"Shirking From Home"?

Controversial: Politics & Govt Politics & Govt: Chat / Discussions
1

That’s one of the latest Buzz Phrases, coming in from our highly reliable Media.

The implication being that those who are now electing to work from home, because they are encouraged to do so for Covid reasons, are not putting in a proper day’s work.

Furthermore, the media has been hinting, this week, that having these measures in place, for example, for Civil Servants, is creating problems where big projects (Covid and otherwise) are concerned as we, really, need these people to be instantly contactable if we want to respond to threats.

Thus, many of the planning screw ups are thought to be due to the inability to speak to all planners at the same time, have the ability to get group thinking going, to solve problems, etc.

If a project has to be put out there, even using live, on line, it could change before you get to the last one, (IYSWIM) ← “If You see what I mean!”

I won’t ask you if you are doing a full and proper job, at home.

But, if you are working at home, can you still get everything right?

As always, with my posts, I shall not scream & shout if you go off piste, humorously!

(Better to Have Lived, and Laughed, than never have laughed, at all)

:family_man_woman_girl_boy:

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I think you have to be extremely “ disciplined and organised “ working from home.

I have a family member who has worked from home, but prefers his office, to many distractions at home he says.

Of course it’s impossible for some to work from home, as they need to be on the spot ,in case of emergencies,etc.

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I think he’s a wise man, Pauline!

I haven’t worked, for many a year, but I can imagine how there could be many interruptions, all through the day,

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Indeed Ted, that’s his words as well.:+1::+1:…

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Working from home has made a lot of difference here. It has forced house prices up in regional areas now that people have realised that they don’t need to live near their job. It has forced down CBD rentals as companies realise they don’t need the office space they once rented.

According to a news report productivity has gone up to the point that there have been some industrial moves to restrict the hours that employees working at home are available to their employers.

I happened to get chatting to a lady in my suburb who had just moved to the area from Sydney, she worked at either Uni NSW or Sydney Uni in HR and she had moved out of Sydney to what was a working class suburb because of the area’s fast fibre broadband, She only went to her office once a week. House prices have rocketed in the area since the pandemic started.

To give you an example - opposite my house where two weatherboard cottages once stood each on a quarter acre block they are building eight three storey townouses

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I don’t work at work, sure as hell ain’t gonna work from home.

Seriously my work won’t allow it, being hands on in a factory, there are around 18 office staff in the office block, I wonder how many will work from home tomorrow.

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7

After being made redundant and unable to get employment I decided to work for myself as a self-employed sole trader. One room at home was set up as my office. It was no problem at all working from home, in fact I did that for nearly 25 years in total, managing to pay my way during that time. After the first 14 years I decided to semi-retire and moved home. Again I set one room up for my work. Since full retirement, over five years’ ago now, that room remains as it was but is now my study.

The secret to it is to treat the working day exactly as you would if going to an office to work. Discipline and planning work is important and the key to it all. The start time of work for the day remains the same, although no travelling which is very helpful. During the day that door is closed so no distractions. An hour’s lunch break is taken, again at the regular time. When the working day ends the door is closed and then time is my own.

The one difference to those who are not self-employed but working from home is that when there was no work, for whatever reason, that for me was time off work. A mobile phone was very useful then, if there was a customer to meet up with it was a case of driving to their office to see what work was required. Other than regularly ensuring all equipment was maintained and any stocks of materials were replenished, I found there was more time available than I had when travelling into employed work.
:grinning:

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Shirking can be eradicated:

:023:

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Yes, Put Bloody 'Orrible Tracking Software in every home!

That should go down well!

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These would be ok if you had decent employers who only paid attention to your work, and not your life :roll_eyes:

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Well, you can’t trust the working classes … :man_shrugging:

:laughing:

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Well, they’re few and far between … :090:

:rofl:

In fact “decent employer” may be an oxymoron … :115:

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Can you see the possibility of “Throwing a Video Switch to ON” when you’re at your Home workplace, and throwing it back to “off” when you’re not working.

Wow! That’d lead to some “Big Brother Is Watching You” stories?

Anyway, I guess we have to balance the worker, getting his//her Privacy, versus The Employer, getting his/her business needs met.

Then, of course, there is us, the (forgotten) Customers, who pay for all of it!

Bottom line, though, if the Employer goes Bust, the jobs go too!

(Unless you’re in Government Employment).

(How many civil servants are in the Home Civil Service?
As at the end of March 2018 there were 430,075 civil servants in the Home Civil Service, an increase of 2.5 per cent on the previous year. There are two other administratively separate civil services in the United Kingdom.

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The Lady next door puts in long days working from home, especially in the Summer, from the relaxer in the Garden. :grinning:

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@spitfire , Oooer? Does she hang a red light on her door
when she’s working Spitty ??
Donkey ! :+1::thinking::+1:

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Nowt that exotic DM, she brokers finance.

17

@Tedc No wonder the snooker halls etc are packed out these
days Ted ?
I can’t believe that so many people get paid for doing what they
do for a living either ??
Who actually DOES the REAL work ??
Donkeyman! :-1::frowning::-1:

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You and I, DM!

We retire, the Government takes lots of our savings/assets, hires more staff.

Companies and employees are, clearly, the bad guys according to some!

Get rid of them, print more money.!

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Always have gone to great lengths to keep it real DM.

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Hi

I was one of those Government Employees.

There are many types of Government Employees, I was a manager from time to time and I did introduce working from home before the Pandemic.

I will not pretend for one minute that the whole of the Public Sector is well organised and efficient, it plainly isn’t, however working from home can be a great way of improving efficiency using new technology.

Not all Public Sector Workers are paper shufflers, a surprising amount work visiting places, if you have a noise problem for example or inspecting food premises or manufacturing places.

They have no need to come into the office every day and you can divide the jobs up to those nearest to their homes.

They only need to come in when things get to prosecution stage.

This simple thing improved productivity by a little over 20%.

There is no need to monitor things, if Mrs A of 17 Acacia Avenue does not get a visit when she was promised she is on the phone straight away.

This is simple commonsense.

There will always be a need for some to go into the office everyday, but this is minimal.

There is no need to put in intrusive tacking software for the paper shufflers, you simply send them 15% more work to do every day than they did in the office.

If they do not do it, no problem, they can have all the time, trouble and costs of coming into the Office Daily.

I hope this helps in this discussion.

As an aside, I would say that the Civil Service could be cut by at least 10% if Politicians would stop demanding loads of information they never read.

They do like to feel important.

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