Pre versus Post COVID -- What Activities/Items that you did prior to COVID are you No Longer Going to Do Post COVID?

[Livingat45north]

For me, in March we shut down most of our corporate offices in the U.S. and Australia, and everyone is working remotely, London, India, and Singapore still have "bricks and mortar" buildings, but we will be closing the India office once that lease expires and are going to an all-remote model there as well. From now on, everyone works from wherever they want. We contracted out all of our shipping to a third-party firm, so that entire side of our business is now outsourced. They stock all items and ship as orders come in. As an aside, about two-thirds of our employees that did work in the Minnesota offices have now moved out of the state - part of the exodus from MPLS. We didn't own any of the U.S. facilities, they were all leased, so it was easy for us to walk away from those buildings. And, not surprising, they're all sitting vacant right now. It's been a big win for us. Remote is the way to go.

 

[short ornery norwegian]

I think a lot of people found out that they can work or shop from home.

Certainly, some people will go back to work in an office, but some businesses may just decide it's just as easy to have people working remotely.

Shopping is a big question. will people flock back to stores, or did they find it's just as easy to find most items online?

for meetings - seminars and so forth - online might prove to be an advantage. Instead of driving 50 miles to attend a program or hear a speaker, just log into a webinar. I could really see that becoming a permanent thing.

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

I honestly don't know if there's anything that I feel that differently about? I'm struggling to come up with anything at the moment.

As far as the working from home, I would think this is going to result in some serious changes with some companies in regards to leave? Maybe a lot more people just going to straight salary, very little PTO/Vacation/Sick or a completely different set of guidelines on how it's managed?

Case in point; I only have a couple of employees that are straight overhead, not working/billable on billable work and projects. One of these people, a woman that does payroll and some HR, for the last 4-5 years has historically burned up almost all of their leave during the year, taking frequent time off, rarely accumulated much of a balance. In 2020, in the age of COVID and "working from home", one person in my entire 40-45 person company took LESS time off than she did. We buy out everyone's PTO at the end of the year (there are reasons), and everyone starts with zero in January. As a result, this woman cashed out almost the max vacation/time off for the entire year as she was basically working from home and not super accountable to anyone. In my opinion, essentially stealing from the company.

Things like that are causing me to think about just going straight salary for a few select people like that, no vacation, etc. Just get your work done, whatever you need to do, need time off, whatever, just as long as the work gets done, no big deal. Still not sure on that one but it's going to become a thing for other companies as well

 

[Ope3]

I am not going to vote in person.

 

[Livingat45north]

I honestly don't know if there's anything that I feel that differently about? I'm struggling to come up with anything at the moment.

As far as the working from home, I would think this is going to result in some serious changes with some companies in regards to leave? Maybe a lot more people just going to straight salary, very little PTO/Vacation/Sick or a completely different set of guidelines on how it's managed?

Case in point; I only have a couple of employees that are straight overhead, not working/billable on billable work and projects. One of these people, a woman that does payroll and some HR, for the last 4-5 years has historically burned up almost all of their leave during the year, taking frequent time off, rarely accumulated much of a balance. In 2020, in the age of COVID and "working from home", one person in my entire 40-45 person company took LESS time off than she did. We buy out everyone's PTO at the end of the year (there are reasons), and everyone starts with zero in January. As a result, this woman cashed out almost the max vacation/time off for the entire year as she was basically working from home and not super accountable to anyone. In my opinion, essentially stealing from the company.

Things like that are causing me to think about just going straight salary for a few select people like that, no vacation, etc. Just get your work done, whatever you need to do, need time off, whatever, just as long as the work gets done, no big deal. Still not sure on that one but it's going to become a thing for other companies as well

We've gone to a performance-based model. There is no set PTO. Take off as much as you want, work as much as you want. As part of that, compensation is largely a bonus plan, people that do well get about 50% of their total compensation in bonuses. These are paid throughout the year, when a given task is accomplished, versus an end-of-year deal. We also dropped several people as they simply did not have the discipline to work from home. If someone wants to take the entire summer off to spend time with their kids, they can. If someone wants to work harder to pay of a purchase of a big-ticket item, they can. Granted, we're a software firm, so we're not focused on a production schedule or such. It's working very well for us. We have no intention of returning to what most people would call a typical corporate structure.

 

[Livingat45north]

I think a lot of people found out that they can work or shop from home.

Certainly, some people will go back to work in an office, but some businesses may just decide it's just as easy to have people working remotely.

Shopping is a big question. will people flock back to stores, or did they find it's just as easy to find most items online?

for meetings - seminars and so forth - online might prove to be an advantage. Instead of driving 50 miles to attend a program or hear a speaker, just log into a webinar. I could really see that becoming a permanent thing.

I rarely went to stores before COVID, and won't be doing that once it's over. And our meetings have been virtual for years now. It will be interesting to see what percentage of workers nation-wide do end up staying remote. This especially will have an impact on high cost of living cities and states. Right now about two-thirds of our employees that used to live in Minnesota have left and moved to states with low tax rates. We're very seriously thinking of moving what's left of our Minnesota foot print out of the state (actually, moving it out of the country).

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

We've gone to a performance-based model. There is no set PTO. Take off as much as you want, work as much as you want. As part of that, compensation is largely a bonus plan, people that do well get about 50% of their total compensation in bonuses. These are paid throughout the year, when a given task is accomplished, versus an end-of-year deal. We also dropped several people as they simply did not have the discipline to work from home. If someone wants to take the entire summer off to spend time with their kids, they can. If someone wants to work harder to pay of a purchase of a big-ticket item, they can. Granted, we're a software firm, so we're not focused on a production schedule or such. It's working very well for us. We have no intention of returning to what most people would call a typical corporate structure.

That's interesting. Some good points. Interesting to note, the comment about dropping a few people, some dead weight, that didn't have the discipline to be grown ups working from home.

One thing I could see, or at least was predicting, early on with the COVID, was that a lot of companies would use this as a method of somewhat discreetly or subtly cutting dead weight and under-performing employees under the cloak or guise of the economic challenges of the shutdowns.

I think in general, a lot of companies are going to experience an increase in efficiency; not much change in productivity while undergoing a reduction in work force. The downside is that this will flood the country with a higher number of unemployed, and that a huge portion of those who are "less-than-desirable" hiring candidates; the less-motivated, the less-driven.

Who knows, I could be wrong, but those are just some things I've thought about in recent months.

 

[Livingat45north]

That's interesting. Some good points. Interesting to note, the comment about dropping a few people, some dead weight, that didn't have the discipline to be grown ups working from home.

One thing I could see, or at least was predicting, early on with the COVID, was that a lot of companies would use this as a method of somewhat discreetly or subtly cutting dead weight and under-performing employees under the cloak or guise of the economic challenges of the shutdowns.

I think in general, a lot of companies are going to experience an increase in efficiency; not much change in productivity while undergoing a reduction in work force. The downside is that this will flood the country with a higher number of unemployed, and that a huge portion of those who are "less-than-desirable" hiring candidates; the less-motivated, the less-driven.

Who knows, I could be wrong, but those are just some things I've thought about in recent months.

Different terminology and viewpoint from us. The people we "dropped" weren't dead weight or such, it's just that working from home did not mesh for them. They needed an office and more structure to be productive. When given that structure, they were contributors. If they weren't contributors, they would not have been part of our team in the first place. We now no longer have that rigid structure, you pick your own hours, and in many cases your own work assignment, so we were no longer a fit for they way they wanted to work. The "this isn't working for you" conversations were pretty easy, because it was obvious that it wasn't working for them. We helped them find new positions in other firms, and I mean really helped. We called other firms and explained the situation, we were the ones that often found them that new position. And they did move on. These people are still very much fans of ours, they've happily helped when we've contacted them with a question or two. It's been a big win for us.

 

[forever a gopher]

That's interesting. Some good points. Interesting to note, the comment about dropping a few people, some dead weight, that didn't have the discipline to be grown ups working from home.

One thing I could see, or at least was predicting, early on with the COVID, was that a lot of companies would use this as a method of somewhat discreetly or subtly cutting dead weight and under-performing employees under the cloak or guise of the economic challenges of the shutdowns.

I think in general, a lot of companies are going to experience an increase in efficiency; not much change in productivity while undergoing a reduction in work force. The downside is that this will flood the country with a higher number of unemployed, and that a huge portion of those who are "less-than-desirable" hiring candidates; the less-motivated, the less-driven.

Who knows, I could be wrong, but those are just some things I've thought about in recent months.

I was fully expecting my company to use the chance to cull the dead weight. Or at least stop paying people that weren’t working. But we haven’t. Granted, we got a forgivable PPP loan, but we’ve kept everybody at almost full salary. We cut 3 people out of 150 a while back, but like any company, there has to be at least 5-10% of my coworkers that could easily be cut. I’m sure I’ll sound like a heartless bastard, but as an example, we have an office manager who is highly autistic, who we hired thorough a placement program. She normally cleans up the conference rooms, stocks the fridge, does the dishes, etc. We haven’t used our office for 9 months, but we’re still paying her to sit at home. We also have production staff that are grossly underworked. Meanwhile, our profit sharing 401k match was zero this year, and my year end bonus was about half what it usually is.

But we’ve also gone pretty hardcore SJW in the past couple years. 3 day gender bias training, pending racial bias training, etc. Countless initiatives to make us feel guilty (largely white and male dominated field). We used to be very business focused, but somehow with the SJW business, we’ve somehow stopped caring that we’re a business with the purpose of making money. /end rant

 

[MplsGopher]

Some people will choose to work from home near or at 100% of the time. That works for them, and if it doesn't hinder things, so be it. Can see a lot people wanting to return to work, for the social experience. They have friends at work, it's nice to see other faces. It can be nice to be physically apart from your family for some hours in the day, where they can't get to you just because they want to. Etc. I can see a lot of people doing 2-4 days per week, at least part of the day in the office, for that reason. Could see a lot of work from home fridays, though.

As someone else said, I will never not vote by mail from now on. I personally never had to wait very long in line in-person, but by mail is such a better model. They just need to work on the verification piece of it, and do some kind of digital, two-factor authentication, rather than just train someone to look at a hand signature.


Lastly, the biggest change by far for me has been take-out food from restaurants. Before, I don't think I ever did it, once. I would've thought the idea silly. As in, the whole point of a restaurant is to go some place else and that was part of the fun of it. I still feel that way somewhat, and will be happy to return to dining out. But I won't be so quick to dismiss a take out option.

I guess for that matter, curbside/take-out shopping is another thing I'll keep doing. If you know exactly what you want from Target (etc.), you never need to leave your car.


Ok that made me think of one last thing. Costco has started doing something, that is just so obviously correct ... I can't see how this isn't the 100% way it's done, everywhere. They offer self-checkout, but that's not new or innovative. The thing they're doing that's innovative, is that they have an employee at each station who uses a wireless hand scanner to scan all your items in the cart. Not a single item has to be unloaded and reloaded, just to scan. You just walk-up, scan your membership card. Scan your payment card. And that's it. They do everything. It's so obviously the correct thing, in my opinion.