2 years @home

Few days ago, it was the end of the pandemic in France, after 2 years… We don’t really know if it’s the end of the pandemic but at least, it’s the end of the mask. I’ve spent 2 years working from home or WFM. Is it the end or a new beginning ? Let’s find out !

The only good thing about this pandemic, it’s WFH. Of course, it’s only in my point of view, depending on your company, your work, your daily habits at home… WFH could be the worst thing of the last 2 years. Mainly, I work on a computer all day, I have to speak with people, send emails and ensure the information system of my company is running well. At work, I have no action in the physical world. The only real system I have to touch is the coffee machine. The life of an IT specialist is in the clouds.

Of course, if your work consists of making hair cuts, you can’t do it from your home. You have to go to the hairstyling salon. Or maybe not, I heard that several hairdressers have decided to work as freelancers and they make hair-cuts at people’s homes. You just have to schedule an appointment and the freelance hairdresser comes to your home with the equipment required and cuts your hair as you wish. I should create a start-up for this, make all the processes more convenient, include a mobile app with geolocalisation, automate the payment and call this : ub-hair :–)

work 5 days, get one free

I think this is interesting, every change is an opportunity, like for the freelance hairdresser. For me, the opportunity was to save my commute time. As said previously, one hour in the morning, one in the evening, 5 times per week = 10 free hours per week : a full day ! So I ‘ve decided to keep this new day in a week just for me. I rearranged my schedule to wake up a little bit early to be able to do 10min of workout, take care of my kids and go to school with them. As I’m working from home, now I can do this everyday and this is the first win of WFH. I booked 2 hours per day in my professional calendar to work on my side hustle : a micro company or micro entrepreneurship as IT consultant : https://guillouais.fr

I’ve reached out to my contacts just to say : hey I’m available if you need. Of course at the beginning I’ve made a lot of mistakes, I keep making mistakes but I trust the process and I’m confident that I’ll improve. Consultancy is not the ultimate goal, in my point of view. I would like to keep this activity and maybe one day I would be able to leave (not live) the life of an employee. I’m still thinking about finding a money tree. I’ve found this concept in the book Millionaire fastlane by MJ DeMarco. The idea is simple: using the right process and the right mechanisms, you can build an automated business which is making money by itself : a money tree.

It’s only my personal opinion about WFH. I’m sure everybody has a different approach and thoughts about it but I’m still seeing change as an opportunity to grow.

“Change is never painful, only the resistance to change is painful.”

Buddha

I’m working for a big firm, a huge company. As it looks like we are seeing the end of the pandemic, I’ve received an email in my professional mailbox : “back to new normal”. What does it mean ? To be clear, it’s just to say : hey guys, you have been working from home for 2 years now. We have reduced the office capacity by 30 %. There is less desk than before, so you can stay at home for 2 or 3 days per week, depending on the management style of your boss. It will be cool for you and we’ll save a lot of money because office buildings are expensive. By the way, we’ll also save CO2 : deal ? The email content was full of keywords like : WFH, smart working, flex, hybrid, life/work balance… bla bla bla.

the new normal

The new normal seems to be a hybrid between home and office. How many days per week ? Can we stay at home forever, can we go back to the office 5 days per week ? Nobody knows. It will take time to legiferate, to change people's contracts and to find some agreements. Can we work from another country, do we have to be available on a specific time zone, can we become digital nomads and work from a foreign country for 6 months before moving to the next one ?

It’s more or less like a new bonus for the employees. Companies in the silicon valley which don’t offer WFH are far less attractive for the new talents. The drawback is these attractive companies can hire people in other countries, with a very low salary compared to yours. We’ve already seen in the past this globalization in IT then a re-localization when the business realized it didn’t go well or when the business complains the support is not efficient enough with these remote employees.

I think this time, it’s quite different. We are not talking about opening a new office in India or in Poland. We are talking about building a team with several people from several countries. The big companies will be able to select talents from everywhere in the world at different daily rates in terms of salary. The competition between IT engineers will be based on salary and skills (as Today) but also on : languages and timezones.

the new deam team is spread around the globe

And it’s already happening, my current team members are from Switzerland, Germany, Tunisia, Poland, Netherlands and France. We are working as one team, on the same projects, at the same time. Everyone is working from home and so far it goes well. We are still in a learning phase, we are learning how to be flexible for our customers, depending on the budget, the language and the timezone. We try to find someone in the team who will be able to provide the right support for the business. The cultural approach is also important, the customer could potentially have a better relationship with someone who has a similar culture.

In my point of view, the way of working will be more and more dependent on the company than the country where the employees live. I love the remote policy from this CEO : just do whatever you want, if your job is done ! Dan Price is also known for raising the minimum salary for all his employees to 70k. A great way to attract talents.

I don’t think we will be all replaced by talents from low cost countries but probably this competition will lower the average salary we can expect. It’s difficult to say. The world is changing very fast, the recent war in Ukraine has also changed the face of the world. Climate change pushes for new projects around carbon footprint reduction. We may have to use our cars less and less (another point in favor of WFH). We’ll still have to go to the office, mainly for onboarding, for yearly/quarterly team meetings but not that often.

As said for our hairdresser who became a freelancer, change is an opportunity, if you can see it. It’s really a time for innovation, for testing new things and trying to find solutions. Technology is the new heart of the world and synonym of progress. Is it the right move to invest again in the same model as before ? I don’t think so, or not exactly. Do we have to go all in for degrowth… Not so sure either. I guess that we have to find something else, and for me that sounds thrilling.

Vladimir

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