Tim Ewing’s Post

Commuting feels more and more like a pre-pandemic activity but with more hybrid and return to office mandates it is returning. Considering the negative environmental and productivity impacts, it's interesting to see articles like this where regular office commutes are questioned more often. https://lnkd.in/g63TZkiz

What does arriving early to the office do for you? It puts you in the driver's seat, allowing you to shift into the gear you want for the day ahead. Before traffic jams or endless notifications begin to distract you, or before the calls start flooding in, arriving early gives you uninterrupted 45 minutes to gather momentum and get up to speed. #office #work #workplace #mondaymotivation

In the past year, we've observed a significant shift in office attendance patterns, particularly on Mondays, where attendance has surged by over 25%. This increase indicates a growing preference among workers, who once favored remote work, to return to the office at the beginning of the week. Conversely, Fridays present a stark contrast, with office utilization dropping to 84% of last year's levels and just 40% of 2019's. This highlights the enduring popularity of remote work on Fridays, a trend that appears to be gaining traction. The overall weekly trend reveals a steady decline in office attendance as the week progresses, underscoring a notable shift in workplace dynamics. Avison Young | US

Why I love working from home: - No commute - Lunch with my wife - Get to put my kids to bed - Save money - Time to exercise is much easier Why I love working from the office: - I get to watch films on the commute - I explore lots of different food for lunch - I get to socialise with colleagues - The office has a great setup - My step count is super high There is no one size fits all to how we want to work. The truth is no one solution will take over. My preference is hybrid. Whatever your preference is there will be a place which caters to that.

Why I love working from home: - No commute - Lunch with my wife - Get to put my kids to bed - Save money - Time to exercise is much easier Why I love working from the office: - I get to watch films on the commute - I explore lots of different food for lunch - I get to socialise with colleagues - The office has a great setup - My step count is super high There is no one size fits all to how we want to work. The truth is no one solution will take over. My preference is hybrid. Whatever your preference is there will be a place which caters to that.

I used to commute 2.5 hours to work each way... That was 5 hours in total per day - commuting. - I would get a taxi or drive to the local train station, - Spend 1.5hrs on the train - Arrive at Waterloo and walk to the bus stop - Wait for the bus and then spend about 40 minutes on the bus walking to work. I'd arrive a hot mess - compared to everyone else who looked well groomed, walking in with their Starbucks, chatting to their colleagues about the office drinks the night before. That I didn't go too, because I had a 2.5 hour commute back home. I did this for about 7 years. Why? Because I knew that if I wanted to 'make it' in TV/Media I needed to be in London and I didn't want to up-route from where we lived down South near Petersfield. That was my sacrifice to make - it wasn't anyone else's fault or problem that I chose not to live in London. There is lots of discussions for and against working from home - it certainly would have made my life a-lot easier, but is the experience of working for a company the same, if you're at home? I think flexibility is key - when I was interviewed last week by Talk TV, Nick De Bois asked me if I ever saw a complete return to the office, to which I replied "Not if companies want to retain the best talent" But there are definite advantages to being in the office too, such as personal and professional growth, feeling connected to your colleagues and the social side (something I missed out on) So let me ask you.... What are the pros and cons for working from home? #workfromhome #workfromoffice #wfhjobs

Working from the office shouldn't be mandated unless it is an absolute necessity. 😊 I went to the office for the first time in the last few months and here is how I spent my time other than working activities: Wake up at 7:30 AM. ⏰ Get ready by 8:45 AM. 💼 Leave for office. It was usual peak hour traffic and I reached the office by 10:30 AM Since I am a virtual employee, I don’t have an employee ID card. Convincing the security that I am a genuine employee, arranging email from HR: 15 min 🤷♂️ Car Parking: 15 min Finding a meeting room to sit: 10 min 📊 Switching the places, since meeting rooms get booked very often: 10 min 🔄 Leaving the office at 6:15 pm 🚪 Commuting back from office to home by 8:15 pm Total time spent = 5 hrs 40 minutes. [Not to speak of how exhausting the journey to and from work was.] 😓 Now if you’ll convince me that holding some random coffee table conversations with your team members, relying on serendipity, and whatnot is more productive than wasting those precious ~6 hours of my time, you rely way too much on external factors in life. 🤨 Wherever it is possible, allow your employees to work from home. Let them spend the extra time pursuing a hobby, reskilling, or spending it with family and friends. It will anyway put them in a better frame of mind, enhance productivity, and yield greater returns per employee. 📈 Are working hybrid, or working from the office full time? Share your experience in the comment section👇 #employeewellbeing #productivity #wfh #workfromhome Think Sage

⏰ Have you heard the term 'chronoworking'? It's the approach of adapting working hours to your natural energy levels for maximum productivity. Originally coined by journalist Ellen C Scott, chronoworking allows employees to ditch normal office hours and instead, pick working schedules that match their personal "chronotypes" – the natural time at which their bodies want to sleep. Anyone who knows me will know that I'm not much of a morning person, but I am a self-proclaimed 'night owl'. I often have a surge of energy when everyone else is going to sleep and I don't know when to shut off. From a productivity perspective, I often get a lot of my work done between midnight and 3am. To me, this is just normal, but to others, it may seem strange or excessive. Between calls, meetings and other interruptions, working 9-5, just doesn't work for me all the time. In the middle of the night, there's no one sending Teams messages or WhatsApps and I can just get my head down and blast through my tasks. As a result, I might not be at my desk at 9am. So, next time you receive an email from me at 3:25am, don't worry...everything is fine! 😂 Does anyone else work like this??? P.S. The photo is from the Delight Exhibition that I visited in London on the weekend, but it is also a good representation of my brain at midnight 🤣🧠💥

Interesting perspective. Not sure the technology sector is fully aligned. However, there are some data points that still do not seem to be mainstream discussion. For sure, despite the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic, it exposed the working population to a "new benefit." Many found that it saved them time and money, created a greater work / life synergy, and gave them a "freedom" they had not known before. Does it work for everyone? Of course not and for a variety of reasons. That said, the current push for RTO does not seem to be supported by productivity. In fact, you could argue the opposite. Many work more remotely than they do in the office, simply from a standpoint of the repurposed commute time. Some suggest it is Executives forcing it because "this is the way we have always done it." That is probably true to some degree but what lacks is the analysis. No one is in favor of going back to rotary phones because that is what they grew up on. There is zero argument a smartphone enables greater productivity. An abundance of data supports that, but we are missing the real in-depth analysis on remote work...at least for the employee population where that is possible. The bigger issue I see is as the author described. Employees are any organization's greatest expense. Commercial real estate is the second. Empty offices have zero ROI and significantly take away from the bottom line. So if cash is king, why is there no emphasis on conducting this analysis? If organizations could greatly reduce a huge expense while at least maintaining, if not increasing, their productivity, wouldn't shareholders love that?

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many employers in Ontario have kept remote and hybrid work in their organizations. While this is a great win for work-life balance, employers should consider #MSD related hazards such as work-station set up and #psychosocial hazards from long term isolation when implementing new working options. #safein24