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How has your work life changed since March 2020?

What has changed at your job since March 2020?

  • More working at home

    Votes: 65 56.0%
  • Less working at home

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • No changes

    Votes: 41 35.3%
  • Moved job / industry

    Votes: 14 12.1%
  • Retirement / redundancy

    Votes: 4 3.4%
  • Some / all locations closed or consolidated

    Votes: 8 6.9%
  • Changed how you commute

    Votes: 16 13.8%

  • Total voters
    116
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telstarbox

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Interested to know what has changed in your work life since the first lockdown started. You can select more than one. Most of my friends (predominantly graduates in cities) are expecting a mix of home work and commuting for the foreseeable future but I know some people have been working "in person" throughout, particularly on the railway!

For me I swapped 7 years of commuting into London by train for a job in a more rural location, so I now drive 3 days a week and WFH the other 2.
 
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westv

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For me 100% working from home since March 20 (not 100% sure yet how that will change in the coming months) and I changed jobs in September - with a nice pay increase.
 

yorkie

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Yorkshire
For a time there was more working at home for me, but this is no longer the case. Presumably we are voting on how things are for us, right now?
 

Butts

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Joined
16 Jan 2011
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11,323
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Stirlingshire
Worked all the way through the pandemic from day one up till the present.

Travelled into Edinburgh by Train, Bus and Car and so far avoided the dreaded lurgy !!
 

DelayRepay

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21 May 2011
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I have worked from home all the way through this. I have not been into the office since 19 March 2020.

Although we will be returning to our offices soon, it will not be full time as some offices are being downsized or closed. Some people will WFH most days, others will do a mixture of 2/3 days a week at home/in the office.

My job used to involve going into London once or twice a month, travel to another UK location every few months and an overseas trip once a year. I expect all of this will be much reduced and replaced with Zoom meetings.
 

davews

Member
Joined
24 Apr 2021
Messages
647
Location
Bracknell
Self employed well past retirement age. Lockdown made the decision for me to finally close the business down and enjoy my retirement (although that was impossible with the restrictions...)
 

nlogax

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Joined
29 May 2011
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5,352
Location
Mostly Glasgow-ish. Mostly.
Working from home since March 2020 has been relentless and exhausting and many of us have assumed permanent remote employee status. As of the end of last month we've been able to visit clients and colleagues but outside of our offices which won't reopen until September. I really can't wait for the occasional commute somewhere...anywhere.
 

SteveM70

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Joined
11 Jul 2018
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3,802
Worked from home since 17/3/20 apart from 2 trips to a warehouse and 3 visits to the office. It looks like we’ll be expected to do 3 days a week in the office fairly imminently though
 

OuterDistant

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Joined
25 Oct 2010
Messages
548
Location
North Staffordshire
Worked from home from March 2020 to around February 2021, now 2-3 days a week in the office. These changes have made commuting by public transport viable, so we're now a single car household.

Should my employer want us in 5 days a week for some reason (the last 12 months have been the most productive we've ever had), I will look for a job elsewhere. There's a good chance that numerous colleagues will as well, given that a lot of them live some distance away.
 

317666

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Joined
4 Sep 2009
Messages
1,771
Location
East Anglia
No working from home at all for me, but I have moved to a different role within the same company (nothing to do with Covid!).
 

kristiang85

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Joined
23 Jan 2018
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2,651
I've been working from home all of this time, though have had dispensation to go in one day a week last summer and since April.

I've saved a fortune on commuting, though I'd happy have traded that off for my 2019 life.

My job satisfaction is a lot lower though - without the international travel and social ascpect of the office, I just feel like I'm pushing paper all the time, which is utterly boring.
 

pdq

Member
Joined
7 Oct 2010
Messages
800
My wife and I are both working from home. I tend to go in on average once a week when I need to do something practical. Otherwise I'm at home, and working far more productively on the whole, although I miss the adhoc conversations that give a window into problems I may need to solve. As a result, I've been saving £100 a month on my season ticket - and about the same on not snacking from Greggs or Sainsburys; as parking has been free at work, I've only had fuel costs - say £3 a journey. I suspect we will be moving back to a more general office approach but with flexibility to work from home on projects.

My wife has worked exclusively from home apart from 2 site visits. Her employer is showing no sign of reinstating office work across the board. To be fair, even when she was 'in the office' she wasn't in the same building as the rest of her team so she always argued that it was a pointless waste of time and money.
 

WelshBluebird

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14 Jan 2010
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Started working from home a few days before the official government guidance as the company I worked for could see the writing on the walls (helpfully they have offices globally so were already preparing for it based on what other countries had seen and done). We were pretty lucky in that we moved from desktops to laptops at the end of January (totally independently of COVID) which made it a lot easier! I've also been lucky in that I had just moved in with my partner and we have a spare room (that was originally just going to be a spare guest room). I do feel for people who live in house shares or busy houses with kids etc.

My actual day to day job has changed pretty little given I am a software developer and was already spending a lot of time on Teams calls anyway (Skype For Business as it was back then) due to some of my team being in other offices. And I get 90 minutes each day back - whilst I do also save about £100 a month too its more the time that I have really appreciated - its basically the same as getting an extra work day back (45 mins each way over 5 days is 7.5 hours which is the same number of hours I work in a day).

Saying all that, I probably will end up being in the office two or three times a week when it reopens properly. Partly because I miss social interactions and things like pub lunches etc, and partly because when we start hiring graduates again they will need the in person mentoring that you can't really replace remotely!
 
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Class 317

Member
Joined
7 Jul 2020
Messages
207
Location
Cotswolds
WFH for most of time only going on site about once a week. No plans at work to make people go back 5:days a week but between 1-3 days dependent on role.

Built a home office in garden and pagoda / outdoor wood burner for all weather socialising.

Taken up piano saxophone playing and started an open university degree course.

It's forced me to evaluate everything I do and I've adopted a no s**t stuff policy getting rid of loads of unnecessary stuff. I have also addopted a no wasted time approach to things like unnecessary social occasions which I used to feel compelled to go to which I no longer attend.

It's taught me time is the most important thing.
 

bramling

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Joined
5 Mar 2012
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17,685
Location
Hertfordshire / Teesdale
Interested to know what has changed in your work life since the first lockdown started. You can select more than one. Most of my friends (predominantly graduates in cities) are expecting a mix of home work and commuting for the foreseeable future but I know some people have been working "in person" throughout, particularly on the railway!

For me I swapped 7 years of commuting into London by train for a job in a more rural location, so I now drive 3 days a week and WFH the other 2.

No change to work really (apart from the inevitable Covid measures), however I use the car to travel a lot more now. This hasn’t been a conscious decision, it’s just happened over time - as car has simply become the optimum mode to use.
 

Ianno87

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Joined
3 May 2015
Messages
15,215
1) More working from home (and expect that to stay for at least a couple of days a week, mixed with some office time)

2) Change to travel: Now have a cargo bike to get the kids to school (then the office or back home) rather than the bus.

3) Probably, by necessity, more disciplined about my working day. Once the kids get home, scope to do productive work rather diminishes!
 

RuralRambler

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7 Aug 2020
Messages
152
Location
Brentford
I'm still going into my office (self employed) as normal, but not seeing clients for "face to face" meetings anymore. We automatically had at least one yearly review meeting with all clients (historical), but we stopped them last March. To be honest, no one cares. Now we do more by phone/email and that's fine. I've only got one client chomping at the bit for a meeting, but he doesn't actually "need" one - he's very old school and always wants to hand over paperwork in person, hand over his cheque in person, shake hands, etc., but we really never talk about anything professionally!

The other big change is the sheer number of clients we've lost who've gone out of business etc. The lack of covid support for the 3 million "excluded" self employed and small businesses has been a real killer. The self employed/contractor/small business market was our core client base and last time I checked the figures, we're close to losing half our clients. Some will start again, some quickly, some more long term, but a lot of those won't be restarting their businesses as they're completely screwed financially (repossessions, bankruptcy, loss of savings, loss of homes, forced to sell business assets/equipment to buy food etc).
 

LancasterRed

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21 May 2018
Messages
291
I've worked/studied at home throughout, which is interesting considering I work in science! However it can all be done on the computer so I take no issue with it.

So far I've had three days in at work including today and the measures in place have been sensible but not overzealous (as to be expected from this kind of industry, where a key focus is on safety)

I hope this ultimately leads to hybrid working which will save on commute times but also encourage face to face contact which is still necessary.
 
Joined
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623
Location
Helsby
Worked from home from March through to August 2020 then back in the office a day or two a week until March 2021 when I went back three days a week.
Hybrid working started this month and we are all mandated to be in the office two days a week minimum.
We also have flexi hours so I can work between 0700 and 2000 every day.
 

island

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0036
I work in banking (not customer facing). After the 13th of March 2020 I was instructed to work from home completely. I resigned from that company in June and left in September. In October I took up a new job, working full-time in the office for the first week and a half, thereafter 3-4 days a week in the office until 5 November. From then until mid-May I was working from home completely and since then I have worked 1-2 days a week from the office, otherwise at home.

As a senior executive I have led the move towards flexible working, and barring any further developments on the COVID/regulation front, from 6 September our staff will be asked to work 40% of their contracted hours from the office; they will have discretion (and we will have facilities) for them to work full-time in the office if they so choose. Subject to ensuring coverage for customers and effective teamwork, there will be flexible hours also, with a focus on delivery and output rather than hours and input.
 

lxfe_mxtterz

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3 Mar 2018
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817
Location
Sarahdale (West of Emmerdale)
Can't care for horses whilst sat at home, so no change for me! :D

Have shuffled up my commute numerous times during the pandemic however, experimenting with different bus routes, walking for part of the journey, etc. so as to actually find a bus that didn't drive past me displaying "bus full" every morning...
 

_toommm_

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8 Jul 2017
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Yorkshire
Not really changed much. I changed work location during the pandemic at request of the business so I had a longer commute, but the nice thing was that I could expense all of my commute so I didn't pay for my travel for nearly a year. To be honest the thing that actually kept me going was being able to go into work - I came to hate my days off as you really couldn't do much of anything!
 

WelshBluebird

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I work in banking (not customer facing). After the 13th of March 2020 I was instructed to work from home completely. I resigned from that company in June and left in September. In October I took up a new job, working full-time in the office for the first week and a half, thereafter 3-4 days a week in the office until 5 November. From then until mid-May I was working from home completely and since then I have worked 1-2 days a week from the office, otherwise at home.

As a senior executive I have led the move towards flexible working, and barring any further developments on the COVID/regulation front, from 6 September our staff will be asked to work 40% of their contracted hours from the office; they will have discretion (and we will have facilities) for them to work full-time in the office if they so choose. Subject to ensuring coverage for customers and effective teamwork, there will be flexible hours also, with a focus on delivery and output rather than hours and input.
Maybe this is just me, but I find the idea of setting a minimum number of hours in the office seems to fly in the face of "flexible working" and "a focus on delivery and output rather than hours and input". If you really want to be flexible and really want to focus on delivery and outputs, then why not let staff do whatever works best for them as long as they can fulfil their role (I word that very specifically because yes, for some roles you do need to be in the office more).
 

Cdd89

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8 Jan 2017
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Maybe this is just me, but I find the idea of setting a minimum number of hours in the office seems to fly in the face of "flexible working" and "a focus on delivery and output rather than hours and input". If you really want to be flexible and really want to focus on delivery and outputs, then why not let staff do whatever works best for them as long as they can fulfil their role (I word that very specifically because yes, for some roles you do need to be in the office more).
In a commercial environment, employees need to do better than just to fulfil their role. They need to do better at their role than the company’s competitors.

It may be the case (in some roles and for some people) that full remote working delivers better worker performance than in-office working, but companies requiring some in-office time (after 17 months of trials) implies this isn’t the case.

As an example, I’ve enjoyed being back at work, but without some form of encouragement toward the rest of the team there are people who I would never see. As someone who benefits from in person interaction, that would mean my employer is not getting the best out of me (or others who similarly enjoy in person interaction).
 

island

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Maybe this is just me, but I find the idea of setting a minimum number of hours in the office seems to fly in the face of "flexible working" and "a focus on delivery and output rather than hours and input". If you really want to be flexible and really want to focus on delivery and outputs, then why not let staff do whatever works best for them as long as they can fulfil their role (I word that very specifically because yes, for some roles you do need to be in the office more).
Our external professional advice was that there would be adverse tax implications for us if we didn’t have a minimum expectation of 40% of time in the office.

There are benefits of being able to spontaneously walk over to someone’s desk or have a chat whilst you make a cup of tea, etc., that remote working inhibits.

Personally I’m extremely introverted and would happily work from home forever if I could, but a number of tasks, interactions, and meetings which I do are much less effective remotely, or in particular when you have half the participants together and half on Teams.

None of this is set in stone however so if it turns out that we need to change the principles in the future we will.
 

nlogax

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Mostly Glasgow-ish. Mostly.
There are benefits of being able to spontaneously walk over to someone’s desk or have a chat whilst you make a cup of tea, etc., that remote working inhibits.

Some of that spontaneity will have to fall by the wayside if everyone is practicing flexible working. We're inevitably going to find that offices will not contain all the people we'd normally need or want to catch up with on any given day.
 

Cdd89

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Some of that spontaneity will have to fall by the wayside if everyone is practicing flexible working. We're inevitably going to find that offices will not contain all the people we'd normally need or want to catch up with on any given day.
In my workplace, the days are coordinated by teams. Of course that means less interaction between teams than before, but such are the pluses and minuses of this approach.
 

Crossover

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4 Jun 2009
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Yorkshire
In April 2020 my department moved to a flexible arrangement and personally I was doing 1 day a week in the office, the rest at home. Didn't overly enjoy WFH for long periods and the day a week in the office was usually spent catching up with colleagues over things you probably wouldn't pick up the phone to talk about. The industry I work in doesn't lend itself to remote working (manufacturing) so the number of remote workers was pretty limited on the whole.

Days in the office ramped up in June and come last July, I was back in the office full time and have been ever since.

My personal life has changed a bit since then and I am now in a flat of my own rather than the family home. I have done odd days at home since and have probably enjoyed it more and the extra time not commuting on those days has been useful for getting other things done at home
 

bearhugger

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17 Mar 2015
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Middlesbrough
Worked all the way through and gone into work using mainly buses and occasionally by train. Last years workload increased by quite a lot but we managed.
 
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