[linuxjobs] Ubuntu / Canonical Hiring

[James Roberts]

//offtopic//

We're an IT support org and I initiated remote working 15 years ago from 
various spots in UK and Europe. We no longer need an office except for 
deliveries that can't go B2B and the work/testbench facilities for 
fixing stuff.

But none of our clients, all SMB up to the £1-5M turnover category, are 
IT focussed. And all of the non-customer face2face ones intend to 
continue WFH *permanently* after we set them up and they liked it, and 
they are cancelling the leases on their London, hence overly-expensive, 
offices. Many staff are moving out of London - they can get a bigger 
place. Accommodation for 20-35 year-olds in London is pitiful and 
excruciatingly expensive.

The companies are leasing use on demand space in shared areas to have 
weekly team face to face meetings, management meetings, etc. at a cost 
saving of over 80% of their former rents.

This also fits in with their newly discovered needs in some cases for 
offices and warehousing in Europe. Running this remotely is now trivial; 
it's already set up and they are now familiar with it.

I really don't see that anything overall is going to go back to where it 
was, and really can't see why we need cities much any longer except as 
cultural centres... I may be completely wrong, but we'll find out, won't we?

//ends//

MeJ

On 04/03/2021 17:27, Steve Hill wrote:
> On 04/03/2021 15:47, Paul Feakins wrote:
> 
>> "If everyone's working remotely"
>> But they won't be for long.
> 
> Why not?  I understand that some people want to go into the office, but 
> why on earth should they have to?  I've been working remotely for over 
> 12 years and my colleagues all work remotely too.
> 
>> "That incentive can only serve to: 1. further inflate the cost of 
>> living in places that are already expensive"
>> No company cares about that.
> 
> Given that the companies are frequently subsidising the inflated cost of 
> living (i.e. through "London weighted" salaries), it seems incredibly 
> short sighted to not care about driving those subsidies up.
> 
>> "2. increase the business's expenses."
>> They obviously consider the extra expense an investment that pays for 
>> itself in terms of client relationships.
> 
> Only works if all your clients are based in London.  A company that has 
> clients all over the place is better placed if they have staff all over 
> the place.
> 
> As someone who owns a business that is not based in London, if I were 
> choosing another business to work with on a project, I would pick one 
> who has offices in, say, Birmingham rather than London - its easier, 
> cheaper and quicker for most parts of the UK to reach somewhere like 
> Birmingham than London.  (And no, I'm not based anywhere near Birmingham).
> 
> 

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