GimmeAnother1
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Works for non physical labor jobs so depends on your segment IMO. For the others it may be more about policy and process, environmental guidelines, etc.
No More Work Buildings?
Works for non physical labor jobs so depends on your segment IMO. For the others it may be more about policy and process, environmental guidelines, etc.
I have been working from home in a sales leadership role for about 15 years and I love it. I travel a ton for work to see customers and meet with my team and those face to face meetings are invaluable. My sales teams have been very distributed so there was no center of mass. I do think there is value to the information exchange that happens in an office. That said for many organizations today that is difficult to create.
I definitely think you will see the WFH option increase after the economy opens back up. There are many jobs that can be done remotely. Employees do need to be disciplined though. I have a separate office that I can go to, close the door and do my job. When the door is closed my wife and kids leave me alone. It can be very easy to get distracted though. The flip side is there are many evenings when I go in and spend an hour or more in my office doing work because it is right there. The same is true on weekends.
I definitely think you will see the WFH option increase after the economy opens back up. There are many jobs that can be done remotely. Employees do need to be disciplined though. I have a separate office that I can go to, close the door and do my job. When the door is closed my wife and kids leave me alone. It can be very easy to get distracted though. The flip side is there are many evenings when I go in and spend an hour or more in my office doing work because it is right there. The same is true on weekends.
I’m a bit skeptical, follow wealth creation. Historically it was in oil and then the oil barrons invested in Commerical real estate. Tech money has followed the same formula. Those who don’t want to see their investment implode control the modern workforce, we’ll see how it plays out.
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Yeah, for sure. Not going to see manufacturing jobs go remote. But definitely we have some roles that we questioned if they would work remote. There have been hiccups over the last month and people are figuring it out.
It's funny that people see an increase in production working from home. All the people I know that are currently working from home, which is about 10 I'd say, hate it. People are by nature social creatures. This working from home taught now when the kids are home and maybe your spouse is home as well is one thing. But when they go back to school and work and your all alone in your house day after day not even getting out of jammies I think you're asking for depression.
Now I could see maybe going to the office 3 days a week instead of 5 maybe. Also business travel is talked about so much. Sure you can do Zoom, skype, facetime or wherever, but nothing beats face to face. Being able to read someone's body language in person is priceless IMO.
On a side note I know 3 people who "work"from home that rent there own office space just so they can get outta the house and get dressed in the morning.
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Now I could see maybe going to the office 3 days a week instead of 5 maybe. Also business travel is talked about so much. Sure you can do Zoom, skype, facetime or wherever, but nothing beats face to face. Being able to read someone's body language in person is priceless IMO.
On a side note I know 3 people who "work"from home that rent there own office space just so they can get outta the house and get dressed in the morning.
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I don't think increased productivity and hating working from home are mutually exclusive. Even if there are kids and a noisy dog at home, most of us can gain privacy by closing a home office or bedroom door. We may not like it, but we can be more productive than creating a boiler room atmosphere by cramming twelve professionals into 6x7 cubes in a space that was never designed for it. Think about it - if you're on a call with someone and you consistently hear other voices in the background, you immediately perceive the person you are speaking with as having low status.
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I don't see us going away from brick and mortar on a large scale. That being said, I think there will be a continued increase in the numbers of teleworkers after this little "exercise" is over.
Just because I hear voices on the line during a phone call doesn't make me think low class. It does allow me to envision the office environment though.
I think the research and data is mixed on who is more productive, telecommuters or office workers. You can site studies for either argument. It's just my opinion that humans are not wired to work alone in isolation for a vast majority of people. Humans are social creatures by nature.
I don't think the massive rush to work from home and buy stuff online is good. Shuttering malls and brick and mortar stores is bad for workers and in my opinion bad for society. It'll be a sad day when there is no where to go walk around and window shop or people watch. Just my .02.
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maxw72
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My company just purchased and moved into a brand new $1 billion dollar building about a year and a half ago. We have had a policy and due to the fact that we are a financial institution, we can't be sending data over unsecured networks so working from home was not an option. As soon as COVID hit our IT department went to work and got our corporate office running on "dumb" laptops that are only able to do certain functions and data goes from the computer, to our server. As I work in the Finance department, which consists of myself and my boss/VP, I brought up the question "are we looking at this big fancy new building and regretting it now that we are allowing our employee's to work from home?" His response was something that if thought about makes perfect sense, in that no we aren't regretting it. Yes we have open floors now and we aren't going to push our employee's to come work back at corporate if it is something they don't feel comfortable with but if "working from home" is something that becomes the norm, we now have leasing space. We keep as much room as we need for employees, such as myself, who can't work from home due to the constraints of my job, and we also allow for employee's that if they need to come into the office that day a space to "rent" or work from on days that they come in. But other than that, we have just opened up 4-5 more floors of leasing space for companies that possibly don't have the capability to offer work from home. So long answer short.... No, work buildings aren't going away, they will just be used for other opportunities.
It's an interesting evolution taking place. A lot of good thoughts in here.
On a local level here, big compan/chain stores that reduced open hours won't re-expand them. The cost efficiencies of the current setup will be too big to ignore.
On a personal business level, I'm interested to see how the idea of a storefront/office changes going forward. As a contractor there are many suppliers/distributors that base your material pricing heavily on whether or not you have a storefront, product displays, etc. That has started to have creeping change in recent years, and forward thinking suppliers are looking more to the amount of new customer interactions, social media reach, even vehicle signage space for people they deal with. I think the idea of a storefront or commercial office will change even more and more rapidly from large companies on down after this, and as a small business owner, being able to eliminate that and still receive the same pricing would have huge cost savings.
On a local level here, big compan/chain stores that reduced open hours won't re-expand them. The cost efficiencies of the current setup will be too big to ignore.
On a personal business level, I'm interested to see how the idea of a storefront/office changes going forward. As a contractor there are many suppliers/distributors that base your material pricing heavily on whether or not you have a storefront, product displays, etc. That has started to have creeping change in recent years, and forward thinking suppliers are looking more to the amount of new customer interactions, social media reach, even vehicle signage space for people they deal with. I think the idea of a storefront or commercial office will change even more and more rapidly from large companies on down after this, and as a small business owner, being able to eliminate that and still receive the same pricing would have huge cost savings.
I've seen the commercials touting that you can now purchase a vehicle from home... it's been asked for for years and the answer is usually "paperwork"... "state law requires..."
I'm not going to try to speak for dealerships but I think that, as soon as covid-19 settles, the purchase from home options might "disappear" and the manufacturers will try to lure people or lead or direct them back to dealerships.
I see the above as dealerships sometimes put out lots of money in their franchises and they may try to protect their investment but the proverbial horse has been let out of the barn and it's not going back in with regards to having to set foot on a dealership lot to purchase a vehicle.
total speculation on my part
I have financing in place and a vehicle I plan to buy any time I walk on to a car dealers lot. I also have a maximum price that I’ll pay and it has nothing to do with what is listed (when buying used cars). I’ll have looked up he median trade in value and bump it $500.00. If it has new or almost new tires I’ll add $300.00 to that upon inspection. That’s what I offer them, take it or leave it. Most have taken it, and if they get me better financing (only happened once) I’ll go that route too.
Conversely when trading in a vehicle I’ll expect median trade in value UNLESS there’s other problems. Last new car I bought I wanted a Nissan Maxima 3.5. I was only going to lease it as they had a $199 a month lease on them with a 2k down payment for 36 months. The median trade in value on my car was $2200. They offered me $1700 and wouldn’t budge. So I told them either $2200 or I’m walking. They came back with $1750 so I bid them a good day and walked out. Went down the road and bought a lessor (still new) car for about the same monthly payment. I got my $2200.00 on my trade and I got a good deal on a brand new car.
A couple days later the Nissan dealership’s sales manager called me and told me they’d give me $2200 on my trade and I told them they’d have leased a vehicle that day had they given it to me but since they didn’t I found someone that souldnand dealt with them.
My point? It’s not necessary to do paperwork at a car dealership and to have a finance plan in place before you go. Lots of dealerships (I know, a can of worms but some are shady just like any other business) get kickbacks from financial institutions by financing through them. It may be a good idea to know your credit score too if you plan on financing through them. Back when I had very good credit (pre-pending divorce) I was told my score was at 640 and therefore didn’t qualify for tier 1 financing. I called BS and pulled up my score from all three credit bureaus. All of them at least a 110 points higher. I get that there’s variance but there’s a lot of ways car dealerships make money. Don’t be victim to any of them. It should be a good relationship for both parties. They make a reasonable amount of money off of you and treat you good.
If you get screwed over by trade-value, vehicle price,and financing, you’ll end up loosing potentially 10k. Let them make a profit. But take steps to keep it reasonable by knowing facts before you go there. And have financing in place. If they can top what you can find, go for it. They won’t even attempt to initially (my experience) but may once you let them know that you already have an interest rate of x.x for xx months.
Yes! Dealerships... also known as stealerships, the sales men and women are slimier than bottom feeding lawyers... they have their stereotypes for a reason. You sound like an informed buyer... most people aren't. They'll impulse buy a car based on emotion and fall in love with it... it's a powerful position to be in to walk away in the middle of negotiations. The dealerships don't think most people will because they won't... they'll settle.
I'll probably be in the market for a different vehicle in the short future as my son's car will be replaced by something he wants... I'll take that car and trade it in on something for me. I'm not looking forward to dealing with either of those situations but, should it come down to it, I'll be informed as to values and stick to them. I really won't care whether the dealership makes a profit or not... they ALWAYS get their profit somewhere.
I'll probably be in the market for a different vehicle in the short future as my son's car will be replaced by something he wants... I'll take that car and trade it in on something for me. I'm not looking forward to dealing with either of those situations but, should it come down to it, I'll be informed as to values and stick to them. I really won't care whether the dealership makes a profit or not... they ALWAYS get their profit somewhere.