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The supposed necessity of being in the office for certain things

E.g. water cooler moments that spark innovation (never happens) or the inability of junior employees to learn their trade (biggest load of cock since John Holmes). Have they come up with anything better yet? Oooh we can’t sell to clients without face to face! Best tell Amazon.

Heh. I think occasional meetings help morale, and support juniors, but by and large wot Goethe said. Once (at most twice) a month in the office is sufficient imo. 

The only reason senior bods want people back in the office is so that they can appear relevant again

now we’re all at home and it’s all about the numbers it doesn’t look good for a lot of them quite frankly 

turns out marching around spouting buzzwords and holding meetings about ‘initiatives’ didn’t really matter 

"the inability of junior employees to learn their trade (biggest load of cock since John Holmes)."

I strongly disagree with this. Eg the trainee in our team - was much more likely to be included in the conversations/calls etc pre-Covid when that didn't involve adding another name to a list the client sees on a call. I can't just call her over to show her something interesting and have a 5 minute conversation. She doesn't get to overhear all the traffic coming in to our office to discuss things - ask us what the legal position is. I think it's huge.

I am totally on board with going in 2-4 times a MONTH, not a week.

I went in last Wednesday (first time allowed) and it was a colossal misuse of my time. Long commute, empty office with ridiculous rules, nothing was working properly, no bants, ugh

WFH 4EVA

I went in last Wednesday (first time allowed) and it was a colossal misuse of my time. Long commute, empty office with ridiculous rules, nothing was working properly, no bants, ugh
 

tbf m7, the issue there is not being in an office, it’s being in a “Covid secure” ( 🤨) office 

Fully agree, especially re commuting. Think of all that time, standing in the rain waiting for a bus, sweating on a crowded tube with someone’s armpit in your face, stuck in endless traffic jams - added together it must be weeks, if not months or even years of life wasted! Not to mention the guaranteed 2 colds a year on average one picks up doing this. All completely unnecessary.

There's something in the junior training stuff although I don't recall anyone particularly training me. You certainly don't need face 2 face to build trust but you do have to do it the hard way through delivery and not just footy chat. I have great relationships with people I've worked with for 10 years in asia who I have never met. And this isn't limited to people you already know as I'm working with lots of new people in London I have never met including most of my reports and it's fine. Just takes more deliberate effort.

Why not allow the juniors to decide for themselves instead of agesplaining to them because you can't hack a commute you decided to have when you chose where to live?

I am about to employ a NQ, and we had a discussion about this. Whilst both agreeing that there should be flexible working and no need for office hours, she felt that she would prefer to be close to me in order to get a better and quicker idea of exactly what I do and how to do it. I see it as essential to help build up her confidence as I know she is intimidated by some of the matters I deal with. She also added that we wont be able to go out for after office drinks if we dont have an office. 

A qualified accountant costs £10k pa salary in the Philippines 

the equivalent in the uk is £100k salary 

(let’s ignore seat costs for this exercise)

The minute u don’t turn up in the office and demonstrate how important it is they have YOU in your office - your social capital is worth a lot right?! That’s really all you have... then the business realises that if ur at home, u can be offshored and they can get x10 of u for the same price 

So what? Then we can claim universal benefit and chill. If my job can be done to the same standard for £10k in the Philippines, then it should be. And it would be already if that were the case. Some of us actually do produce real output and don't coast on "social capital".

she felt that she would prefer to be close to me in order to get a better and quicker idea of exactly what I do and how to do it.

there is only one way of reading this

 

I would wager many businesses haven’t explored the option until now because of office culture until covid when the cost savings + efficiency gains become glaringly obvious.

I don't think it's likely he legal profession will be outsourced but, if it can, and the quality maintained, that's progress. I'm not going to oppose it just because it might adversely affect me personally. 

Hahaha as someone who has worked extensively with service centers in Manila, Bangalore, Belfast, and Moncton -- the outsourcing trend will go as far as hiring talent that isn't necessarily in London. 
 

outsourcing overseas is a failed experiment, even for mundane transactional work. Nevermind specialist work. 

I'd love to see someone do my job from the Philippines. Hope they're training on the latest UK tax rules over there. 
 

 

Most firms initially will be overjoyed by the saving they make on office space and the boost to PEP and will be a while before they start looking at what else to offshore.

Law is an interesting one to try to outsource to low cost areas, whatever the area of low. Fundamentally law relies on precision of language, and with the best will in the world a low cost parablozzer warehouse in Manila is going to do a comparatively shit job. I found it bad enough with the average qualified lawyer on Malaysia and Singapore 

What Crowley said. Some review and paranlozzing type work, but I just dont see how complex legal work can be outsourced. At least not in the next 10 yrs. just too much langugage and culture needed.

Accountancy and admin stuff could be a bit more at risk.

I don’t go into the office because I think it’s necessary. I go into the office because I like it, and I don’t want work at home. I want my home to be an oasis, full of little girl giggles and hand print pictures on the walls and with 0% work, anywhere ever. I burned a load of old work papers I had at home, in the chimnea, the other day. Nowadays I won’t even take a work call in the house, I’ll go and walk round the block. I’ve actually gone hardcore anti WFH over the last year.

Heh @ “accountants will probably all get outsourced. But not lawyers, oh god no”

language, culture and context are just as important in what accountants do as what lawyers do

neither of these professions faces much serious threat from outsourcing, which in any event peaked as a “thing” about a decade ago, lest you didn’t get the memo

Laz for those of us who don’t live in a high rise shoebox we have this thing called a “home office” - mine has a particularly lovely view of an ash tree inhabited by a family of woodpeckers. It’s lovely, has all the mod cons (2Es available at the push of a button) and the commute is a cinch.

Vital that you are seen around the office and participating even in minor conversations and helping out whenever possible as when the issue of downsizing and redundancy comes up those who are largely out of sight (WFHers) are more likely to be out of mind too!

This out of mind stuff is rubbish too. In a downsizing, they toss the passengers and everyone knows who they are, no matter where they work. Being the social secretary won't save you.

I for one find working at home without any office contact far more stressful.  I tend to beat myself up over things that a casual chat with colleagues would probably diminish.   I feel like there is a constant super harsh critic riding my back constantly, and it is me.

the outsourcing of call centre people has slowed and in soem places is being reversed. turns out wealthy people n the US don't want to talk to talk to somebody in India or wherever about their wealth.

There’s no magic about being in a room with someone. To maintain otherwise is just to say this is how we’ve always done it. Junior staff will adapt. They are already adapting. It might not be fun working from a shared flat with other 20-somethings but that’s a different issue.

Agreed that presenteeism doesn’t work when the axe falls. In any serious business they cull the ones who don’t produce or that they don’t like. Social capital may help at the margins but only a fool would rely on it.

"It might not be fun working from a shared flat with other 20-somethings but that’s a different issue."

Er no, that's not a different issue. That's the very same issue.

Not everyone can just set up a home office in their spare bedroom.

Was back in the office yesterday, was great. Got to have little catch ups with my team I wouldn’t otherwise have, good to sit down with people I’d only talk to once a week on zoom, far better.

Don’t want to be in all the time mind and am noticing a big disparity emerging with the private equity and US banking guys effectively ordaining a complete return to the office full time and the tech companies/law firms/UK banks being much more flexible. 

I for one find working at home without any office contact far more stressful.  I tend to beat myself up over things that a casual chat with colleagues would probably diminish.   I feel like there is a constant super harsh critic riding my back constantly, and it is me.

Just because you are at home it doesn't mean you can't ask people things. Instead of beating yourself up message people and ask them if they've got 5 minutes like you would in the office. Your contempararies are probably in a similar situation to yourself. 

Ensure you have a regular meeting scheduled with your boss to talk through issues and keep them updated. If you are a boss have regular meetings with your reports to run through issues with them. Even if you're a senoir associate and are largely self-sufficient there will be things that would be helpful to run past the partner from time to time and the partner should be wanting to know what you are working on, what business is in the pipeline, what problems may be ahead etc.

Acting like outsourcing roles overseas is new is the ignorant bit, not thinking that it can't happen.

It's old news, and it doesn't work well even with the best technology and mundane transactional work. The higher up the skill level required the less it works. Soft skills matter a lot more than people think.

It’s already happened / happening in my world Canadian. 
 

operations, accountancy, legal - it’s only senior functions, sales and regional marketing that remains in the local geographies. Developers are the next major offshore 

Some of my strongest relationships at work are with people in other departments who work in other buildings and who I wouldn't see in person for weeks at a time.  There are plenty of ways to build relationships that don't involve being in the same room.

Back to the OP's point, think it's hopeless to look at this in absolutist terms ie is it better to interact face to face than online. Of course face to face is better. 

The question is what the costs of achieving that face to face interaction are, and they are mammoth. Most work interactions are at least OK on a remote basis in a white collar job. Some are more than OK, some are even better. Some are worse. 

But I can't see the % that are worse make up enough volume or significance to outweigh the benefits of more occasional commuting. Most of the time most people in most white collar offices are just sat there. They're not sparking each other off at the coffee machine or having brilliant meetings etc etc. They're just sat there. 

No OB we have a mass of redundant under 30's graduates who expect to get a graduate job although there aren't enough graduate jobs for everyone who goes to uni to get one.  We'll end up like the US where even legal secretaries have degrees.

Working at the office means far less expectation to be at your PC at 6.30 am AND at 9.30pm

I have never had to work as hard as I did in the last twelve months.

No offence but you can’t outsource complex legal work - firstly there is the licensing issue (see Irish law soc not letting non Irish qualify), secondly lawyers tend to learn the laws of their own jurisdiction - there is not a huge bank of English lawyers in India willing to work for peanuts (paralegals and contract services maybe - but that’s a good thing for me as it means I don’t have to do dross work and can instead focus on complex cross border structuring etc). 
 

my job is top end work and I get paid a lot of money to do it - if someone in India can do it for cheap, crack on and find them. I interviewed against a global pool of lawyers for my role (oxbridge, Ivy League, top EU unis) and I am not afraid of global competition.

we aren’t making widgets here for low cost per unit - we are providing a Ferrari and our clients pay top dollar for the quality and experience.

 

 

my job is top end work and I get paid a lot of money to do it - if someone in India can do it for cheap, crack on and find them. I interviewed against a global pool of lawyers for my role (oxbridge, Ivy League, top EU unis) and I am not afraid of global competition.

we aren’t making widgets here for low cost per unit - we are providing a Ferrari and our clients pay top dollar for the quality and experience.

lol okay Bertie Big Bollocks

You learn by doing.  You learn nothing at all by “observing people”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.  Lawyers are supposed to be people with metaphorical broad shoulders who don’t need their hands held, at any stage of their career.  Mentoring is a myth.  Lawyers learn by doing.  I never had, or needed, mentoring.  I always had the attitude that I could figure out the best course of action in any situation and that I could do the legal research / drafting necessary to implement whatever it was I wanted to do, and I’ve never been shy about telling people exactly what they need to do.  Most lawyers are like that. 

I've been a GC for global companies for many years.  I've hired lots of external firms on deals.  When looking at the CVs of shortlisted legal teams, I've never once asked: "So, who was your supervisor?"  Irrelevant. 

Instead, I look at their deal roster to find out *what jobs / deals / tasks they've actually done*.  The best mentoring in the world counts for nothing beside a few years being pitched off a cliff into some shark-infested tasks.   

If you don’t have that confidence, and you’re creeping about “observing” people, and crying out to be “mentored”, you frankly should look for another job.   

 

Tbh most GCs are incompetent arrogant hacks who think they can do everything, and they know everything.

Despite the fact that they couldn’t hack it in PP.

Instead they grow up isolated from proper lawyers, with the business hanging on their every wibble.

Soon enough they believe their own bulls1t

Shouting their non achievements from the rooftop, talking in management speak, farming everything out to outside counsel and taking credit for their work.

The most assured might even make an account on a forum for lawyers and opine on what makes a great one.

“Mentoring - hah! No, no, no.

Deals maketh the lawyer. I want to see deals. Oh so you just did the DD report? Well, everyone needs to start somewhere. Fantastic, that you are able to blag about the other documents and pretend you worked on them, even though you were living in a data room.

If you can make me believe it, you can make these business chumps believe it too. I’d hire you. And I am the hirer of all. Look up to me. Respect me. Please.

Please.

Please?”

I agree entirely with clove. I know that I learned more as trainee by listening to others and 'unofficially' sitting in on meetings/overhearing internal discussions on matters to see how tricky issues were dealt with (both legal and non-legal) than I did through any formal one-on-one sessions with any trainer, mentor or other lawyer. 

You’ll all be dutifully filing back into the office when your boss tells you to return. Grateful for the opportunity for ‘wfh’ days when the sun shines. Those that are overheads (sorry, integrated with the business) will get the most time from home and it will be a cheap way of keeping staff with limited prospects happy. Literally none of the transactional teams in pp will move at the pace of a wfh team.

I’m a bit conflicted on this. As a trainee, yes I learnt from the person with whom I shared a cellular office and / or open plan (we had a hybrid at the time). I feel I picked more up & had a better time when sharing an office because people tend to speak more freely on the phone and people would pop in to gossip!

I also think, though, the pandemic has taught us that we can do things differently. Yes we might have to try a little harder but there are ways. I will email (nice) clients before a virtual meeting to say do you mind if x trainee joins at no cost to observe, or if they are already involved in the matter they might be able to contribute on a discrete issue. I keep reminding the team if they are having court hearings or cons with counsel to bring trainee along. I’m sure, with tech, there will be increased opportunities to do this kind of thing, perhaps in the future even bespoke solutions where you can easily ‘share’ a call with a junior / vice versa with the equivalent of a ‘loudspeaker’ button - so they can still overhear you winging it / politely fobbing people off (and equally importantly, so you can hear what they are saying). Who knows? 
 

It’s not all bad, either, there is more online seminar / training availability and without travel time (esp for regional lawyers) it is easier, more family-friendly due to reduced travel so gender-inclusive, and cheaper to attend. Obviously the networking isn’t the same. I expect in the future more of a hybrid model, and I think it’s for the best, really. 
 

The office was a great way to learn when most people worked in offices. A covid secure office is not a great learning environment.

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