{"id":13959,"date":"2020-08-25T09:28:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T08:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/?p=13959"},"modified":"2026-01-21T14:13:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T14:13:40","slug":"officeavoidance-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/blog\/2020\/08\/25\/officeavoidance-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Office Avoidance? It’s the commute that scares employees – not Covid!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The quest for work life balance has been going for decades. Probably since a routine of 9-5 working was introduced during the industrial revolution, people have sought ways to rebalance their life and find time for family and leisure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Until recently the average commute time in the UK was 45 minutes and with a work day that often extended past the expected 8 hours, it placed a lot of pressure on the balance of home and work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A friend of mine based in Guildford worked as a VP of a Pharmaceutical company based in the City of London. He caught a train into London, then across from Victoria to the office each day taking approximately 90 minutes. It was not only the time that was expensive, his rail fare through purchase of a season ticket became his extra mortgage and of course he was rarely home before evening.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The changes that have happened to homeworking since the Covid-19 lockdowns have been transformational for many people like my friend. He has saved 3 hours per day in travel time and thousands in rail fares. As a result, he is in no rush to return to the office, especially now that he has demonstrated that working from home is possible and productive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The world has changed almost overnight, what was impossible is possible, what was culturally unacceptable is now normal and businesses that demanded office work are now facilitating flexible working solutions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Workplace Insight<\/span><\/a> explored the reasons why only a third of the workforce have so far returned to the office and discovered that it is the lure of work life balance and the benefits of removing the commute that is the driver.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously it is not as simple as deciding to work from home that will enable this change. The cultural and technological shifts are also key.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For teams within the contact centre environment there is a need to be able to track, measure and incentivise people but also to be able to deliver training through online media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A QStory<\/a> partner working for a BPO recently described the challenges that they are facing with basic training.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to be able to call a session in a meeting room and bring along a group who were available at the time. When the contact centre moved to flexible working models with only a portion of staff in the centre we had to think differently. We now use Microsoft Teams to deliver the sessions remotely and have demonstrated similar levels of quality.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

New technology, new ways of meeting, new training solutions and new communication challenges are all part of the modern world and can enable a permanent shift to flexible working and find the work life balance. However this is a more complex world and requires greater levels of system integration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reduced commuting, and increased quality of life may become normal as the fear of Covid starts to subside, but only as long as technology and communication strategies keep up.\u00a0 Technology can enable a new world and a revolution in lifestyle, but organisations must be prepared to invest wisely in order to connect them together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Is the commute over? Would love to hear your thoughts and views!
\nSeb Clarke at QStory<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read More: Workplace Insight<\/a>
\nThe commute completely transformed Britain. Is it over for ever?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The quest for work life balance has been going for decades. Probably since a routine of 9-5 working was introduced during the industrial revolution, people have sought ways to rebalance their life and find time for family and leisure.\u00a0 Until recently the average commute time in the UK was 45 minutes and with a work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"industry":[88],"class_list":["post-13959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","industry-bpo"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13959"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16449,"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13959\/revisions\/16449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13959"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qstory.ai\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=13959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}