Remote or office-based?

[JustAnotherHuman1]

Do you prefer to work remotely or from the office?

As a freelancer in tech am 80% home-office but due to the nature of the job title it's all about tangible results and there is no politics or face-time involved. All the client cares about is getting the work done to a high-standard and on time. Whether it's done from the office or not became irrelevant.

Before the pandemic it was quite a different story, as basically I would never be allowed to work from home or even discuss a hybrid setup. However with a tight pool of quality candidates its now us dictating the terms (IR35 and Brexit really took a hit on the supply), rather than employers. Most senior role job ads, consultant or otherwise, almost always state "once or twice a week from the office".

I guess working in a start-up or high-finance roles might be different as ideas flow better and there are more networking opportunities available.

 

[LondonFinance1]

Probably both - workign from home saves the commute, you might take 15 minutes to do the odd household chore and your coffee/homemade lunch is of decent qualitiy. For me, it gives me the opportunity to go for a long run or cycle twice a week which I really like. In the office, you have the opportunity to catch up with all your colleagues, have ad hoc meetings and all tech can be fixed quickly.

Personally, I do not see much value in going to the office to sit in front of a screen or dial into calls/video conferences any more (which happened quite a bit pre-Covid), but really value in-person meetings/workshops.

 

[J.Z.]

90% of the time I love to work in the office. It's a lot easier to overhear things and I always know what is going on. In a secondary market environment, people just shout and it's hard to get the right vibe at home
+ I really hate BBG Bell at home
working at home is quieter and can get things done if I want to code, but over time I just found i lost information and its hard to catch up when I come to office again

 

[curious_finance1]

I personally feel more productive working from the office. Catching up with other team members and communicating in person is a lot more effective than hopping on and off from short calls to discuss something brief like one would do online, no?
However, if a job or company offers the possibility to work also remotely, as everyone would prefer doing it sometime, I think is the best because you are allowed more flexibility and can choose your way of doing it as long as you feel you are making the right contribution.

 

[AugustusSeptimius1]

Do you prefer to work remotely or from the office?

As a freelancer in tech am 80% home-office but due to the nature of the job title it's all about tangible results and there is no politics or face-time involved. All the client cares about is getting the work done to a high-standard and on time. Whether it's done from the office or not became irrelevant.

Before the pandemic it was quite a different story, as basically I would never be allowed to work from home or even discuss a hybrid setup. However with a tight pool of quality candidates its now us dictating the terms (IR35 and Brexit really took a hit on the supply), rather than employers. Most senior role job ads, consultant or otherwise, almost always state "once or twice a week from the office".

I guess working in a start-up or high-finance roles might be different as ideas flow better and there are more networking opportunities available.

Appreciate you posting your experience. I was wondering, do you feel there is a growing stigma against those who haven't returned to 5 days/week of on-site work now it's so much more feasible to work from home?

 

[magellan1]

This is a very interesting topic. I have been working remotely for more than a year and I prefer working this way. Nevertheless, remote work also has many risks and disadvantages.
1) Most companies do not allow remote work for positions outside of tech (like software development). I have checked the vacancies on leading job portals such as efinancialcareers/LinkedIn and there are very few fully remote jobs in high finance. I guess that there are plenty of candidates for those roles that are happy to work in an office and companies have the power to dictate the rules. You would limit your career prospects if you are willing to work only remotely.
2) There is a high risk of missing important information and falling behind other people. When you work from the office you know well what your colleagues are doing, whether someone is available for a meeting or not, what is the overall situation in the company, etc. However, when you work from home you need to act very proactively to collect all this information.
3) Many people find it difficult to focus on their work when they are at home. There are many distractions like kids, pets, neighbors or chores that can impact negatively one's productivity.
4) The separation between your work and personal life becomes a blurred line if you spend most of your day at home.
5) One meets fewer people on a daily basis and one's communication skills are likely to deteriorate over time.
My point is that there are many risks associated with remote work that you need to be aware of and you need to take action to deal with those risks.

 

[sw20001]

I much prefer working in the office. I have been lucky with the places I have worked such that my views will be biased, but I hope that if you are a skeptic, we may at least agree on at least some of my points below.

1) I get so much more done. I stay focused by seeing other people working around me. I am also more productive when I am the only person in the office: because it is depressing to be working late, I work a lot faster to get things done so that I can get out the door ASAP: what I would do at work until 9pm could take me until 1am if I was doing the same task at my kitchen table (snacking, procrastinating, going down Spotify rabbit holes...). It's not face time I'm aiming for: on Fridays I am often the only person in the office, but I still go in for the productivity benefits.

2) Leaving a physical location at the end of the day to go home means I can mentally switch off from work.

3) My office is in a great location in terms of mainting a fun/social life after work. I can get to restaurants, bars, galleries, cinemas and theatres in walking distance (also further justifying any time/cost I've lost to commuting)

4) It obviously depends on where you're working, but working in the office can mean some great perks: free barista-made coffees, corporate deliveroo account. Cancels out transport costs associated with commuting, plus tastier and faster than anything I'd prepare at home.

5) I am a lot healthier because of going into the office. Even the short walk I do in the morning as part of my commute makes it easier for me to exercise later in the day (I have also strategically got a gym membership very close to the office). It is often too tempting for me to roll out of my bed at 08.55 and hit my desk immediately if I am working from home, setting up lazy habits for the day. I snack less in the office than at home, too.

6) A busier day as a result of commuting, going to the gym, the lunch run and socialising in town, as well as more breaks in screen time means I sleep better.

7) I genuinely enjoy talking to my colleagues. Sure, some are harder to get on with, but you have a better shot at changing this if you're having conversations with them in real life that over Teams. It's lonely working from home, especially if you have nobody too look forward to seeing after the work day is over.

8) I've noticed that people starting out in their career get spoken badly about behind their backs if they constantly work from home (coming from a company that supposedly welcomes people to WFH 24/7). As someone also starting out, I don't want to that for myself.

 

[JustAnotherHuman1]

Appreciate you posting your experience. I was wondering, do you feel there is a growing stigma against those who haven't returned to 5 days/week of on-site work now it's so much more feasible to work from home?

There is no stigma against those who work from home because it's not up to you to decide how many days a week you are allowed to work from home. In fact, if you try to work from home more days than your allowance, you'll find yourself looking for a new job soon. That simple.

Also, the number of WFH days you have varies from employer to employer, and seniority level as well. More senior employees might have more flexibility than junior ones; they have a better hand at negotiating this, otherwise they can threat to leave and it's more difficult to replace senior employees than juniors.

I'm a senior contractor in tech. In my role, it's rather common to find engagements where working 4 days a week from home is or even fully remotely is accepted. I can't really speak for finance, as my industry is probably quite different in many aspects.

Working from home became the norm rather than the exception since the onset of the pandemic. I'm not saying WFH did not happen prior to COVID: it did, but mostly from mid-level up, juniors were mostly in the office 5 days a week unless specifically negotiated otherwise. It was pretty much unheard of. It is now in fact the default arrangement for most, and employers who are not flexible on this will miss out on a large number of candidates from the talent pool, therefore gone are the days of working from the office every single day. Not because employers wouldn't like it; they surely would but as the whole workforce started to care about this flexibility (not having to commute saves a lot of time and energy), they either allow it or, they miss out on a significant number of potential candidates, ultimately affecting their competitiveness.

Similarly, working practices have relaxed a lot since the tragedies of overworked interns dying in their bathrooms, and I think senior management kind of also realised that it actually hurts productivity to force juniors to constantly put in 80+ hours work weeks. See the recent experiment to work only 4 days a week across FTSE companies. You couldn't really imagine this to happen a decade ago, but the pandemic has surfaced quite a lot of insights around modern working practices, and it doesn't seem like we are going back.

For anyone just starting out their career, it's a balance. You won't be given much flexibility I don't think anyway, as a junior, perhaps you'll get once a week, which you are welcomed to use, and it will actually work in your favour than against you (you'll gain a lot more energy and will feel better than you'd gain from attending the desk that day). Generally, it's better to keep this to a minimum, as you synthetize info and learn a lot more a lot faster, therefore you develop your skills a lot faster while working in the trenches - than in the comfort from your home, alone. It's a convenience type of thing. When I started circa 6 years ago, I would have really appreciated that one optional day per week to WFH. It would have made it a lot less stressful, than a mandatory 5 days a week attendance, and having to ask and get permission, negotiated on a case by case basis with my boss if I ever wanted to stay home because I felt like it.

 

[AugustusSeptimius1]

There is no stigma against those who work from home because it's not up to you to decide how many days a week you are allowed to work from home. In fact, if you try to work from home more days than your allowance, you'll find yourself looking for a new job soon. That simple.

Also, the number of WFH days you have varies from employer to employer, and seniority level as well. More senior employees might have more flexibility than junior ones; they have a better hand at negotiating this, otherwise they can threat to leave and it's more difficult to replace senior employees than juniors.

I'm a senior contractor in tech. In my role, it's rather common to find engagements where working 4 days a week from home is or even fully remotely is accepted. I can't really speak for finance, as my industry is probably quite different in many aspects.

Working from home became the norm rather than the exception since the onset of the pandemic. I'm not saying WFH did not happen prior to COVID: it did, but mostly from mid-level up, juniors were mostly in the office 5 days a week unless specifically negotiated otherwise. It was pretty much unheard of. It is now in fact the default arrangement for most, and employers who are not flexible on this will miss out on a large number of candidates from the talent pool, therefore gone are the days of working from the office every single day. Not because employers wouldn't like it; they surely would but as the whole workforce started to care about this flexibility (not having to commute saves a lot of time and energy), they either allow it or, they miss out on a significant number of potential candidates, ultimately affecting their competitiveness.

Similarly, working practices have relaxed a lot since the tragedies of overworked interns dying in their bathrooms, and I think senior management kind of also realised that it actually hurts productivity to force juniors to constantly put in 80+ hours work weeks. See the recent experiment to work only 4 days a week across FTSE companies. You couldn't really imagine this to happen a decade ago, but the pandemic has surfaced quite a lot of insights around modern working practices, and it doesn't seem like we are going back.

For anyone just starting out their career, it's a balance. You won't be given much flexibility I don't think anyway, as a junior, perhaps you'll get once a week, which you are welcomed to use, and it will actually work in your favour than against you (you'll gain a lot more energy and will feel better than you'd gain from attending the desk that day). Generally, it's better to keep this to a minimum, as you synthetize info and learn a lot more a lot faster, therefore you develop your skills a lot faster while working in the trenches - than in the comfort from your home, alone. It's a convenience type of thing. When I started circa 6 years ago, I would have really appreciated that one optional day per week to WFH. It would have made it a lot less stressful, than a mandatory 5 days a week attendance, and having to ask and get permission, negotiated on a case by case basis with my boss if I ever wanted to stay home because I felt like it.

Appreciate that really in-depth comment. Interesting.