CFOs Looking To Make Remote Work, Telecommuting More Permanent Following COVID-19, Says Gartner Study (zdnet.com) 104
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: The new normal telecommuting may be a bit more permanent than realized, as 74% of CFOs say they expect to move previously on-site employees remote post-COVID-19, according to a Gartner survey. The survey, which had 317 CFO respondents on March 30, highlighted how remote work may become more of the norm as companies look to cut commercial real estate costs. Gartner found that almost a quarter of respondents said they will move at least 20% of their on-site employees to remote work permanently. The research firm is taking the pulse of the COVID-19 CXO shifts in a series of surveys.
Among the key shifts from CFOs and enterprises as they manage cash via COVID-19 shutdowns:
- 81% of CFOs plan to exceed their contractual obligations to hourly workers and to fund that they are using remote work to offer flexible schedules and maintain operations.
- 90% of CFOs said their accounting close operations will be able to run effectively without disruptions off-site.
- 20% of CFOs said they are cutting their on-premise technology spending with 12% planning the same move.
- 13% of CFOs have already cut real estate expenses with another 9% planning cuts in the months to come.
Among the key shifts from CFOs and enterprises as they manage cash via COVID-19 shutdowns:
- 81% of CFOs plan to exceed their contractual obligations to hourly workers and to fund that they are using remote work to offer flexible schedules and maintain operations.
- 90% of CFOs said their accounting close operations will be able to run effectively without disruptions off-site.
- 20% of CFOs said they are cutting their on-premise technology spending with 12% planning the same move.
- 13% of CFOs have already cut real estate expenses with another 9% planning cuts in the months to come.
PHBs are quaking in their boots (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you micromanage people and keep them from working when they can simply not pick up when you call them?
How about we telecommute the CEO... (Score:1)
...positions to Bombay at pennies on the dollar?
Re:How about we telecommute the CEO... (Score:5, Funny)
Why bother, the average CEO can be replaced by a magic-8-ball.
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Wasn't there a study a while back showing that most investment fund managers were no better than rolling a die? I wonder if a similar experiment could be done on C level execs.
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I have to sit with them in meetings. At one point I'm gonna say what I have been thinking so many times: If you have visions, go see a shrink.
I've seen a few come and go. And in my experience, there are two kinds: The one kind that has no idea what kind of company they're heading, who is pissing in the wind and calls it "lateral" or "outside the box" thinking, sounding really visionary and edgy and knows how to sell the bullshit he's doing as if it was the latest and greatest, and then there's the other kin
Re: How about we telecommute the CEO... (Score:2)
Lot of criticism for someone who never wore the CEO hat.
Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and try to be a CEO or run your own business for a change? That smarmy attitude would quickly change.
99% of those that post here would crack and fail as CEOs. You as a poster are the epitome of such.
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Sure, why not? I may or may not do a good job, but I'll happily run your company into the ground for millions of dollars a year and a golden parachute.
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Sure, why not? I may or may not do a good job, but I'll happily run your company into the ground for millions of dollars a year and a golden parachute.
Fools like you fail to realize that if a CEO drives a company into the ground that the golden parachute, which is always stock options paid after a specific date, become worthless right?
Of course not, because idiot cogs like yourself fail to realize the parts comprise the whole. What is good for you is most definitely not good for the business.
Try getting a business started and keep it running and then you'll start to understand why CEOs and business owners do what they do.
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How do you micromanage people and keep them from working when they can simply not pick up when you call them?
Oh young padwan, answering the call IS the micromanaged KPI.
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Oh. Woe is me. In my nook in the world where I can afford an appartment, reception is so bad. Especially now. Sorry, sir, that I could not pick up your call.
Quite frankly, I told my people (even before that crisis) that they should switch their phones OFF when they're working on something important. If it's REALLY important, I can get a hold of them via MS Teams (where they are routinely set to "am in a meeting", and they are, with me, constantly... at least according to teams).
Re: PHBs are quaking in their boots (Score:2)
Sorry, but my business's work from home policy is, "you reply immediately to phone and IMs" as in all hands on deck.
An attitude like that is a quick way to find yourself on probation with the wfh policy and forced to come directly into the office.
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Oh. Woe is me. In my nook in the world where I can afford an appartment, reception is so bad. Especially now. Sorry, sir, that I could not pick up your call.
You don't sound like much of a team player.
Seriously though people with that kind of view of ignoring externalities exist. I hope you never have to work for one.
Re: PHBs are quaking in their boots (Score:2)
I live in a major metro area that has poor cell reception in significant areas. It seems to be due to geography but I have been in wilderness and gotten better and more consistent reception. I am currently sitting well within city limits with barely a bar...and my phone was chosen because it gets bars when many others have zilch.
Some areas are just naturally hostile to the 'MUST answer phone instantly!' sort of micromanagement of telework.
Re:PHBs are quaking in their boots (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you micromanage people and keep them from working when they can simply not pick up when you call them?
ROTFL. Just wait until companies start tracking Actions Per Minute (APM) like we do in video games. If you think there aren't ways to micromanage and monitor remote employees you are kidding yourself. Sure those metrics won't be meaningful, but neither were the ones these types of managers were using before.
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Re:PHBs are quaking in their boots (Score:5, Informative)
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If you track people by a metric, people will perform by that metric. You track the actions per minute of a person, the person will contribute actions per minute. A friend of mine taped a piece of paper to his mouse and hung it from his window so the wind would move the paper and keep the mouse busy on the screen so the screensaver (and hence his not-at-the-computer counter) doesn't go off.
I track my people by "getting shit done". Which means that we have a certain workload and that workload has to be accomp
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How do you micromanage people and keep them from working when they can simply not pick up when you call them?
Unfortunately, WFH doesn't make you immune from being micromanaged.
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That's the next phase. You think those downtown corporate offices are expensive, they're nothing compared to the army of PHBs within.
Corps might actually start to approach some sane level of efficiency.
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Spyware on their company supplied laptops.
We will have to make little robots that move the mouse and type every few seconds, like the ones for fooling fitness trackers. I bet they are already available on AliExpress, next to the handwriting bots school kids use to do their homework.
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Not necessary. Tape a sheet of paper to the mouse and hang it out the window. The wind will move the paper and the mouse will register movement.
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Funny enough, I have the opposite scenario.
Have to work at the office because of the special equipment I need. But all the bosses are working from home. Turns out I end up ignoring their emails more and I'm doing my normal work, especially since they're not able to come around.
Kinda relaxing actually since they're not willing to stay and manage everyone so they manage those at the office the same as
Quite a shift (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Quite a shift (Score:4, Insightful)
Not the CFOs. The CFOs want to minimize expense and they are prone to believe anything that would allow them to cut costs.
Packing employees in like sardines and remote work are both things CFOs are quick to believe in.
However, their peer executives will fight on the work from home, because they need to see their employees to believe in them. Open landscape for the peasants seems fine by them though, so that gets to go through.
CFOs say "yes, we will save cost by remoting employees" will have to get reconciled with the other execs saying "no, we don't want slackers". Admittedly they may have a more compelling stance after months of remote working if it pans out ok, but in my company just yesterday they sent out an email at my company saying 'we continue to be a work from work environment', and then a long winded way of saying that covid-19 is temporary and don't get used to this work from home business..
Re:Quite a shift (Score:5, Insightful)
If a worker wants to slack, they will do that in their cubicle, in the open floor or at home. It's not like you can force people to work.
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I would say it should be more sane to measure a person's results than micromanage their work habits.
However, I'm reasonably certain that people will be a bit more distracted on average when they wouldn't be self-conscious about being seen to be slacking off.
This varies person to person and there are clearly both upsides and downsides about home office versus working together for the positions where it is at least theoretically possible.
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If I can'tget in gear, I can't get in gear. Doesn't matter where I am. However at home it happens more oftwn that I don't switch off as much as when I leave the workplace. I tend to get little things done after dinner and such. This has shortened certain service requests conaiderably especially when the engineer is in a very different timezone.
Re: Quite a shift (Score:3)
I agree with measuing results.
Like for me, I've been in this line of work for about 20 years. Needless to say, I've gotten a lot more effecient and become more effective than when I started.
That ks to say when i started, lack of experience left me pulling all nighters. Looking at my activity ratio between now and then would not reflect a true picture.
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If a worker wants to slack, they will do that in their cubicle, in the open floor or at home. It's not like you can force people to work.
Oh please. It's obvious that some people have boundary issues where they work all hours of the day. Other people have the opposite problem where they end up doing personal stuff all day. A lot of people manage just fine by self-discipline, or at least what I'd call self-imposed discipline like dedicating an area to be your home office and being "in the office" with "office hours". Other people need someone to drag them into "work mode" but are actually decent at getting shit done once they really put their
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To me, the location of my body doesn't really change my working hours. It did happen at the office that I noticed it's past 9pm, it happened here at home now, too. For me it's easy to determine whether I'm "on" or "off" the clock, when I shove the keycard into the computer, I consider myself "on" it, if it's yout, I'm "off". You can reach me for anything you want while I'm "on" and I will respond immediately when I'm "on". I will most likely already be deep in something, so it may take a moment for me to be
Re: Quite a shift (Score:2)
I have had a home office since 2000, only driving into the office twice a week some 90mi away. However, after the tax change a couple of years ago W-2 employees no longer get to claim any sort of work-related expense. Want health insurance? Say goodbye to your home office deduction, your mileage deductions, and any paper, ink, monitors, etc you had to buy to do your job. Being a 1099 contractor puts you on your own trying to find a decent health policy for the family. I certainly hope they make a special ca
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Serious question; did her employer not provide additional equipment for her to use? When the company I'm contracting with sent everyone home, they made it very clear that all employees/contractors could inventory and take whatever they thought they needed. Of course, it's expected to be returned when/if this all ends.
That was kind of worthless to me, as I already had a pair of 27" monitors, a KVM switch, and a docking station that matches my work laptop at home, (not my first WFH rodeo,) but if the people I
Re: Quite a shift (Score:2)
No. Not every company does this. Her company is a university hospital, which has its hands pretty full. They did let them bring their chairs home as long as there was a asset tag and a checkout process.
I have a friend that works IT for the State, in the capital, and the security has been given shoot-on-sight orders for anyone taking a workstation home. They are issuing laptops. If they walk out with a workstation, keyboard, or monitor they will be shot for looting. The workstation makes sense as it would co
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I picked up a 24" Monitor, with an HDMI port, for $60 at Discount Electronics.
If you don't mind scratches and dust, you don't have to pay top dollar
Re: Quite a shift (Score:2)
All stores are closed here. The exceptions are grocery stores, liquor stores, pharmacy, hardware stores etc. office depot and best buy has been approved for curbside pickups. She got a vizio 24in for about $119. Still should be deductible though. I went from getting about $6 back in taxes due to home office and mileage deductions to owing almost $1100 annually when they killed those deductions. 18k miles a year adds up. Thank god for goodwill donations to at least get me owing nearly nothing.
Re: Quite a shift (Score:2)
That should have read $6000 back
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I think alternating WFH and traditional environment probably leads to the best result.
In the short term, some of the random BS distractions subside and allow neglected work on current projects to proceed with more efficiency.
However, I think there is a sort of drift in the long term away from a strategic direction. There are utterly BS distractions (like someone talking about their upcoming fishing trip endlessly or what not), semi-related work BS (e.g. let's spend more time trying to argue about not doing
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Some still do today.
"Remote work" (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:"Remote work" (Score:5, Interesting)
That is the end goal of remote work. If you don't have to come into the office to perform your duties, it's likely you don't need to be local at all. This trend is not new of course, but events like these have a strong chance of accelerating the current speed of outsourcing.
This also helps identify the positions where relationship building and in-person contact is more necessary. My team's developers are doing a much better now than our architects and product / relationship managers, although inadequate software for meeting collaboration does play a factor. Positions which are performing well right now are prime for outsourcing, positions which are struggling right now are not. Another simple metric which will often be wrong, but these types decisions are often made with wide sweeping generalizations over a large disparate workforce.
It may not be a good time to tell your boss everything is going fine on your end and you are more productive than ever. It may lead to you working from home more (if you want that) but it could just as easily mean your job moving to an area with cheaper labor.
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I'm not saying you're wrong about some management conceptions of the situa
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While I'm sure many managers think that remote work = open for outsourcing
There are a lot of on-shore places with cheaper cost of living where people actually still want to live. Tech companies overpay for most of their on-shore labor because they are all local in a high-rent area. Hiring people in Ohio, St. Louis, so on is cheaper.
Cheap way to get 24 hour coverage (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with working at home is that you are considered to be reachable 24 hours a day. There is never a "quitting time". With the kids home I am working a normal shift, then helping the kids with school work, cooking supper, taking the dog for a walk, and then answering emails from management before going to bed to start it all again the next day. I can't wait to get back to the office.
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No, I'm not. Phones do have an "off" button and guess what, I press it. If you want me to work an hour, pay for it.
Re:Cheap way to get 24 hour coverage (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is all true, you're mismanaging your time.
In my prior position, I was full time WFH. It was the first time I ever worked from home at all, much less the majority of the time. I learned fast that you have to know when to walk away from your desk.
While there are always emergencies and, (in my case,) scheduled maintenance periods to handle, if you find yourself working more from home than you do at the office, that's not on anyone other than you.
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I've worked from home for almost a year. I work 8 hours a day. When I clock in, I start working When I clock out, I turn off my work computer and I'm done. My phone is routed through my computer, so I don't get calls on it outside of work either. I do have an on call phone, but it's off if I'm not on call.
I'm IT for a medium sized company that does remote video interpreting. The interpreters don't work if they aren't on the clock either. The account managers and sales people might.
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That's a problem with your management, not with working from home generally. I'm not expected to be reachable at any particular time other than scheduled meetings, and certainly not in the evening.
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I feel for you, as your workplace apparently really, truly sucks. When I started working from home, I treated my hours much like I did when working on-site. There are only a few exceptions:
I'm supposed to be at work by 8:00am (which I usually am when at the office), but now I typically log into the VPN earlier than when I'm actually at work. And why not? There's no reason to split the seconds anymore, and no stressful commute to put me into a bad mood first thing in the morning.
I work until noon. When
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The problem with working at home is that you are considered to be reachable 24 hours a day. There is never a "quitting time". With the kids home I am working a normal shift, then helping the kids with school work, cooking supper, taking the dog for a walk, and then answering emails from management before going to bed to start it all again the next day. I can't wait to get back to the office.
Some countries have specific regulations for that. Germany started it 10+ years ago.
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and then answering emails from management
Why? Your shift is over.
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"The problem with working at home is that you are considered to be reachable 24 hours a day"
protected by law, at least in EU.
If you sit at a desk and never get up... (Score:2)
If you sit at a desk and never get up, never speak to anyone, then this will work just fine, where you sit is irreverent
But they will soon realise that funding people's home internet, technology, and other resources is not going to be cheap ..and many people are getting by working at home, but really need the resources of an office to work effectively
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But they will soon realise that funding people's home internet, technology, and other resources is not going to be cheap .
Hilarious that you think they would pay for your internet anymore. 20 years ago when dial-up was the norm and work really needed at least ISDN it was a thing, or even 15 years ago to pay for someone to carry a blackberry around. Now with both home internet and even cellular service being ubiquitous, they'll just shrug you off.
On the technology front, largely it's a wash. The same laptop that the company may buy for you can be home or at work. Any datacenter equipment is going to stay put. For any odd he
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The company I'm contracting with right now is indeed reimbursing for internet and mobile phone right now. Of course that's only available to permanent employees, so I don't get it, but I figure it's a wash; I was going to pay for it anyway.
Of course, I seriously doubt that's going to be the case long term, just like I doubt the majority of employees are going to be allowed to WFH after this is all over.
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Well technically in the UK most residential broadband connection don't allow long term working from home in the T&C's. The odd day or week here and there is fine. Every working day of the year not so much, you need to switch to a business package.
That said it's not strictly enforced at the best of times, and all the major ones have said it won't be enforced at the moment. They could not cope with everyone changing the packages on mass.
Mind you I just checked online with my ISP, and at the moment if I ag
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The employer should be chipping in an allowance for all of the things you mentioned. Working at home increases the employee's cost of all of those things.
Should the employer be expected to pay all of those expenses? No. But, they should be offering to pay the difference.
Re: If you sit at a desk and never get up... (Score:2)
Who said they will pay? Or even pay a portion? While it seems noble, the same thing could have been said about a car or the gas that goes into the tank. They expect you to get your ass to work. Whether that is gasoline or an internet payment, it is the criteria of continued employment.
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That's why it will be sold as a bonus, and option. You're free to work from home, we're so novel and innovative! Of course you can also come to the office. No, we don't have parking space here. And the lighting is crapping out occasionally. And the elevators don't work, but there's stairs you can take to the 10th floor. The aircondition doesn't work, if it exists in the first place, and heating ... yeah, we called maintenance last week, but they said it could take another month or two...
In other words, they
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What white color job needs the resources of an office? Someone else mentioned big files being problematic on an asymmetric connection, but that's easily resolved with thee plethora of available options. Log into a terminal server or SSH session, (over VPN of course,) and manipulate the files remotely. Problem solved.
Of course, it's on the employer to provide those resources, but we're not talking about a huge investment, even for thousands of employees. In the case of the place I work, that infrastructure w
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We are a 50-person, 2-office engineering company and work with large models, and 80% of our current IT issues resolve around VPN connections dropping (primarily WiFi interference), and forcing users to reboot their machine in order to reconnect at least once per day. Most work is done via RDP, but for smaller files it is more efficient to work on the home workstation, which causes files to get corrupted.
Our real-estate costs are 5-7% of payroll; it is a trivial cost relative to the lost productivity. We wil
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80% of our current IT issues resolve around VPN connections dropping (primarily WiFi interference), and forcing users to reboot their machine in order to reconnect at least once per day.
This is a legitimate point that I often forget, and thanks for bringing it up. At home, I only work on a wired connection, but that's because I made a concerted decision to have my house wired for Ethernet several years back, and invested in the infrastructure to support it, not just for work, but because I can see a lot of wifi APs from my suburban home. Not everyone has that option, especially in the current situation.
What will need to change for us is we will likely move the bulk of our servers and Remote Desktop infrastructure into a co-lo where we have more robust network links, and can address the imbalances in our current server arrangement. Sadly I wish more meaningful cloud migration was viable, but only the trivial stuff seems to work that way.
Colo is indeed the best option, in my opinion. I've worked for a MSP, the clients who we
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My company doesn't provide most of those. The provide the computer, but that's pretty much it. But, a computer would be provided for that job in the office, anyway.
But, the extra money I pay for decent bandwidth is less than the money I save by not commuting.
The maintenance costs are negligible, which is why my company has been going increasingly remote for a while.
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The laptop etc will cost the same wherever you're using it...
Home internet you would have anyway, so they're probably not going to pay for that, and even if you don't it probably costs less than your commute does so even paying for it yourself leaves you better off in most cases.
Office space is expensive, they will save a lot of money by no longer paying for that.
Outsourcing 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
If the organization functions well with remote workers 50 miles away, why not 10,000 miles away?
Couple that with infinite QE and StockBuybacks 2.0, and we will definitely Make America(n Companies) Great Again!
Re:Outsourcing 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)
If the organization functions well with remote workers 50 miles away, why not 10,000 miles away?
Ethics, quality of product, legal reach of the law, and so on are the kinds of stuff prevents outsourcing of a lot types of jobs. Like a lot of coding jobs are overseas, but the quality of code that comes from those shops are iffy at best and you've got someone you can't prosecute under your country's laws having some form of access to your system. Call centers have issues trying to go overseas because of the language barrier, someone that speaks with a five mile thick accent isn't going to provide the service that people are expecting. Additionally, call centers that have gone overseas are notorious for "oopsie, lost some numbers" and then having those people falling victim to scams originating from same country.
Having someone that you can toss into an American courtroom still has a lot of benefits. A lot of those benefits, companies are still learning.
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My company has been struggling getting the business units to work with IT to digitize their business processes. This has been a strong catalyst. There will be far less printing and scanning when this whole thing is over, and far more communication over digital channels as opposed to dropping by someone's desk. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere between 10-25% of our workforce never comes back to office, except perhaps for a short time right after the crisis to coordinate a more structured change managemen
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If the organization functions well with remote workers 50 miles away, why not 10,000 miles away?
Depends on the direction...
One big issue (besides others mentioned) is time-zone. Do I, as an important manager, really want to do a stand-up meeting at 4:30AM? I don't think so. East-west can be a hassle. Of course, if I can find someone in South America who'll work for pennies on the dollar...
Or I can stay in the US. I can pay a local employee in the Bay Area $175,000 a year and have them leave in two months to the company down the road for an extra $5000/yr. Or I can pay somebody in Missouri $110,0
Re: Outsourcing 2.0 (Score:2)
What if 10000 miles away is you on a beach in South East Asian, only needing a quarter of your current salary because youâ(TM)re not paying ridiculous amounts of rent to a landlord who lucked it out and would otherwise be sitting on said beach thinking how great life is?
Remove the monopoly of location and it can work better for everyone (but the rentier class).
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Actually they don't need to go 10K miles away.. they can pull from people in Iowa and other "domestically cheap" labour markets.. basically when you unleash the location to the job, then you can cherry pick based on cost and skills rather than location/region. So I would expect if anything, for some rolls, a contraction of international outsourcing.. (now for some rolls, yes.. I don't expect any changes or an increase.. but most would return domestically (makes the logistics chain easier).. BUT it would ju
It's not hard (Score:2)
The lunches are better in the office though.
Fine with me (Score:4, Interesting)
I think what I have discovered over the past few weeks is that I like working from home. Yes, I miss the social interaction at times but I don't miss the long drive to the office, or the expense of getting there. I'm getting back nearly 2 hours a day that I would otherwise waste in traffic. At home i have an actual office (converted bedroom) with a view of the mountains. At work I'm stuck in this horrid open format with no privacy whatsoever. Technology has progressed to the point that I am fully capable of being productive in my home office. Heck, my boss isn't even in the same city as me so what difference does it make where I sit?
I'd be fine with going in a day or two a week but if I never see the inside of an office building again I'd be OK with it. Some people like going in every day and that's cool but I think the workplace of tomorrow will offer options. The cat's out of the bag now and workers are going to start to demand work from home opportunities. As for managers that can't deal with work from home? I suspect they will have a rather small talent pool to choose from.
My dream (Score:2)
"The new normal telecommuting may be a bit more permanent than realized, as 74% of CFOs say they expect to move previously on-site employees remote post-COVID-19, according to a Gartner survey. "
This has been my dream for years and years, and it only took a global pandemic and tens of thousands of deaths to do it.
Seriously, working from home is better for everyone. Reduced traffic, fewer car accidents, less gas burned, reduced wear and tear on your car, reduced wear and tear on the roads, fewer workplace-tr
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Couldn't agree with you more.
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Totally agree. It would be a pain to have to go back to office after this.
Been there, done that (Score:2)
I've worked from home for years. As the company I worked for imploded our largest customer bought us out, kept what they wanted and discarded the rest. After a few years I was all that was left. I tried working from a shared working/office space. This had its benefits, but not enough to justify the cost. I packed up my laptop and a few other goodies and set up shop from home.
I can work from anywhere that has good internet. When I moved last year I upgraded from ADSL to fibre. Nice!
...laura
Let the spyware installations begin (Score:1)
Fucked-up sociopaths. (Score:1)
Seriously, this rise in anxiety-disorder-fueled anti-social nutjobbery is extremely annoying.
Listen, you nutobs: No actual healthy human wants that! We're already assholes enough! We don't have to add even more sociopathy-causing distance!
Get a freaking therapy!
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Hello, Infosys? Give me 500 sysadmins stat! (Score:2)
CFOs are the ones signing checks and worrying about money. These are the people that the Infosys's, HCLs, Accentures, Wipros and TCSs target when they sell offshoring. WFH has just given them another huge weapon in this fight. Their sales force already takes advantage of the fact the CIOs and CFOs don't know anything about how the actual work gets done. They sow the seeds of doubt about a company's current IT staff and ask rhetorically why the company can't be rid of all those nerds staring at screens in th
Various Complexities (Score:2)
I'm all for better integrating telework in the future. I'm a true believer and will be heading this effort for my campus. But make sure you're considering all the implications.
Communication
-- Internet Access - Will the employer pay for a portion of the employee's internet bill? What happens if/when access fails.
-- Cell Phone - Will the employer pay for a portion of the employee's cell phone bill? A whole phone line?
Workstation
-- Does the employer require the use of a supplied workstation to ensure the works
Frankly (Score:1)
My office building is much larger and nicer than my house. I would rather stay there 8 hours a day than try to work in the same room as my family.
Re: (Score:2)
My house is much larger and nicer than my office. My home office has triple monitors, multiple computers, and a whole host of niceties that my employer would never provide me, like a sofa to lie on for reading long reports.
My office co-workers interrupt me more often than my family. I would rather stay home 8 hours a day than try to work in the same office as my co-workers. /it's different for everybody
Re: (Score:1)
My work office is 500,000 square foot. There are hundreds of chairs and sofas. And a coffee bar that becomes a beer and wine bar after 5. I can have as many monitors at work as I want, I prefer two, but many people have three.
At home, I have my laptop screen and an external monitor. Not a lot of space for much else. It's not like I can take over a bedroom and make it into a real home office because my house only has four bedrooms.
My coworkers email me or Slack me. My family refused to contact me by email, t
Re: (Score:1)
It's not that we hate our families. It's that work life is much simpler than family life. There are clear rules and better enforcement of consequences. If you are sick of someone's shit you can usually avoid them or play politics to get them fired. Nobody can get a rotten 10-year old daughter kicked out of the family.
I appreciate my family, especially my extended family, more the less I see them.
Re: (Score:1)
it'll be like visiting Graceland or Alcatraz (Score:1)
Within the next few years, we'll see the first attempts to maintain
commercial real estate as part of historic preservation and add it to
the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. My kids or grandkids will see
it only on a tour, loudly exclaiming "An office building! How quaint!"
CFOs don't have that power. (Score:2)
CFOs screwed up work-place efficiency with their high-density (== low cost per head) "open floor plans" reducing velocity. That stuck because you can't undo it easily; you need more space per person, which costs money, and it's hard to measure productivity even when everyone knows the truth.
But losing the ability to manage, the face-to-face communication, high-bandwidth mentoring, the team-building of in-person relationships and lunch-times... this will fail in two ways.