My employer has around 1000 employees across two offices, of which the total desk space is around 700 at any one time. This has been facilitated through flexi working, hot desking and a small element of working from home for those that had laptops.
Since Covid hit, pretty much 8-900 staff are now working from home with the rest of us due to receive laptops within the next fortnight.
My employer is fully planning on WFH being the new standard and certainly has no plans for anyone returning to the office before next summer. On the weekly updates we receive, although there is some negativity towards it, the vast majority of staff, and the executive team, are happy with the productivity that WFH has brought.
In our latest update they are now discussing reviewing HR policies which state that you must live within x distance of either of the offices. They are stipulating that staff must be UK based however.
20 of us started in January and were only 11 weeks into our training and mentoring when lockdown hit and have been furloughed ever since. However when we return, we are receiving refresher training in all aspects, module by module, to bring us up to speed. As an employer I really can't thank them enough.
One of my neighbours has just bought a camper van and I was joking that I could borrow it for weeks at a time and as long as I could pick up a decent internet signal, I could WFH in a different place every day!
I am at the stage in my career that I am not looking for promotions or developments so WFH will suit me other than I would maybe like a bit of human interaction every so often, maybe one or two days a month in the office? However my son is 22 and works for the local council and has been WFH since day 1 of lockdown. He enjoys being able to climb from his bed to the office next door without commuting etc but I do fear that his career will become very stagnant as he won't be "seen" or be visible the way you would be in an office, joining in conversations with other teams, networking etc.
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