Remote Working - the saviour of the common man?

[papasmurf]

Well this is my view, what the rest of you think?

Frankly anyone whose commute takes four hours a day and costs them £6000 or more a year really need to either get a job nearer to home or work from home.

[Borchester]

Dunno.

When I drive through the valleys I seem to spend most of my time going round the same hill and regardless of where I start from, end up in front of the Co Op. And as far as most of my media and artistic friends are concerned, remote working means being on the dole

When I worked for HMRC I spent much of my time on outdoor work. Most of my colleagues could not understand why I would work outside when I could spend the day in a comfortable office away from home and family. Towards the end the management started making life as uncomfortable as possible with various minor humiliations tacked on. It didn't make much odds. Most folk still preferred life in the office. 

[Sampanviking]

I know much has been trumpeted about remote working during the Pandemic Lockdown and I also know that the majority that seem able to have taken advantage of it, have been high net worth professionals, especially those in the creative or media sectors and similar.

In that sense it has looked very much like another undeserved perk for those that already have and has probably been disregarded by many on account of that.

Personally however, I think that the potential rise of Remote Working for the Common man, might prove a long term godsend and actually mark the beginnings of a much better quality of life for millions in the UK.
It is precisely the common man, that I think has the most to gain. By the Common Man, I refer specifically to the Social Band that I grew up calling the Lower Middle and Upper Working Classes and which today will comprise a swathe of society from Middle Management down to White Collar Clerical workers and include many Small Business Owners and otherwise Self Employed etc.

I can see multiple benefits to workers and employers, plus a national benefit as a method to achieve the much heralded rebalancing  of the UK.

As it is today, the job you have and the company you work for will dictate where you have to live and for millions this means having to cram into the overheated property markets of the South East and other Larger Conurbations to pay through the nose to buy or rent a rabbits hutch. On top of this commuting is slow, expensive and unreliable.

Switching to remote working offers multiple benefits, the first being that you can choose where you want to live and find a good house in an affordable area. This chimes very well with my own experience of moving to South Wales. I have often taken a drive up the local valleys and I cannot believe just how beautiful they are today, so very different from when I first saw them thirty years ago. These would be great areas to live, if you did not have to worry about commuting and I am sure there are many areas throughout the country that have the same appeal.

So lets list benefits for the employee:
Able to buy a good house in an affordable area
Able to save the cost of commuting
Able to save the time of commuting
Able to eat better by not having to buy overpriced fast food from City Center sandwich bars etc

Benefits for Employers
Good applicants not being put off by need to move and high local housing costs (plus other social problems)
Less need for expensive office space
Salaries, Weighting and Commuting Cost offset benefits can be reduced
Office location can itself be more cost effective as being easy to travel too by employees is no longer as much of an issue.

These are all very good Win-Wins for everybody other than the Landlords of Commercial buildings.
I heard the Managing Partner of Price Waterhouse crying crocodile tears about the effect on City Center Service Businesses and Office Space Demand on Telly the other night, so presumably he (or some of his major clients) have substantial commercial property portfolios. Not a group of gentleman whose welfare bothers me very much.

There is of course more to this when it comes to the rebalancing question as these remote workers will still have money they want to spend, but now will have greater disposable income (free of the commuting and work day lunch traps) and this is money that is very likely to be spent locally. This means that areas that prove popular with a whole raft of remote workers will create affordable service industry opportunities in these very same areas.

I can think of other benefits as well, even for those who stay handy to the big cities but no longer commute. The end of the Dormitory Town and the reboosting of local services in them would be a boon in its own right.
Yes the city centers will suffer, but will probably end up as better places as the local bubbles get deflated and become places where once again ordinary small business can set up rather than just the national chains.

Well this is my view, what the rest of you think?