9k6 modem connectivity to ISDN, ADSL and now FTTC sweetness.

I do have a voluntary job where I need to visit a fixed "office" every three or four weeks for a day, though that is a function of the role that really couldn't work anywhere else, though there are moves to put part of that work online.

 

[Welly]

One thing that may work against a trend of working from home - houses built in the UK since 2000 have very cramped rooms! Also houses are so expensive that many people cannot afford to buy a house with an extra room for the home office.

 

[Bletchleyite]

People should be careful what they wish for. If a job can be done wholly from home then it can likely be done from a country with a far lower cost of labour.

That goes both ways, though, as there are countries that are more expensive for labour than the UK. Indeed, my current work assignment is viable for that kind of reason.

Neil
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One thing that may work against a trend of working from home - houses built in the UK since 2000 have very cramped rooms! Also houses are so expensive that many people cannot afford to buy a house with an extra room for the home office.

But equally you can work in a lot of jobs sitting on your sofa with a laptop on your knee. I do have an office room, but sometimes I just fancy doing that instead.

Neil