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Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#101

Post by donpott »

dijit wrote: post #58
kzzzznot wrote: post #31

I expect employers should offer an additional allowance for extra space to work in at home or (post lockdown) coffee shop/coworking space fees.

In Sweden (and I suspect the UK) there are tax exemptions for home offices. There are some requirements, you can't use the room for anything except work, it must have a lockable door, etc; There's some consideration too for broadband, though I don't speak Swedish well enough to be able to file this for myself.

> (and I suspect the UK)

Can confirm. Or rather, there are tax exemptions for working from home, as opposed to having a home office.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#102

Post by guilhas »

kmlx wrote: post #94

i read a lot of studies about how productivity increases when working from home. so i decided to superficially calculate this after a year of working from home for all of my very diverse clientele (fortune 500, small agencies, etc). i felt that a lot less work was being done, but i didn’t know how much. or why. since i’m a coder at heart i looked at tickets/features and commits. something easy to measure. what i foun…

Definitely down. Not sure if because the amount of distractions at home, kid, pet, things to tidy up... or if because people are taking this more like exceptional times, so it is OK to slack.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#103

Post by dx034 »

csunbird wrote: post #76
ainiriand wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about lte connections? I live 40km from Berlin and I get 5G. 4G would be quite decent too.

Mobile data in Germany is very, very, very expensive. An hour of video meeting consumes around 1GB (I think, probably even more), you can not keep up with the cost, I think.

Absolutely. Vodafone sells unlimited data (incl. 5G) in the UK for £26/month (~30€), in Germany the maximum you get is 40GB for 60€/month. And 40GB is nothing if you are on the road a lot. Other providers are similar.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#104

Post by uzakov »

llampx wrote: post #91
alibarber wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like taxation regimes have scrambled to keep up with the fact that you can order something from abroad and have ambiguity of where the sales tax will be applied - this is the next big thing about to happen: High skilled, (comparatively) rich, healthy knowledge workers will leave the place they reside, move somewhere like Dubai (no tax, few free public services - doesn't matter they're not going to need them) to…

I think only a fraction of people would move away from their home country just to gain some tax benefits. Doesn't seem like most people I talk to are interested in that.

I would actually say the opposite: many people I know (in the 20-28 years old age group) who work in IT and earn good salaries in their countries have said they'd move if they can make much more elsewhere. I think its not just about tax benefits but also the actual potential salary.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#105

Post by dbetteridge »

endymi0n wrote: post #53
el_benhameen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I “worked from home” for several years before covid, but I never worked exclusively at home until covid. I’d usually spend a few hours of a few days a week at a coffee shop, library or park, and not being able to do that during covid has definitely made remote work feel more isolating.

While there‘s truth to that, it doesn‘t bring home my own issue with WFH: It might be okay to much better for individual contributors, but it‘s harsh for me as a manager. Zoom (fatigue) meetings all day, staring at the screen instead of real people and any form of "managing by walking around" and watercooler chats are gone. This might not make a difference if my job was a corporate mess and sucked before already, but…

To ask the pointed question, How do the employees you manage feel about the change?

Because for me the concept of managers 'just walking around' gives me that itchy feeling on the back of my neck.

And at the end of the day if the employees who write code/produce output are doing that efficiently that is the goal right.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#106

Post by Hamuko »

Anktionaer wrote: post #45
scandox wrote: post #23

Flexibility sounds good but what I have seen over the last year is that all boundaries in terms of when and where work begins and ends are being eroded. This started accidentally but it is now being actively exploited on an unprecedented scale.

Work ends when you say goodbye in the chat and switch off the vpn.

I actually just keep my VPN running all-week long since I'm too lazy to authenticate every morning.

For me, work ends when I switch my monitor inputs to my personal computer.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#107

Post by hnedeotes »

kmlx wrote: post #94

i read a lot of studies about how productivity increases when working from home. so i decided to superficially calculate this after a year of working from home for all of my very diverse clientele (fortune 500, small agencies, etc). i felt that a lot less work was being done, but i didn’t know how much. or why. since i’m a coder at heart i looked at tickets/features and commits. something easy to measure. what i foun…

you should add number of lines written for it to be scientific.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#108

Post by dx034 »

xvector wrote: post #88
scandox wrote: post #23

Flexibility sounds good but what I have seen over the last year is that all boundaries in terms of when and where work begins and ends are being eroded. This started accidentally but it is now being actively exploited on an unprecedented scale.

Setting boundaries is your job , not your job’s job. Almost everyone I know works normal hours or less even during WFH. To be perfectly clear, this is true regardless of WFH. Your work will never set boundaries for you as they benefit from you working harder and longer.

I disagree. The company has a responsibility to set rules around when it's ok to call people. Especially for junior employees it's very hard to decline calls from their managers late in the evening.

This has become a bigger issue as all communication is via phone or computer. Before, a lot was via personal interaction which just wasn't possible once you left the office. Now, no one really knows if someone is working or has already called it a day at any given point.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#109

Post by dx034 »

carmen_sandiego wrote: post #60
quickthrower2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At will employment is the problem. You should be able to switch off at a certain time and ignore work comms. But I think in US you’d be scared of being fired. In other countries like UK this has never been a concern, and WFH doesn’t change that.

The UK is basically 'at will' for the first two years. I've never worried about getting fired in that period. Just pick who you work for carefully and make yourself valuable.

The standard probation period is six months in the UK. I haven't encountered two years yet, is that even legal? And it's called probation period for a reason, it's a time for both sides to figure out if the arrangement works out and be able to quit with no or little notice otherwise. After that, 3 months notice periods are completely normal so it's good to not get locked into that from day one.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#110

Post by dx034 »

Anktionaer wrote: post #45
scandox wrote: post #23

Flexibility sounds good but what I have seen over the last year is that all boundaries in terms of when and where work begins and ends are being eroded. This started accidentally but it is now being actively exploited on an unprecedented scale.

Work ends when you say goodbye in the chat and switch off the vpn.

That only works if you don't have the chat/emails on your phone and if you can just switch that off. There are enough companies that allow business phones for personal use (can be great to save costs) which means you always have your business phone with you. And on the phone no one sees if you're working before they call you.
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