Extending Commute times...

CLAPTON

Generali wrote: »

My kids are less of a distraction than my colleagues.

IME I get far more done at home than from work. Partly that's because my working day is just longer: I generally spend half the saved commuting time on work and half on play. If I need to work on a complex piece of analysis I can just keep my head down for as long as I need to concentrate, knowing that I'm not going to be asked to help/if I want a coffee/can come to a meeting/where a colleague is.

Sometimes you simply need to be in the office. For example today we had someone over from the US and it would have defied the whole point to be at home. I normally spend about a third of my time working from home. I could probably up that to 2/3rds for much of the year.

yes of course

many individuals work from home with added value to themselves and to the company

however, there are many reasons and work situations where it doesn't work well.

kabayiri

https://youtu.be/jMCR9xep81E

Have a watch of this, for those who are interested.

It's starting to redefine the concept of teleconferencing. What we have in terms of collaborative tools at the moment are really in their infancy.

Generali

CLAPTON wrote: »

yes of course

many individuals work from home with added value to themselves and to the company

however, there are many reasons and work situations where it doesn't work well.

I can't imagine a barman or waiter going too well working from home!

Lots of the analysts and portfolio managers at work spend a goodly amount of time working from home for the same reason as me: they can get more done and can spend some extra time with the kids too.

[Deleted User]

The reality of conference calls when working from home.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYu_bGbZiiQ

I've just got off my 3rd call of the day, totalling 2.5hrs. In reality, if i was in an office, i STILL would have been on exactly the same calls. Because I was at home, I can make a coffee whilst i'm on the calls, I'm more comfortable and have no one trying to talk to me at the same time.

2 more hours of calls left to make today

I'll believe I can have a holographic teleconference once someone can confirm I can have a 4 way telephone call over skype without one person sounding like a robot half the time, Home broadband upload capability really hampers a lot of teleconference capabilities.

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

I can't imagine a barman or waiter going too well working from home!
...

Err....

https://youtu.be/3OgFZovYS9U

Beep beep

kabayiri

ringo_24601 wrote: »

The reality of conference calls when working from home.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYu_bGbZiiQ

Lol

Excellent

Something many of us will recognise.

lisyloo

This sounds more to do with Management/policy issues rather than anything else.... are your management 'old school' ?

Marissa Mayer of google fairly recently came out with a policy about being in the office. I believe "collaboration" comes up a lot.
So not it's not - old school. It's new and cool to come into the office :-)

It's not about sickies or trust it's now about collboration with your colleagues.

Generali

ringo_24601 wrote: »

The reality of conference calls when working from home.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYu_bGbZiiQ

Brilliant!

A recent conference call I was on I did from the car in the local rugby club car park after dropping the kids off. I had to have the engine on to keep the air con on because the sun was superheating the car (it was one of those days where it was almost 30C at 9:30am).

The rugby club is in a dip next to the National Park so the reception was really poor and one of the guys from the States was on a mobile and someone else sounded like they had they head in a bucket.

I was taking minutes.

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

Brilliant!

A recent conference call I was on I did from the car in the local rugby club car park after dropping the kids off. I had to have the engine on to keep the air con on because the sun was superheating the car (it was one of those days where it was almost 30C at 9:30am).
...

I don't think Working From Home means the car yet !

(though I do remember a contractor who lived in his camper van, and argued that he should be allowed to leave it parked in the works car park...)

michaels

Moby wrote: »

You can sometimes...... but there are a lot of vacancies for eg social workers in places like Haringey; lots of inner London Borough's are short staffed when it comes to public service/teaching jobs. There is an extreme shortage of nursing staff in London hospitals, hence the recruitment drives.

CLAPTON wrote: »

Sadly all the major parties are colluding in the 'affordable housing' myth, which means the only people who can how get housing in London are the unemployed and people on benefits.
People doing real jobs like utility workers, nurses, social workers etc can't compete on price to buy and don't qualify for 'affordable ' subsidised housing.


Hopefully, the economy will continue to grow and the essential workers will find jobs outside the capital and the essential services in London will actually collapse.
Maybe then a few politicians will just consider than maybe, just maybe we need local homes for real people willing to work and not just the lifestyle unemployed.

The problem is the unions insist on collective bargaining and national pay scales. Paying the wage that would fill London vacancies nationally is therefore prohibitively expensive so instead London has loads of vacancies requiring expensive agency staff and international recruitment.

Not even the Tories have dared touch this one though and suggest local pay rates.