20 years from now when they actually build a tower, the OP's of this thread are going to come back and say "See, I told you!" :)

Besides oil prices and commercial real estate, Covid started a whole new work from home trend. Some companies have no interest in this trend while others like mine have hired a bunch of workers over the past two years that live a couple of hundred miles away. Even if upper management decided to go back to the old ways, it would take awhile to replace the remote workers with local through attrition.

Not necessarily, there were surveys and articles published regarding how big corporations want people in the office. It cited people were more productive and work relationships have more synergy when people are in the office. Moreover, corporations were looking actually needing more space, for more wide open footprints, for social distancing.

And big office and residential development sure hasn't slowed down in other cities like Austin, Salt Lake City, Nashville, & Charlotte.

Not necessarily, there were surveys and articles published regarding how big corporations want people in the office. It cited people were more productive and work relationships have more synergy when people are in the office. Moreover, corporations were looking actually needing more space, for more wide open footprints, for social distancing.

And big office and residential development sure hasn't slowed down in other cities like Austin, Salt Lake City, Nashville, & Charlotte.

+1

Logical that people are more productive b/c in a more formal work environment there are a lot less distractions with employees staying more focused.

On the flip side, the average worker gains about 5hrs a week personal time. The average commute time in the US is 27.6 min one-way, or roughly an hour a day. That is roughly the equivalent of 10 more personal days per year, or two more (work) weeks of vacation equivalent.

One down-side is it is hard to separate home-time from work-time. Which can go both ways, of people not working enough hours to those that lose track of time and work much longer than their regular 8.

So, production gains may include employees not taking as long a lunch, employees working beyond normal hours, which might otherwise be used for transportation for example, employees not chatting at the water cooler, etc.

Of court there are plenty of fields where WFH is not an option. But in some fields, there is absolutely no reason to make people go into an office, like telemarketing or telephone-based customer service positions. There is no amount of pizza and comradery to slow that turn over.

IMHO the biggest issue with WFH, I predict, we haven't even fully seen yet - nationalizing the labor market. When people can WFH, their location is immaterial. So a new employee (Adam, say) in a lower COL location (e.g., Oklahoma) can get a job for a business in a high COL location (e.g., California) where the business can pay lower wages than they would for a local Cali employee but still higher than Adam would be able to find in Oklahoma. This will have two large impacts - jobs considered low-skilled that can WFH will be farmed out to lower cost of living areas - thereby driving up wages in low COL areas (Oklahoma) as employers there have to compete with companies nationally instead of just locally, thereby causing the unemployment rate in low COL areas to be abnormally low while, simultaneously, increasing the unemployment rate in higher COL areas because employees there cannot afford to take a pay cut and still pay bills. Average wages have increase a lot over the last couple years - but I think we will see that increase (as a percent of pay) happening faster in lower COL areas than higher COL areas.

I would imagine the future will be a combination of in the office and WFH as apposed to either/or. I think employers are going to find a balance and be a lot more flexible. I already know a few who are trying out a 3 days in the office, 2 days from home type schedule or some variation of that.

IMHO the biggest issue with WFH, I predict, we haven't even fully seen yet - nationalizing the labor market. When people can WFH, their location is immaterial. So a new employee (Adam, say) in a lower COL location (e.g., Oklahoma) can get a job for a business in a high COL location (e.g., California) where the business can pay lower wages than they would for a local Cali employee but still higher than Adam would be able to find in Oklahoma. This will have two large impacts - jobs considered low-skilled that can WFH will be farmed out to lower cost of living areas - thereby driving up wages in low COL areas (Oklahoma) as employers there have to compete with companies nationally instead of just locally, thereby causing the unemployment rate in low COL areas to be abnormally low while, simultaneously, increasing the unemployment rate in higher COL areas because employees there cannot afford to take a pay cut and still pay bills. Average wages have increase a lot over the last couple years - but I think we will see that increase (as a percent of pay) happening faster in lower COL areas than higher COL areas.

This is already what we have been seeing with outsourcing. The companies that haven't yet outsourced overseas, are trying to keep time zones aligned or want to keep their work force close to the customer.

This is already what we have been seeing with outsourcing. The companies that haven't yet outsourced overseas, are trying to keep time zones aligned or want to keep their work force close to the customer.

Yup, that's called outsourcing. And its far from new that companies are attracted to lower income areas. It's very common that even if your HQ is in an expensive town, that the Operations is not. In OKC, Hertz would be a perfect example of that. HQ=New Jersey. Ops=OKC.

Anyone that does business in California knows that it's best to "get outta dodge" for Ops as soon as possible. It's simply too expensive and restrictive to make a profit for regular shared services environments. And when the US markets start looking too good for the employees, well we can't have that, so overseas we go. :(

Yup, that's called outsourcing. And its far from new that companies are attracted to lower income areas. It's very common that even if your HQ is in an expensive town, that the Operations is not. In OKC, Hertz would be a perfect example of that. HQ=New Jersey. Ops=OKC.

Anyone that does business in California knows that it's best to "get outta dodge" for Ops as soon as possible. It's simply too expensive and restrictive to make a profit for regular shared services environments. And when the US markets start looking too good for the employees, well we can't have that, so overseas we go. :(

Actually, Hertz's HQ is in Florida now, the process started while I was working there (2009-2015, working for a subcontractor of IBM, who is a contractor itself, running Hertz's IT) and I believe is complete now.

My wife retired from Hertz at the end of the year. Spent 43 years, 3 months and a week there. Happily retired now.

Hertz started in OKC as a reservation center. And the reason they chose OKC was due to the central location in the country and the fact that phone service charges in the early 1970's was by the line mile. That's why a lot of res centers were started in the Great Plains.

Not necessarily, there were surveys and articles published regarding how big corporations want people in the office. It cited people were more productive and work relationships have more synergy when people are in the office. Moreover, corporations were looking actually needing more space, for more wide open footprints, for social distancing.

And big office and residential development sure hasn't slowed down in other cities like Austin, Salt Lake City, Nashville, & Charlotte.

That's interesting. My department and the part of the company we belong to as a whole were 20%-30% more productive while working from home. The company surprised everybody by instating a permanent work from home option for 2 days a week.
Just anecdotally, I find there are a lot fewer interruptions and distractions at home than at the office. At home, I don't have someone interrupting me every 10 minutes (granted I don't have kids).

I work with some of the city's largest employers. We have been told that having employees in the office is definitely more beneficial. There are too many opportunities to collaborate throughout the day. What I have learned is that the companies that were transitioning to work from home before the pandemic are headed that way but most of the large office environments are planning to grow their space.

Saw a news report the other day that a lot of employees have admitted to being high or using alcohol during work time while working from home.

Saw a news report the other day that a lot of employees have admitted to being high or using alcohol during work time while working from home.

What a shock! In theory, working from home sounds good. But in reality, being at the workplace is probably a better idea. You can see what your employees are doing, leading to better accountability. Then, on a social front, it leads to more social interaction. I'm a believer that in coming years, we're going to learn that doing things from home such as shopping, work, etc, leading to less social interaction, is going to have some bad ramifications.

I work with some of the city's largest employers. We have been told that having employees in the office is definitely more beneficial. There are too many opportunities to collaborate throughout the day. What I have learned is that the companies that were transitioning to work from home before the pandemic are headed that way but most of the large office environments are planning to grow their space.

I'd be interested to know that source, because everything I have read is that companies are shedding real estate like a wildfire and keeping users remote. What they are creating is smaller collaboration space offices where people come in as-needed or for meetings, then go right back home. Basically where the entire small office is one big hotelling space. Yes there are some out there that won't ever do that, but the cube farm isn't going to look the same as people re-work their spaces. It will still be a few years before we see how all of this settles out though.

I'd be interested to know that source, because everything I have read is that companies are shedding real estate like a wildfire and keeping users remote. What they are creating is smaller collaboration space offices where people come in as-needed or for meetings, then go right back home. Basically where the entire small office is one big hotelling space. Yes there are some out there that won't ever do that, but the cube farm isn't going to look the same as people re-work their spaces. It will still be a few years before we see how all of this settles out though.

same. and i can speak from personal experience at my company that we are significantly more productive at home than we ever were in office, and we now work 4 remote and 1 day in the office, and it's very easy to see that everyone's 1 day in the office is their least productive day. As a manager of a team, i'm torn, because i use the 1 day my team is in office to get done my one-on-ones, reviews, team meetings, etc. but it is without a doubt the day we get the least amount of actual company work done.

Saw a news report the other day that a lot of employees have admitted to being high or using alcohol during work time while working from home.

the real question. do those same employees also admit to being the ones that would go out to their cars and get high, or have a few cocktails at lunch before going back to the office? because i know a handful of fellow employees at every place i have worked at who used to do that a few times a week, for the past 2 decades...

I've actually been working from home since COVID started. And my alcohol consumption has dramatically increased. I am currently seeking help with a counselor.

I've actually been working from home since COVID started. And my alcohol consumption has dramatically increased. I am currently seeking help with a counselor.
Good luck to you. I’ve been going through the same but haven’t had help yet. It’s gotten very bad. I hope you pull through it.

I've actually been working from home since COVID started. And my alcohol consumption has dramatically increased. I am currently seeking help with a counselor.

i wish you well and hope you are able to get it under control. we went full remote at the start of covid, and just recently went to being in office one day a week, and strangely, my alcohol consumption has dramatically decreased. I don't find having to get home and feel like i need a whiskey to calm down from my drive, or the frustrations of work.

and granted both of our experiences are just anecdotal. and trust me, WFH was rough on my mentally for awhile. I had to adjust how i get social interactions with others, and that took probably six months. I really do wish you are successful with the help you have seeked out.

I've actually been working from home since COVID started. And my alcohol consumption has dramatically increased. I am currently seeking help with a counselor.

Best of luck. The same thing happened to me, so I quit February 2021. Granted, I also went back to the office a few months later which made it easier.

I drank a lot more in 2020 vs 2021. Starting in 2021, I took advantage of the WFH setup to focus on my mental and physical health. That trend is continuing to 2022. I hope the best to ones struggling with it. What benefited me was focusing on a hobby/goal I wanted, which make drinking a burden to those goals.

If you want to get actual information on how WFH/Remote affects productivity, you shouldn't look into what your company indicates to you, or any other anecdotal evidence. There are pros and cons to it. It depends on what your company values which determines if they want people back in the office or allows wfh/remote.

It's amazing just how conflicted the "research" is on all of this. The reality is that anyone doing real research should just be collecting data points for later review. We can't possibly know the real ramifications of WFH.

I suspect there are a lot of factors that pay into whether WFH might be more or less constructive and whether someone's health will be better or worse working from home depending on their job situation and living situation. I mean, we have someone in my office who commutes from Tulsa on a daily basis and they're actively seeking promotion within the company as opposed to trying to find their way out. I can imagine that there is a lot about the in office culture that the individual enjoys to seemingly enjoy that commute.

Even within the same company some departments might do better WFH and others might do better in the office.

I do find the interstate employment to be the most interesting element of all this and I suspect we'll see some legislation come to light if things get crazy enough.

We've definitely picked up on the remote hires at all levels, up to C-Suite. Unless you have to physically touch paper, most people are just being hired remotely from all over the US. And partly because technology is set up in a way where you can do that securely now without working with your pants down. But there are plenty of companies out there that did get caught without proper security...just google news stories over the pandemic about security breaches. The smaller businesses just can't always pay for the extra tools needed like the larger ones can (MFA/Traffic Scanning/etc). Of course, they may not be as much of a target as a larger one either. It's a crap-shoot.

My own organization is saving money in real estate, but shipping expenses have gone through the roof. And terminations are thus more complicated. I mean when someone is terminated, they usually aren't super cooperative with returning their gear. And that has been a definite challenge to stay on top of. I think it's too early to evaluate if the savings from real estate have shown to be an overall savings for the company because of extra efforts for recovery/analysis/etc for terminated users. It's just too early to really see where this stuff will settle.

I think things have forever changed, But I personally think we're currently seeing an extreme that will settle to a hybrid model in 5 years. But that's just my crystal ball outlook.

I'd be interested to know that source, because everything I have read is that companies are shedding real estate like a wildfire and keeping users remote. What they are creating is smaller collaboration space offices where people come in as-needed or for meetings, then go right back home. Basically where the entire small office is one big hotelling space. Yes there are some out there that won't ever do that, but the cube farm isn't going to look the same as people re-work their spaces. It will still be a few years before we see how all of this settles out though.

The source was me. I was in an economic round table meeting with several of the major employers present. I don't want to name any names. This was in August.

We continue to attract in-office employers adding about 600 jobs to OKC. Liberty Dental (150) and Signify Health (200) should be opening their facilities very soon. Consumer Cellular (300) to follow shortly thereafter. There are others in the works that have yet to announce.

We continue to attract in-office employers adding about 600 jobs to OKC. Liberty Dental (150) and Signify Health (200) should be opening their facilities very soon. Consumer Cellular (300) to follow shortly thereafter. There are others in the works that have yet to announce.
Are these call centers?

More or less. They are back room operations such as customer service, billing, payment processing ect. All pay well.

More or less. They are back room operations such as customer service, billing, payment processing ect. All pay well.
Cool. Looking forward to the other announcements.

More or less. They are back room operations such as customer service, billing, payment processing ect. All pay well.

If they are call centers, then the reps will end up going remote if the companies want to be competitive with the million other call centers around here.

Obviously, this thread has nothing to do with a "mystery tower" anymore....lol

What a shock! In theory, working from home sounds good. But in reality, being at the workplace is probably a better idea. You can see what your employees are doing, leading to better accountability. Then, on a social front, it leads to more social interaction. I'm a believer that in coming years, we're going to learn that doing things from home such as shopping, work, etc, leading to less social interaction, is going to have some bad ramifications.

I think this is the reflexive opinion from management types...but in practice a lot of the "accountability" that gets practiced in person is policing stuff that really doesn't matter to the bottom line. Things like how people dress, how they speak, whether they start or end working according to a strict schedule, how much time they spend on lunch, etc. We're learning with work from home that in a lot of industries, none of these things really matter, and people do better work when they're just allowed to do it without the distraction of someone breathing down their necks. Some businesses may find that with work from home they don't really need a lot of middle managers focused on enforcing these sorts of hall-monitor rules. I think that has a lot of managers scared they're going to be downsized out the door.

Social interaction with coworkers is something I don't miss at all. I've never worked somewhere where I have a whole lot in common with most of my coworkers anyway, so it's just nine hours straight of "how's the weather, what are you doing this weekend, how 'bout them Sooners" sort of conversation. I'd rather cut that sort of time-wasting conversation out of my day and be at home where I can at least message my actual out-of-work friends in a separate window in between getting work tasks done.

Obviously, this thread has nothing to do with a "mystery tower" anymore....lol

Its skewed a bit but to a related topic. There are conflicting opinions on if there would be enough demand to spark the need for a tower.

Our group has been working from home since late March of 2020, honestly it has its benefits, but also my house feels like a prison. And there are certain aspects of my job that i really need to be in the office for. I feel that working from home has hurt my job performance.

That said, with the price of gas increase over the past year, and the never ending road constructions projects ongoing, driving anywhere on the highways is anxiety inducing. I think a good compromise would be working from home 2 days per week and in the office 3 days.

Hopefully we return to some form of normalcy at some point in the near future. Most of my coworkers that i speak with somewhat agree.

I have been working from home since march 2020, for me it has pretty much all been upside, granted I am somewhat of an introvert so deal with being on my own pretty well. My job transitions pretty much as well as possible to working remotely, kind of related my field tends to attract introverts so between that and how we work we were not doing that much interaction in the office anyway, so working from my home office was mostly just an upgrade from the cubical I was spending work hours in before.

Not having to deal with traffic makes the start and end of the day much more pleasant. I expect I save around 2 hours a day between not having to commute, shorter prep at start of day, shorter lunches since eating at home verses driving and getting fast food (granted started getting fast food occasionally again after got vaccine). The saving on fuel and lunch add up to at least a couple thousand per year, harder to estimate is savings from reduced millage/wear on car.

Plus had switched up my diet before covid mostly just for variety, but was kind of surprised with that started dropping body fat percentage on a small but noticeable on the scale of a month after that. Then pulled out the exercise equipment had from college out of storage shortly after was working from home. Now after a couple years of this am at the lowest body fat percentage have been since I quit playing multiple sports in middle school.

I would rather not go back to working in an office.

Estimates show that on average, a business pays about $18,000 per year per employee for office space. If you employ lots of people, that's a ton of overhead.

I've said it before, but the pandemic has demonstrated that technology has finally caught up and that telecommuting is completely feasible.

As decision-makers start to be replaced by younger people not so invested in the butts-in-seats management style, I think we are going to see some profound shifts in not only the way businesses work, but the likely dispersion of population as employees won't necessarily need to live near an office; or even a city. That in turn means that companies won't have to pay Silicon Valley and big-city salaries.

Also, I wanted to add that this pandemic may finally force real change in education.

For all the advances in the last century, school is still almost exactly the same: an adult (almost always a woman) stands in front of 20-30 kids and lectures. Yes, there are iPads and smartboards and computers, but the classroom is still very much the same. Same in college, they've just added outlets so students can plug in their laptops.

Education will be slower to change because everyone in it is a direct product of the way things have always been done. And for high school and below, schools have always been functional daycare for parents, as we've seen in the recent forced more to remote learning.

I've been involved in 10-15 office changes in the last couple of years for my company. New offices, closed offices, expand, shrink, you name it.

At first with the pandemic we expected no changes to offices. Then we started closing smaller offices that had no technology footprint and sending the workers to work from home, but the larger offices were unchanged. Pre-Omicron we had announced a move to a formal hybrid model where employees could go in as little or much as they could work out with their manager with the goal that most employees would come in 2-3 days a week. That model was never put into place with Omicron and as of now, employees only go if they have a reason. And anyone that goes in is required to be vaccinated.

Before Covid we had just completed a project to redo all offices to an open floor plan with very few private offices and lots of collaboration spaces. Everyone is basically in a low walled cubicle with people packed in tight around them. The hybrid home/office policy post Covid thinking was that if only half an office was present at a time it would allow for better social distancing.

My current office project is to expand an office in Ireland and as of now it's on hold as the execs decide what to do with offices. Some want most employees back in the office eventually, but that would mean the open floor plan model is out, so we would need much more office space. Some people want employees mostly home and close even more offices. A third idea I have heard is a hybrid model with very few assigned employee offices/spaces and shared workspaces, but not with an open floorpan. Regardless, there will be big changes.

Also, I wanted to add that this pandemic may finally force real change in education.

For all the advances in the last century, school is still almost exactly the same: an adult (almost always a woman) stands in front of 20-30 kids and lectures. Yes, there are iPads and smartboards and computers, but the classroom is still very much the same. Same in college, they've just added outlets so students can plug in their laptops.

Education will be slower to change because everyone in it is a direct product of the way things have always been done. And for high school and below, schools have always been functional daycare for parents, as we've seen in the recent forced more to remote learning.
Could you expand on how you think it should change? I believe educating minors is mostly about social interaction and cooperation, and I’m not sure what you feel could be changed.

Let me suggest that humans are social creatures, and the vast majority of jobs will always require face to face interaction. Obviously, blue collar and service jobs are interactive. So it appears we are discussing large, white collar businesses and how they can operate without offices? But when a business cannot operate with zero office activity, I think it will require maximum attendance in order to justify facility expense.

I will say that I have been working from home for 2 years now. But we do have an option to work in the office if we choose to. Or we can do a hybrid a few days home, a few days in the office. However, the more I work from home, the more I am considering going back to the office.

One of the main issues we have had with employees working from home is from a technology stand point. When something goes wrong with your software or something breaks, there is not a IT person on hand to help you with the issue. And it usually takes hours to get the issue fixed. We have had some major technical issues with our employees working from home, either the VPN is not working, or its something else. This has caused major delays in daily production with employees.

Could you expand on how you think it should change? I believe educating minors is mostly about social interaction and cooperation, and I’m not sure what you feel could be changed.

There still seemed areas slow to shift away from basically evaluating students capacity to memorize for a test in an educational setting. If it is actually important then it seem like something that might be better standardized and the score broken out from individual subjects. However the importance of long term memorization seems to have been on the decline for decades, which often people forget most of specifics weeks after the class is done anyway.

Could you expand on how you think it should change? I believe educating minors is mostly about social interaction and cooperation, and I’m not sure what you feel could be changed.

Agreed. The kids that came back this year from being virtual last year were absolutely insane. The teachers across the board had to retrain kids how to properly behave in the classroom. Translate that up to the workplace. Not everyone is going to be working remotely forever. And not being able to interact socially in the proper way and getting to be an anonymous voice on a Teams call, does not create the best environment. Think about how many times your own way of talking or working with someone changed after you met them face to face after first just meeting them over email.

Kids need to be in the classroom. They need to learn how to juggle a schedule (and not have someone plan every minute of their life). They need to have to interact with a wide variety of authority figures. They need to navigate learning how to interact with a wide variety of different people, including friends, bullies, and everything in-between. They need to learn how to tackle the challenges of study/tests/activities. They need The Arts.

Could you expand on how you think it should change? I believe educating minors is mostly about social interaction and cooperation, and I’m not sure what you feel could be changed.

Agreed. The kids that came back this year from being virtual last year were absolutely insane. The teachers across the board had to retrain kids how to properly behave in the classroom. Translate that up to the workplace. Not everyone is going to be working remotely forever. And not being able to interact socially in the proper way and getting to be an anonymous voice on a Teams call, does not create the best environment. Think about how many times your own way of talking or working with someone changed after you met them face to face after first just meeting them over email.

Kids need to be in the classroom. They need to learn how to juggle a schedule (and not have someone plan every minute of their life). They need to have to interact with a wide variety of authority figures. They need to navigate learning how to interact with a wide variety of different people, including friends, bullies, and everything in-between. They need to learn how to tackle the challenges of study/tests/activities. They need The Arts.

Kids don’t need school just for socializing. They transition and learn habits and thought processes that enable them to learn their whole life. They learn basic building blocks that acquiring, understanding, and building knowledge and reason grow from. They learn respect for others than their parents. They learn how to follow orders and what accountability is. They learn discipline. Yes, some of this is socialization, but much is just laying the foundation for future learning and mind development.

well said Rover.

Also happy to see OKC taking a big launch into being a back-office destination. If we can't land headquarters then let's get the back-office/operations/2nd HQ. They're not always call centers. And IMO these need office space even if the most of the employees are remote/vitrual.

Working for the very large Redmond-based IT Company that I work for it has been positive and negative working from my home office. Yes it's wonderful for work-life balance and flexibility as well as not having to participate in the Seattle area's notoriously horrible traffic but I do miss my office (granted I have a nice one though, lol). We have the option to flex, full remote, or full office upcoming; I've chosen to retain my office but also work from home half the week - flex. I suspect many more might agree there is value in being face-to-face for important meetings and collaborations but my individual work can be done at home giving me more time for personal freedom (or at least I can arrange my time without unnecessary outside impacts).

I can say from the pandemic prospective, I have been one of the lucky ones in that regardless of my child's school situation I could still keep working. I feel for everyone who has had to get/pay for support for their children and is one of the Biden initiatives I totally support and think they should just implement. We need to focus as a nation on our children and helping those who need it in order to even go to work. I digress but did want to express my gratitude to situation as well as my support for those who struggle.