This Business and Moment...

[Freefaller]

Execs it helps overlapping your schedule in the office, but they will pick up the phone or their PA will. Engineering complexity and the need for speed - you can beat a board or window in an office to draw on.

"Nothing interesting happens in the office" (NIHITO) as the now CEO of Pragmatic Marketing would say during our training - referring to the customer world..

NIHITO! I hadn't come across that - like it! Disagree with it, but I like it nonetheless!

I guess it depends on your sector, as someone that works in the infrastructure (civil engineering) sector, there are many projects, challenges and opportunities for innovation that working with the project teams or staff from across the various projects does in my opinion offer more ideas, and dynamisms that in my opinion you cannot get from an online environment. However that's perhaps more reflective of my age or perhaps my industry?

I've always told my PAs (I've only ever had 2) to always make me available for a quick chat (i.e. my door is always open) if I was in the office, unless I was on a call or in a meeting, if I was just in my office working I wanted to be accessible, and initially people didn't disturb me, but after a while, we used to have great brainstorming / ideation chats with a coffee on the whiteboard in my office - I used to take a picture of it and develop it with the teams (remotely sometimes) - it was brilliant. Sure, that could have happened with a more structured meeting, but sometimes people get a brainwave, or an idea, I want to encourage them to bring them forward whilst they're developing rather than let them subside.

 

[dlockers]

"Nothing interesting happens in the office" (NIHITO) as the now CEO of Pragmatic Marketing would say during our training - referring to the customer world..

We had a similar briefing. There was one exec who used to go around logging the names of people who had booked offices, to then ask them why they were spending so much time in our office instead of their Customers office.

 

[HangTime]

my door is always open) if I was in the office, unless I was on a call or in a meeting, if I was just in my office working I wanted to be accessible, and initially people didn't disturb me

I have found having senior managers sat in the open office (rather than 'their office') made a big difference to approachability and staff engagement feedback. Obviously, the most senior managers need some private space for discussions etc but the way we had it was even our CIO (of a FTSE100 company) had a desk in the open office but had a small meeting room with VC etc nearby that could only be booked via his PA, so he and other senior leaders could use that as required.

 

[Freefaller]

I have found having senior managers sat in the open office (rather than 'their office') made a big difference to approachability and staff engagement feedback. Obviously, the most senior managers need some private space for discussions etc but the way we had it was even our CIO (of a FTSE100 company) had a desk in the open office but had a small meeting room with VC etc nearby that could only be booked via his PA, so he and other senior leaders could use that as required.

Yep I used one of the hot desks if I didn't have a lot on and used my office as a private meeting room that I didn't need to book. I found it built a lot of credibility / appreciation from my team (and non direct reports too).

 

[RobHu]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this but...

An old colleague of mine who moved (back) to Australia (Perth) a few years ago contacted me out of the blue this week to tell me that his company are heavily recruiting and potentially looking to sponsor visas. It's something I've considered in the past but never taken any steps toward because though my skillset qualifies me to apply for a visa via points myself it's a long and expensive process.

We don't have anything seriously tying us here other than family and our parents are only late 50's/early 60's. Our flat can be rented out and the cat can come with us with some difficulty. No kids.

I've been to Melbourne quite a few times for work trips in my previous job but never for more than a couple of weeks at a time, and most of that working flat out.

Anyone ever made such a move or knows people that have? What's it like actually working/living out there? Maybe it's just new year back to work restlessness...

 

[randomshenans]

Anyone ever made such a move or knows people that have? What's it like actually working/living out there? Maybe it's just new year back to work restlessness...

What do you have to lose? Don't like it, come back?

 

[RobHu]

What do you have to lose? Don't like it, come back?

Yes we've said the same thing about 5 times this week .

The only real loss is that the AUD is quite weak at the moment, so in GBP terms I'd be taking a ~£10k pay cut in all likelihood.

 

[randomshenans]

The only real loss is that the AUD is quite weak at the moment, so in GBP terms I'd be taking a ~£10k pay cut in all likelihood.

Only matters if you're in the Uk though. If you're over there why does the comparison / exchange make a difference? You can rent out your flat. That stays in GBP. I compared exchanges for a while but you soon realise it makes **** all difference as you don't live in England anymore.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Yes we've said the same thing about 5 times this week .

The only real loss is that the AUD is quite weak at the moment, so in GBP terms I'd be taking a ~£10k pay cut in all likelihood.

Weigh that up against cost of living there, not here, though. Aside from moving/setup costs etc, it might be a good salary.

 

[Freefaller]

Whilst I'm not a big fan of Australia (politically, culturally) I have a lot of reason to be tempted there (family and friends live there), better weather, easier pace of life - I'm very keen on doing the expat thing for a couple of years somewhere (as a multinational that has lived in a few countries pre-adult) - NZ would be another place I'd like to go.

Personally if you don't have kids, or they're young, do it - it's only going to help build your experience / knowledge - especially if they offer a relocation package.

 

[RobHu]

Yeah the exchange rate thing is not logical, it's psychological for sure. It'd make a difference only when visiting the UK/moving back here one day.

I think there's a good chance we'll go for it, and give it at least a year to see if it's for us long term. I obviously may not even get the job my friend wants me to interview for so might have to look around a bit - Brisbane looks nice, relatively affordable, and well connected to other east coast cities as well.

@Freefaller A friend of mine is moving to NZ, he's been there quite a few times and absolutely loves it. It's all straightforward for him though because he works for Amazon and they're happy to sort it all out.

 

[NickK]

Personally if you don't have kids, or they're young, do it - it's only going to help build your experience / knowledge - especially if they offer a relocation package.

Many expat packages will have the house, car and kids private schooling/international schooling included.

 

[Freefaller]

Many expat packages will have the house, car and kids private schooling/international schooling included.

I was offered a role in HK which I kinda wish I'd have taken but we had just had our second kid and it felt "too much" , especially with the rental prices for property and the lack of space. But the experience would have been amazing, I love HK and Asia in general. The package they offered would have still left us a little out of pocket so it probably wasn't as good as it could have been.

You're right though a lot of companies do offer everything. It's something I'm casually working on in the background.

 

[HangTime]

Yeah the exchange rate thing is not logical, it's psychological for sure. It'd make a difference only when visiting the UK/moving back here one day.

Who knows what the exchange rate will be if/when you move back. It's all relative anyway, when I went to Australia it was a 2:1 exchange rate so the dollar is stronger now than it was then.

You could hedge your bets as it were by maintaining funds in both currencies i.e. put your rental income into UK savings.

 

[regulus]

I moved to NZ 8 years ago. Or it will be 8 years in February (crazy to think about the quick passage of time). It worked out well. Had fun at first, then reality set in and I wanted to head back to the UK after 3 years or so but I've settled now. Part of the furniture so to speak. But we will head back to the UK one day. If only for a year when our daughter is a bit older. Just to show her where her old man grew up.

 

[jaybee]

With wfh vs office I find these the only things I can say are benefits to commuting into London:

1: The exercise
2: Change of scene. Away from home is out of your control and you see and experience different things and people. This is naturally healthy. Being on the move commuting can feel good sometimes. My office is high so the view is nice.
3: Seeing people face to face and talking/collaborating without teams delay/echo/muting etc.
4: Office banter and wider casual conversations and unprompted discussion / brainstorming

With 1, you can't really argue but you can easily match it or exceed it with wfh by having more time to work out at home or go to the gym or whatever.
With 2, 3 and 4 I can take it or leave it. I think we have become very efficient at working from home and people are becoming more at ease with just calling people up on teams to chat and have a bit of banter and not always keep it too formal.

What I can say about going into the office is this though... everyone is wearing headsets. Like all the time. Because so many people will be remote on a given day, a lot of meetings you attend in the office you have to do from your desk anyway with a headset because there are not enough meeting rooms and you have to be on teams anyway to hear all the remote people. This causes a problem....noise. People naturally talk loud when others are talking loudly around them to compensate, and suddenly you have an office of people talking loudly like a call centre and it becomes really annoying. The amount of teams calls I have been in where people ask others to go on mute or that they can't be heard, and it's because they are say next to someone else talking also on a call and the mics pick it all up. It gets tedious.

Then in the office you also get the classic walk ups. The people that won't log a ticket or email you or teams chat you...nah...they'll walk up to you when you are writing line 3017 of 3030 of your powershell script demanding your instant attention. This gets long.

Then there are the back to back meetings where one over runs and you turn up late for the next because of the time it takes to walk to the next meeting room. The annoying staff who don't know how to use the kitchen/toilets despite being adult age.
Fire alarms.
Tube and train delays...strikes...ticket prices....

This is why wfh is a revelation and has been coming anyway before COVID. We are MORE PRODUCTIVE from home in 99% of cases. Most tend to work longer in fact and still feel fresher. There will always be those that take the biscuit, but the pretenders are easy to weed out with some basic management.

 

[OspreyO]

So my business that I detailed in this post is coming up for 18 months old. The growth has been slow but steady and has been picking up the pace for the last 6 months. We've learned a few lessons in that time, not limited to:

1. Native iOS/Droid App is a must. Trying to make a mobile friendly website for all devices is such a pain.
2. Ease of use has been our number one selling point.
3. Potential customers seem happy to disregard you unless you offer everything they could ever want.
4. A lot of people seem to take out trials and then not actually do anything beyond signing up.
5. Mobile phone use seems to be about 90%. Tablets 7% and laptops/desktops the other 3%. Some users have never seen our website on a laptop/desktop
6. Invest in social media marketing and keep posting as Facebooks algorithm for what to actually show is weird.
7. Prepare to deal with a lot of time wasters and people too lazy to find the answer to their question.

We're at the point now where we can take about £2000 each per month after tax & running costs so I am happy at the moment with some passive side income as I have an actual day job as a Project Manager. Thankfully this business does not require much effort at all as our marketing and finances have been outsourced plus support is light. The difficult bit is going to be growing this product and the others we have in the pipeline so we can leave our day jobs + side money and transition fully into this. I'd like to think within the next two years we can do this, subject to the performance of the other products. I'm very happy that we decided to spend all that time working on this and working for yourself is so much more satisfying than working for someone else.

Love hearing about this side of business. I've never been on that side of a business in a long time

 

[OspreyO]

With wfh vs office I find these the only things I can say are benefits to commuting into London:

1: The exercise
2: Change of scene. Away from home is out of your control and you see and experience different things and people. This is naturally healthy. Being on the move commuting can feel good sometimes. My office is high so the view is nice.
3: Seeing people face to face and talking/collaborating without teams delay/echo/muting etc.
4: Office banter and wider casual conversations and unprompted discussion / brainstorming

With 1, you can't really argue but you can easily match it or exceed it with wfh by having more time to work out at home or go to the gym or whatever.
With 2, 3 and 4 I can take it or leave it. I think we have become very efficient at working from home and people are becoming more at ease with just calling people up on teams to chat and have a bit of banter and not always keep it too formal.

What I can say about going into the office is this though... everyone is wearing headsets. Like all the time. Because so many people will be remote on a given day, a lot of meetings you attend in the office you have to do from your desk anyway with a headset because there are not enough meeting rooms and you have to be on teams anyway to hear all the remote people. This causes a problem....noise. People naturally talk loud when others are talking loudly around them to compensate, and suddenly you have an office of people talking loudly like a call centre and it becomes really annoying. The amount of teams calls I have been in where people ask others to go on mute or that they can't be heard, and it's because they are say next to someone else talking also on a call and the mics pick it all up. It gets tedious.

Then in the office you also get the classic walk ups. The people that won't log a ticket or email you or teams chat you...nah...they'll walk up to you when you are writing line 3017 of 3030 of your powershell script demanding your instant attention. This gets long.

Then there are the back to back meetings where one over runs and you turn up late for the next because of the time it takes to walk to the next meeting room. The annoying staff who don't know how to use the kitchen/toilets despite being adult age.
Fire alarms.
Tube and train delays...strikes...ticket prices....

This is why wfh is a revelation and has been coming anyway before COVID. We are MORE PRODUCTIVE from home in 99% of cases. Most tend to work longer in fact and still feel fresher. There will always be those that take the biscuit, but the pretenders are easy to weed out with some basic management.

The classic walk ups are killing me even wfh.

Completely disruptive. They can't wait to get back in the office so they can get back to walk ups. Even with teams, and email they only use phone calls. My schedule over the last two months is completely shot t with some people's ad hoc work.

Up till now with WFH I've escaped much of this. Out of sight out of mind.

 

[HangTime]

Because so many people will be remote on a given day, a lot of meetings you attend in the office you have to do from your desk anyway with a headset because there are not enough meeting rooms and you have to be on teams anyway to hear all the remote people. This causes a problem....noise.

This an example of the sort of logistical challenges with hybrid working I mentioned earlier, where you can't really take advantage of being in the office because others are working remotely. I can see the modern office evolving into a layout with lots of collaborative space and then a suite of soundproofed 'pods' like you see in WeWork at the like, perhaps with a smaller desk footprint than normal.

Then there are the back to back meetings where one over runs and you turn up late for the next because of the time it takes to walk to the next meeting room

Yep, an extension of this is that if a required meeting attendee is running late, working remotely you can just carry on tapping away as you haven't had to leave your desk, so them being 4 minutes late doesn't necessarily lose you 4 minutes of productivity, you haven't had to walk to a meeting room, sit twiddling your thumbs for a few minutes and then debated with yourself how long you wait before you give up.

 

[Rroff]

I can see the modern office evolving into a layout with lots of collaborative space and then a suite of soundproofed 'pods' like you see in WeWork at the like, perhaps with a smaller desk footprint than normal.

I know someone who is renting out office space to a number of companies who've downsized through the pandemic where they now keep a smaller permanent office within the building then each hire out the remaining space as required - I can imagine it gets a bit complex though with availability vs requirement especially if working from home reduces somewhat.