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Covid-19 to have a permanent downward effect on commuting patterns with more partial working from home?

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nlogax

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That difference could make the difference between people choosing to work from home and choosing to work from the office. As there's no tax relief on commuting costs and employers don't pay a commuting allowance, WFH may look like the financially attractive option while WFH is mandatory. However, once it becomes optional and those allowances and tax reliefs disappear it might be a different matter.



One difference I can see happening is numerous people finish at their finishing time on the dot and if their employer asks them to 'just sort something which'll take 5 minutes' the answer may be no because it would result in them missing their train or being late to collect their children from the nursery. However, would the answer still be no if you were at home, not keeping such a close eye on the time and weren't in a rush to get somewhere?
If it were me I'd do the thing and then start five minutes later the next day.
 
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Mikey C

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Blurred boundaries exist even without working formally from home anyway

In a previous job we had a US office and due to time zone differences it made a massive difference to getting things done by answering urgent emails in the evening (sometimes on my Blackberry :D) rather than losing a day by waiting until I was back in the office the next day

On the flip side, most office workers will have personal internet access, which is allowed within sensible limits

The company I work for has disposed of one-third of its London office space and are suggesting a long term (post Covid) future of 2-3 days hot-desking in the office per week, organised by teams.

That’s just one example, and in a sector that is extra non-physical-attendance dependant, but I think one day of WFH in the examples above may underestimate the desire of many employers and employees to seek a balance between the two.

I agree that the loss to the railway may be less than the proportionate number of days of remote working, due to:
  • People giving up good-value annual seasons and instead purchasing daily tickets which are not proportionally cheaper
  • Long term relocations so that the fewer journeys nevertheless involve more mileage
  • People having more disposable income to spend in other ways, eg rail leisure travel

The thing that may be more problematic revenue-wise is people finding that their employers are flexible about arrival times and not needing to use peak services.
The effect this might have is to reduce the imbalance between peak and off peak use, as the horrendous peak demand goes down a bit, which might actually make things easier for the railways

So much of rail expenditure around London is geared around catering for this peak demand, longer trains and platforms, new trains with fewer seats and more standing space to cram more people in...
 
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geoffk

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Blurred boundaries exist even without working formally from home anyway

In a previous job we had a US office and due to time zone differences it made a massive difference to getting things done by answering urgent emails in the evening (sometimes on my Blackberry :D) rather than losing a day by waiting until I was back in the office the next day

On the flip side, most office workers will have personal internet access, which is allowed within sensible limits


The effect this might have is to reduce the imbalance between peak and off peak use, as the horrendous peak demand goes down a bit, which might actually make things easier for the railways

So much of rail expenditure around London is geared around catering for this peak demand, longer trains and platforms, new trains with fewer seats and more standing space to cram more people in...
While all London terminals show a big increase in train numbers at peak times (especially marked at stations in the City - Liverpool Street, Fenchurch Street and Cannon Street) the peak effect is less marked in provincial cities, where train graphs are much "flatter" throughout the day. This suggests that any savings from reductions in infrastructure as a result of long-term WFH would be confined to the London area.
 

3rd rail land

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One difference I can see happening is numerous people finish at their finishing time on the dot and if their employer asks them to 'just sort something which'll take 5 minutes' the answer may be no because it would result in them missing their train or being late to collect their children from the nursery. However, would the answer still be no if you were at home, not keeping such a close eye on the time and weren't in a rush to get somewhere?
I don't know about other companies but my employer allows for dynamic working. For example if I am in the middle of working on something and go over my hours by 30 minutes I can work 30 minutes less another day to compensate. I don't even need approval to do so although my boss likes it if I inform him that I am going to do so. It's quite useful if I am working in the office or customer site and working extra one day results in not having to return the next day to finish whatever I am working on.
 

Mikey C

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While all London terminals show a big increase in train numbers at peak times (especially marked at stations in the City - Liverpool Street, Fenchurch Street and Cannon Street) the peak effect is less marked in provincial cities, where train graphs are much "flatter" throughout the day. This suggests that any savings from reductions in infrastructure as a result of long-term WFH would be confined to the London area.
London is where the pressure is, as trains are already operating near to or at maximum length at rush hour.

If you're operating a 2 car 150 in the rush hour, there's plenty of scope for longer trains!
 

Chester1

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Home working at least one day a week will become more common. Its astounding that some people think everything will go back to normal after many companies and organisations have announced plans to make some level of home working permanent. I only have one friend in an office job who is in the office daily, everyone else is WFH part time and has been told that will become permanent (probably at a reduced level). The railways will benefit from less frequent but longer commutes and a decline or stretching of the peaks. Office space is very expensive and a reduction of 40% due to WFH average of 2 days a week may more than offset a drop in productivity. In London where a desk for one person can cost several hundreds of pounds per month this will be especially likely.
 

DB

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Home working at least one day a week will become more common. Its astounding that some people think everything will go back to normal after many companies and organisations have announced plans to make some level of home working permanent.

I don't think many people do actually expect that!

What a number of us do expect is that the long-term change is going to be a lot less than the hype has been trying to tell us - i.e. while there probably will be some long term increase in home working, a lot of the initial enthusiasm from both sides (staff and employers) is likely to wane and office use will increase again.

Employers will be looking at the bottom line and thinking how much they can save in office rents. However, in many cases the outcome will be that staff work less effectively, especially in businesses with a lot of collaborative working. Trying to do this over Teams or Zoom really isn't the same. It will also be increasingly difficult to incorporate new staff into established teams if they only see each other one day a month or fortnight.
 

Chester1

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I don't think many people do actually expect that!

What a number of us do expect is that the long-term change is going to be a lot less than the hype has been trying to tell us - i.e. while there probably will be some long term increase in home working, a lot of the initial enthusiasm from both sides (staff and employers) is likely to wane and office use will increase again.

Employers will be looking at the bottom line and thinking how much they can save in office rents. However, in many cases the outcome will be that staff work less effectively, especially in businesses with a lot of collaborative working. Trying to do this over Teams or Zoom really isn't the same. It will also be increasingly difficult to incorporate new staff into established teams if they only see each other one day a month or fortnight.

Some members have stated they think things will more or less return to normal. I agree there are productivity issues but that means a blend. 100% office attendance during probationary period would probably be a very good idea. Overall I would be surprised if the reduction in peak time commutes is less than 20%.
 

The Ham

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Some members have stated they think things will more or less return to normal. I agree there are productivity issues but that means a blend. 100% office attendance during probationary period would probably be a very good idea. Overall I would be surprised if the reduction in peak time commutes is less than 20%.

To achieve a 20% fall you'd need (as an example) 90% of all peak hour travel to be commuting, you'd then need 37% of jobs to work from home an average of 60% of the time (i.e. an average of 3 days a week). Whilst not impossible, given that there's data for during lockdown showing that 40% of people were working 100% from home the small reductions from that to what's needed to see a 20% fall would likely make it highly improbable.

Yes there'll be some who WFH all the time, but there's going to be a lot who benefit from WFH who will do so for much much less than this. Be that one or two days a week, or one week or of four, or just during the school summer holidays so that they can be around in the evening whilst staying with their parents so that their parents can look after the children (the patient's grandchildren) during the day.

Anyway, the more WFH there is the less cars are so cost effective and because they make up 80% of the travel that we undertake (whilst rail is 10%) fairly small shifts from car use to rail use could reverse some of those falls.

For instance a 20% reduction in rail travel is 2% of all travel, 2% of all travel is the same as 2.5% of car use. Now wiping out all of a 20% fall in rail use would be fairly unlikely, however wiping out 5% (so that the net result was 15%) would only need a 0.625% shift.

If we assume that the average distance traveled per person is about 8,000 miles then that's an average of 50 miles per person each year.

It doesn't take many people (3) doing a 200 mile round trip by rail rather than car to account for a dozen people's worth of average milage shift.

Whilst it's likely that it's more likely that a lot of the shift would be from journeys of less than 100 miles, if someone goes to see their family 4 times a year and their round trip is 25 miles then that's still two people's worth (100 miles) of average milage shift.
 

Chester1

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To achieve a 20% fall you'd need (as an example) 90% of all peak hour travel to be commuting, you'd then need 37% of jobs to work from home an average of 60% of the time (i.e. an average of 3 days a week). Whilst not impossible, given that there's data for during lockdown showing that 40% of people were working 100% from home the small reductions from that to what's needed to see a 20% fall would likely make it highly improbable.

Yes there'll be some who WFH all the time, but there's going to be a lot who benefit from WFH who will do so for much much less than this. Be that one or two days a week, or one week or of four, or just during the school summer holidays so that they can be around in the evening whilst staying with their parents so that their parents can look after the children (the patient's grandchildren) during the day.

Anyway, the more WFH there is the less cars are so cost effective and because they make up 80% of the travel that we undertake (whilst rail is 10%) fairly small shifts from car use to rail use could reverse some of those falls.

For instance a 20% reduction in rail travel is 2% of all travel, 2% of all travel is the same as 2.5% of car use. Now wiping out all of a 20% fall in rail use would be fairly unlikely, however wiping out 5% (so that the net result was 15%) would only need a 0.625% shift.

If we assume that the average distance traveled per person is about 8,000 miles then that's an average of 50 miles per person each year.

It doesn't take many people (3) doing a 200 mile round trip by rail rather than car to account for a dozen people's worth of average milage shift.

Whilst it's likely that it's more likely that a lot of the shift would be from journeys of less than 100 miles, if someone goes to see their family 4 times a year and their round trip is 25 miles then that's still two people's worth (100 miles) of average milage shift.

I think its fairly reasonable to guestimate that 90% of peak rail travel is commuting. If so, every commuter would need to WFH 1.1 days more than they did pre pandemic to have a 20% reduction. There are a large number of people who were unable to WFH or only allowed to in very limited circumstances who now do most of their week. Some people can't WFH and won't. I don't know what % of time the average rail commuter WFH pre pandemic but I would be surprised if it was more than about 0.5 days a week. That changing to an average of 1.6 would be entirely plausible (higher in London but lower in rest of country). My employer didn't allow most staff to WFH at all and now has about 90% of staff only attending the office occasionally. It looks like most of my colleagues are going to switch from 0 to 2 or 3 days a week of home working after the pandemic.
 

The Ham

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I think its fairly reasonable to guestimate that 90% of peak rail travel is commuting. If so, every commuter would need to WFH 1.1 days more than they did pre pandemic to have a 20% reduction. There are a large number of people who were unable to WFH or only allowed to in very limited circumstances who now do most of their week. Some people can't WFH and won't. I don't know what % of time the average rail commuter WFH pre pandemic but I would be surprised if it was more than about 0.5 days a week. That changing to an average of 1.6 would be entirely plausible (higher in London but lower in rest of country). My employer didn't allow most staff to WFH at all and now has about 90% of staff only attending the office occasionally. It looks like most of my colleagues are going to switch from 0 to 2 or 3 days a week of home working after the pandemic.

Firstly, whilst commuting may be 90%, commuting for education would also be within that. Whilst it maybe possible that some education may offer online teaching, it's likely to be the minority.

The other factors to bear in mind are:
- those who live alone, don't have space to work at home, those with children who come home from school mid afternoon, etc where they would rather be in the office.
- those whose job can't be done from home, for example police officers, NHS staff, manufacturing and the like.

I know of businesses who have had 100% WFH but now see about 1/4 working in their offices due choice and more still because they prefer the ability to work together in person.

The other factor to consider is that your talking about an increase in WFH of 1 to 2 days a week, well some would have already been WFH pre Covid-19 and don't wish to increase their WFH days by that much. For example it may be that they already WFH 2 days a week and although they may increase that a little is not likely that they would do so to the extent of over 1.

However even if we do see a 20% or more from commuting, that doesn't equal a 20% or more fall in rail use.

However for many a (say) 30% reduction in the number of people on their train where there's 24 people for every 20 seats (1 person standing for every 5 seats, which although it's busy isn't as busy asa lot of peak hour trains are) would just mean that there was 17 people for every 20 seats, making their commute a lot nicer. That in its own right would likely make it so that others would be more likely to use rail where they had ruled it out previously because they weren't likely to get a seat.
 

edwin_m

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It's much easier to have a video call between people in a meeting room in one location and people in a meeting one in another, than involving numerous different people in different locations. EST is only 5 hours behind us, 4 for a few weeks when the clocks change, so a 3pm meeting UK time tends to work well for everyone. If you're the UK sales manager and it's your meeting with the Eastern US sales manager, with no-one else involved then it might be a different matter.
In my experience a meeting where a group of people are in a room and others elsewhere is far worse than either a fully in-person meeting or one where everyone is online. The people in the room tend to get into a discussion between themselves and ignore the people who are remote, who with most office meeting room setups can't hear the people furthest from the microphone anyway.
However for many a (say) 30% reduction in the number of people on their train where there's 24 people for every 20 seats (1 person standing for every 5 seats, which although it's busy isn't as busy asa lot of peak hour trains are) would just mean that there was 17 people for every 20 seats, making their commute a lot nicer. That in its own right would likely make it so that others would be more likely to use rail where they had ruled it out previously because they weren't likely to get a seat.
The worry is that there will only be 17/24 of the income and under that scenario the costs of operating the service would hardly reduce at all. I think it's more likely the railway will be cut back to reduce peak capacity in line with demand once "normality" returns. But there is also the possibility that people visiting the office for specific meetings, or if they move further away, are more likely to travel off-peak when it's more comfortable and they may even get to do some work on the train.
 

The Ham

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In my experience a meeting where a group of people are in a room and others elsewhere is far worse than either a fully in-person meeting or one where everyone is online. The people in the room tend to get into a discussion between themselves and ignore the people who are remote, who with most office meeting room setups can't hear the people furthest from the microphone anyway.

The worry is that there will only be 17/24 of the income and under that scenario the costs of operating the service would hardly reduce at all. I think it's more likely the railway will be cut back to reduce peak capacity in line with demand once "normality" returns. But there is also the possibility that people visiting the office for specific meetings, or if they move further away, are more likely to travel off-peak when it's more comfortable and they may even get to do some work on the train.

Income for the railways may not fall all that much, if you have a season ticket you get fairly good discounts, whilst if you buy daily tickets it's much harder to get discounts. As an example an annual season ticket between Winchester and Southampton is about £1,000 whilst buying 2 return tickets a week would cost £700 over the year.
 

Ianno87

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In my experience a meeting where a group of people are in a room and others elsewhere is far worse than either a fully in-person meeting or one where everyone is online. The people in the room tend to get into a discussion between themselves and ignore the people who are remote, who with most office meeting room setups can't hear the people furthest from the microphone anyway.

Yes, I've found that too - big meetings where everybody is dialled in gives everybody a level playing field.

Either everyone (or almost everyone) in a room, or everyone dialled in. Not 50/50.
 

87 027

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Yes, I've found that too - big meetings where everybody is dialled in gives everybody a level playing field.

Either everyone (or almost everyone) in a room, or everyone dialled in. Not 50/50.
That's my organisation's view too. People can come into the office if they have a specific justification, but so long as social distancing remains in place, the meeting rooms are closed and all meetings must be conducted online via Teams regardless of where you are working from.

I haven't been into the office since mid-March and have no idea when I will next return. Even before the pandemic my travel patterns meant it was more cost effective to pay daily and I haven't had a season ticket since the end of 2017.
 

pdq

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I attended a virtual conference a few weeks ago organised by one of the big Facilities Management software providers for their customers. One of the sessions was - not surprisingly - the future of the workplace, albeit with a 'how can we sell you different bits of our software to support this' angle at times.
Their take on it was that in many sectors (and it is sector specific) the office will become more of a 'clubhouse' where people meet to collaborate. The more mundane work of answering calls and emails, working on documents etc can - and should - be done anywhere.

The thing I miss most WFH as software support/configuration, is hearing conversations in the office which can lead to me developing a system tweak to improve their way of working. However my productivity on focused work is far higher at home as I'm not disturbed by people popping past my desk. If I really need to concentrate the auto reply goes on my email and phone to that effect. Not something I can do in the office itself.
 

island

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Do all those people who relish the thought of being able to work from home all the time also relish being expected to take calls / answer emails in the evening and at weekends? I say that because I believe working from home permanently blurs the boundary between work life and domestic life.

No sane employer places that expectation on employees. It's what the 'off' button on the device is for.
A lot of employers will not meet your definition of “sane”.
My work emails can be seen on my phone, but I've got to decide to do so.

The work phone app (VOIP phone system) on my mobile does ring at any time, however I can mute it and because it's a dedicated app it's easy to know that it's a work call and therefore let it go to voicemail (not that there are many call even fewer out of hours).
I have a similar arrangement and don’t give my personal mobile number to the work directory. A small number of people have it for business continuity reasons. I can also switch the VOIP client off.
 

kristiang85

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Personally I can see myself doing 2-3 days a week in the office (as I do miss it, and some things are just a bit more productive on site), and 2-3 days at home each week, as I just can't ignore the extra 3 hours of my life I get back a day without commuting. Let alone the financial benefits. Most of my colleagues (and bosses) are of the same opinion.

As said above, even if the average is 1 day a week working from home, it will bring down passenger numbers significantly (20%). Although, as a caveat, already on my route Fridays were very quiet, so I think that behaviour was already starting to happen.
 

edwin_m

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As said above, even if the average is 1 day a week working from home, it will bring down passenger numbers significantly (20%). Although, as a caveat, already on my route Fridays were very quiet, so I think that behaviour was already starting to happen.
Which also raises the interesting point that whatever the level of WFH settles down to after Covid, we might have ended up in exactly the same position within a few years anyway as people got used to the technology and realised the benefits that it brings for some roles.
 

philosopher

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Personally I can see myself doing 2-3 days a week in the office (as I do miss it, and some things are just a bit more productive on site), and 2-3 days at home each week, as I just can't ignore the extra 3 hours of my life I get back a day without commuting. Let alone the financial benefits. Most of my colleagues (and bosses) are of the same opinion.

As said above, even if the average is 1 day a week working from home, it will bring down passenger numbers significantly (20%). Although, as a caveat, already on my route Fridays were very quiet, so I think that behaviour was already starting to happen.
I would preferably likely go back to working most of the time in the office, perhaps four days a week. However I live with walking distance of work so I save very little time from working from home.

With regards to transport my guess is that the longer your commute, the more days you going to work from home as the time and money savings will be greater. If this is the case then greater home working will disproportionality affect demand for rail, particularly longer distance commuter services. This does assume that first employees do not move house and second they have a lot of choice in how many days they can work at home or the office.
 

Horizon22

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Personally I can see myself doing 2-3 days a week in the office (as I do miss it, and some things are just a bit more productive on site), and 2-3 days at home each week, as I just can't ignore the extra 3 hours of my life I get back a day without commuting. Let alone the financial benefits. Most of my colleagues (and bosses) are of the same opinion.

As said above, even if the average is 1 day a week working from home, it will bring down passenger numbers significantly (20%). Although, as a caveat, already on my route Fridays were very quiet, so I think that behaviour was already starting to happen.

I gather this will be more the norm - people will go for a hybrid approach to working from home. If it's only a small amount no longer commuting that's probably the best in terms of trains not absolutely packed, but it would only take us down to passengers numbers of around 5 years ago so not a huge economic hit that couldn't be managed.

It may be though that the further the distance, the more you opt to work from home. This could have larger disproportionate cost implications for the railway.
 

Ianno87

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I gather this will be more the norm - people will go for a hybrid approach to working from home. If it's only a small amount no longer commuting that's probably the best in terms of trains not absolutely packed, but it would only take us down to passengers numbers of around 5 years ago so not a huge economic hit that couldn't be managed.

And potentially a better outcome for the railway with demand more spread across the day.
 

kristiang85

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And potentially a better outcome for the railway with demand more spread across the day.

Yes, most likely - with no flexible season tickets available, I'll be doing my commuting off peak.
 

WelshBluebird

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It's much easier to have a video call between people in a meeting room in one location and people in a meeting one in another, than involving numerous different people in different locations.
My experience over the last 8 months is the total opposite.
Everybody being remote is much easier than some people being in the same room and other people being remote.
So much so, that even when I do go back in the office, I am fully expecting many of my meetings to remain 100% on Teams even if some of the people involved in the meeting are in the same building as me, because a lot of the meetings involve people in other locations too and so having everybody on Teams on their own levels the playing field!
 

peters

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My experience over the last 8 months is the total opposite.
Everybody being remote is much easier than some people being in the same room and other people being remote.
So much so, that even when I do go back in the office, I am fully expecting many of my meetings to remain 100% on Teams even if some of the people involved in the meeting are in the same building as me, because a lot of the meetings involve people in other locations too and so having everybody on Teams on their own levels the playing field!

I was meaning in instances like your team is all in the same room and another team (possibly working for another company) is in a different room, possibly in another country. Then while there are still disadvantages of not being face-to-face, the disadvantages are outweighed by the cost saving of not having to transport one team from one location to another.

I would never think one person on video call due to self-isolating and the rest all in the same room is a level playing field.
 
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Ianno87

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I would never think one person on video call due to self-isolating and the rest all in the same room is a level playing field.

Tends to work best when the individual on their own is needed for a particular slot or agenda item, so they can be the focus of that particular segment.
 

Jimini

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Tends to work best when the individual on their own is needed for a particular slot or agenda item, so they can be the focus of that particular segment.

Doesn't work in my experience. We have monthly board meetings and guests doing set segments deliver these over Zoom, then the board have a heated debate about the content and the guest gets left behind, despite being the focal point. What also tends to happen is that the presenter (guest) then gets asked follow up questions but hasn't heard all the pertinent points from the ensuing discussion, because of the whole 'in the room / video conference' setup.
 

WelshBluebird

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I was meaning in instances like your team is all in the same room and another team (possibly working for another company) is in a different room, possibly in another country. Then while there are still disadvantages of not being face-to-face, the disadvantages are outweighed by the cost saving of not having to transport one team from one location to another.

Even in those situations, at least in my line of work, the last few months have shown that it would be better for everybody to be on Teams on their own rather than having two groups of people in separate locations. The issue you have with what you describe is basically the same as what Jimini has described for lone people with everyone else in a meeting room - you get the people in the room talking amongst each other not being audible to whoever is on the call - except in your scenario you just get two groups of people doing that!
 

Scotrail12

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Maybe I'm just old school but I hope it doesn't become an expectation for people to be happy to do WFH in any capacity. Some may love it, it would probably suck the life out of me if I'm being honest, even if only 1 day per week.

Aside from obviously reducing commuting times, what actually is the point in it?
 

WelshBluebird

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Maybe I'm just old school but I hope it doesn't become an expectation for people to be happy to do WFH in any capacity.

Why?

Some may love it, it would probably suck the life out of me if I'm being honest, even if only 1 day per week.

Couldn't you say the same about being in the office for some people?

Aside from obviously reducing commuting times, what actually is the point in it?

  1. Potentially cheaper for the business as they don't have to pay for such large office space in prime locations
  2. Potentially cheaper for staff as they don't have to spent thousands commuting to or renting in high demand areas
  3. Gives the business access to a larger talent pool (I.e. if I am a business based on London, with remote working I can hire someone based in Manchester without having to open a Manchester office or expecting them to commute all of that time, or it means I can actually hire people who will only do remote work - that last one is pretty common in the Tech industry).
  4. Gives staff wider access to employers (Ie.e. if I am based in Bristol but working remotely, I can just as easily work for a company based in London as I could one based in Bristol)
  5. Why not give people the option? I'll turn it back on you - what is the point of forcing people to go into an office when the same work can be done remotely?
 
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