General News Thread

[fox_up_north]

30 minutes ago, JonnyBoy said:

 

Maybe it is job dependant, a large part of my role is speaking on the phone/sales/business development etc. You simply cannot learn the skills to be good at this by WFH by yourself learning from a teams training course

 

WFH can work if your only job is say data entry and requires no/minimal human contact, or have progressed within a company where you know your trade well and earn't the flexibility 

May I ask, are you in an office 5 days a week? 

[CornwallFox]

5 minutes ago, kenny said:

I'm not worried about WFH. It just doesn't work for us.

 

I'll stick with full time office based work with reduced hours working as they are typically 20% more productive in than at home.

That's interesting. The direct opposite of what we've found. 

What line of work are you in and what do you think explains the difference? 

[CornwallFox]

8 minutes ago, kenny said:

You are correct. The ones that like WFH can choose to work elsewhere.

 

It has moved away from the point that it's grim for mental health and isn't helping with the societal problems under discussion.

You're very black and white aren't you?

[leicsmac]

15 minutes ago, kenny said:

You are correct. The ones that like WFH can choose to work elsewhere.

 

It has moved away from the point that it's grim for mental health and isn't helping with the societal problems under discussion.

Beg pardon, but as if the kind of managers that wouldn't offer that choice if it were feasible are the type to care in the least about mental health anyway. 

[JonnyBoy]

20 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

I've been working in, recruiting staff to and training staff for a 95% WFH environment. Since moving to this, as my team is very geographically spread, we feel much closer together, it's easier to work across areas, we are far more productive, everybody is happier. Why on earth would I want to drag everybody into an office to then hold teams meetings with clients? 

Some people like the office, fair play of that's you, others work better away. I think the push to get back there is really poor management based on fear. Put in place proper metrics, performance and quality processes and stop worrying.

 

What sector of work out of interest? What metrics do you measure success within the team? do the individuals roles generate revenue for the company?

 

i disagree it is based on fear, all our top performers are in the office day in day out, some have choice and still chose to come to the office. They get far better results 

 

my thought process on this is mainly around trainee's, and young people benefiting form the day to day interactions of being in an office environment 

Edited 9 December 2025 by JonnyBoy

[JonnyBoy]

5 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Beg pardon, but as if the kind of managers that wouldn't offer that choice if it were feasible are the type to care in the least about mental health anyway. 

 

You could argue there were less mental health issues before WFH became a thing after covid, WFH didn't exist pre covid on the whole. 

 

 

[JonnyBoy]

23 minutes ago, fox_up_north said:

May I ask, are you in an office 5 days a week? 

3 days a week but I am a Director. Trainees in 5 days a week, flex if they need to be at home (child sickness, dog ill, whatever) then experienced members have more flexibility. 

Edited 9 December 2025 by JonnyBoy

[leicsmac]

7 minutes ago, JonnyBoy said:

 

You could argue there were less mental health issues before WFH became a thing after covid, WFH didn't exist pre covid on the whole. 

 

 

I think that there were, they were just not listened to or really paid attention to until something spectacular or dreadful happened. Then everyone wondered "how didn't we see this coming?"

 

I guess people were expected to carry their burdens in silence, but as per earlier discussion I really don't think that's really an attractive concept to anyone except Calvinists and masochists. 

[kenny]

18 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Beg pardon, but as if the kind of managers that wouldn't offer that choice if it were feasible are the type to care in the least about mental health anyway. 

Ta-da.

 

You just found one. Sounds like @JonnyBoy is another.

[JonnyBoy]

1 minute ago, leicsmac said:

I think that there were, they were just not listened to or really paid attention to until something spectacular or dreadful happened. Then everyone wondered "how didn't we see this coming?"

 

I guess people were expected to carry their burdens in silence, but as per earlier discussion I really don't think that's really an attractive concept to anyone except Calvinists and masochists. 

 

yep you could be right, hard to measure statistics with this one. 

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, kenny said:

Ta-da.

 

You just found one. Sounds like @JonnyBoy is another.

The exceptions that prove the rule, clearly. 

 

2 minutes ago, JonnyBoy said:

 

yep you could be right, hard to measure statistics with this one. 

It is difficult to be sure, but I'd happily hypothesise that such issues have existed for a while. 

[fox_up_north]

Interesting. I could earn a good £4-5000 more per year going in 5 days a week at another job. Absolutely no interest to do so. I value my time and not commuting. Have turned down jobs abroad for good money for similar reasons.

 

3 days a week I can log off, be in the gym for 5pm and have the rest of the evening to myself. Cannot put a price on that. 

 

An added thought that this also plays into birth rates. I young couples are expected to be somewhere 5 days a week, which is likely out of the house 8-6, spending money on commute, then childcare costs - it may be all part of the same problem. 

Edited 9 December 2025 by fox_up_north

[Tommy G]

50 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

https://youthendowmentfund.org.uk/reports/beyond-the-headlines-2024/summary/

 

This one shows that violent crime among children is going down, but I'll hold my hands up here and say the picture is more complex than just that and there are other factors at play. 

Is this source data reliable given the Youth Endowment Fund will want any data to show progression in violent crimes involving or against children? Just a thought.

[CornwallFox]

35 minutes ago, JonnyBoy said:

 

What sector of work out of interest? What metrics do you measure success within the team? do the individuals roles generate revenue for the company?

 

i disagree it is based on fear, all our top performers are in the office day in day out, some have choice and still chose to come to the office. They get far better results 

 

my thought process on this is mainly around trainee's, and young people benefiting form the day to day interactions of being in an office environment 

So it's an unusual place in the sense that I work in an arms-length public sector body that operates in competition with private sector organisations. So we don't make a profit as such but we do need to bring in additional income, win new business, build business relationships, tender for contracts against the private sector. I'm not going to give much away about the sector but all those elements come into it, as well as delivering the actual service we deliver. 

 

The service itself does a whole range of things including training provision, building audience facing platforms, risk management and governance of projects, lots of other streams. 

 

There is a diversity of opinion amongst management re WFH. I am pretty strong on the pro-WFH end of things. The results for my team have been hugely improved and for the geography we cover it's far easier. 

 

There are some things done better in person. Some training via teams/e-learning etc can work well, but it is better in person quite often. 

 

Teaching new staff I'm 50/50 on. I can see them having more direct access to staff can help, but for much of what we do it isn't really much different. You can shadow online easily these days. 

 

Results wise, our return on investment is something like 15x greater than before, though I must caveat that by saying we didn't have proper figures for that before and did focus on improving ROI during recent years.

Edited 9 December 2025 by CornwallFox

[Tommy G]

2 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

So it's an unusual place in the sense that I with in an arms length public sector body that operates in competition with private sector organisations. So we don't make a profit as such but we do need to bring in additional income, win new business, build business relationships, tender for contracts against the private sector. I'm not going to give much away about the sector but all those elements come into it, as well as delivering the actual service we deliver. 

 

The service itself does a whole range of things including training provision, building audience facing platforms, risk management and governance of projects, lots of other streams. 

 

There is a diversity of opinion amongst management re WFH. I am pretty strong on the pro-WFH end of things. The results for my team have been hugely improved and for the geography we cover it's far easier. 

 

There are some things done better in person. Some training via teams/e-learning etc can work well, but it is better in person quite often. 

 

Teaching new staff I'm 50/50 on. I can see them having more direct access to staff can help, but for much of what we do it isn't really much different. You can shadow online easily these days. 

 

Results wise, our return on investment is something like 15x greater than before, though I must caveat that by saying we didn't have proper figures for that before and did focus on improving ROI during recent years.

How can you measure something has improved with a non existent baseline?

[Tommy G]

6 minutes ago, fox_up_north said:

Interesting. I could earn a good £4-5000 more per year going in 5 days a week at another job. Absolutely no interest to do so. I value my time and not commuting. Have turned down jobs abroad for good money for similar reasons.

 

3 days a week I can log off, be in the gym for 5pm and have the rest of the evening to myself. Cannot put a price on that. 

That is a fair point and I'm with you on valuing time - out of interest are you at the start of your career or towards the end? Depends how financially independent people are, some people might be required to take that job for £5K more a year to feed their 3 kids and pay their high mortgage

[Spudulike]

3 hours ago, Tommy G said:

To summarise there isn't enough cash for people to have more than 2 kids - for reasons mentioned above. The cost of almost everything is completely out of control, so just to keep your head above water you have to be on a decent wedge these days - without many luxury's. 

Didn't the budget change that? I think it's now cost effective to have more kids.

 

https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/post-budget-research

 

[Tommy G]

Just now, Spudulike said:

Didn't the budget change that? I think it's now cost effective to have more kids.

 

https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/post-budget-research

 

It's more cost effective to have kids if you are also on benefits. 

[CornwallFox]

4 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

How can you measure something has improved with a non existent baseline?

There wasn't a non-existent baseline, the figures were there, they just weren't previously reported as focus higher up was on other things. Once I got them reported we could then respond.

[Spudulike]

1 minute ago, Tommy G said:

It's more cost effective to have kids if you are also on benefits. 

Exactly, so why bother destroying yourself when you don't have to?

[slymunn]

3 hours ago, Tommy G said:

Most people with kids would probably not feel safe and / or irresponsible for doing that these days, the country feel much less ''safe'' particulalrly since 2000 onwards.

 

I agree with you, it's what I used to do when I was a kid, albeit 10 years younger than you. 

I think everywhere feels less safe, as there is so much more coverage of it all. Rather than the world is so much worse than when I grew up in the 90s.

 

24 hour news, social media and community pages, doorbell cameras etc just show so much more than you had back in the day, when it was mainly word of mouth from people you knew.

[Tommy G]

2 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Exactly, so why bother destroying yourself when you don't have to?

Well this is the argument isn't it, these kind of policies, in my view are going to severely stunt economic growth and productivity of the UK - but what do I know!

 

 

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

Is this source data reliable given the Youth Endowment Fund will want any data to show progression in violent crimes involving or against children? Just a thought.

It's possible the data is tainted, but then equally it may not be.

 

I would still hypothesise that right now overall is a less violent UK than even a few decades ago.

[CornwallFox]

6 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

Well this is the argument isn't it, these kind of policies, in my view are going to severely stunt economic growth and productivity of the UK - but what do I know!

 

 

I don't know the answer so this isn't a loaded question, but is there any research showing this either way? I thought the studies I'd seen had shown improvements, though I'm not sure if they were unbiased, fair and transparent assessments. 

[JonnyBoy]

9 minutes ago, slymunn said:

I think everywhere feels less safe, as there is so much more coverage of it all. Rather than the world is so much worse than when I grew up in the 90s.

 

24 hour news, social media and community pages, doorbell cameras etc just show so much more than you had back in the day, when it was mainly word of mouth from people you knew.

 

Were there children getting stabbed back in day? genuinely not sure as I was born in the 90's. Because it happens daily now 

 

Edited 9 December 2025 by JonnyBoy