The future of work

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

German banking giant Deutsche Bank is calling for a “privilege tax” to be imposed on people who work from home, to erase their savings from not having to commute or pay for food on their lunch breaks.

“The left will tax anything they can,” he added– hinting at the strange confluence between the objectives of tax-and-spend leftists and the multinational corporate interests which has emerged in the era of “woke capital”.


https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/11/13/deutsche-bank-wants-privilege-tax-imposed-on-people-who-work-from-home/

In Canada, assuming your employer signs a specific document, employees can claim a significant Federal tax deductions equal up to 1/6th of your verifiable home office expenses. Such as up to 1/6th of your rent/ mortgage. electricity, heat, internet, etc.

[D_L_P]

Re: The future of work

The days of 'office-centricity' are over: Shopify president

The days of 'office-centricity' are over: Shopify president - BNN Bloomberg



Harley Finkelstein said businesses are shifting away from the idea of the office being the place where everything happens, as COVID-19 has normalized the concept of working from home for many companies.



The Ottawa-based technology company made news earlier this year when it announced its employees would be able to work from home even after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

... I realize that many business do not lend themselves well to working from home such as a manufacturing facility, distribution facility, etc.. Today, I sold a 35 cpm A3 colour copier to a private school. Some employees are in the office, some work from home, some practise distance education.

As more companies see the benefit of having people work from home I see a lot of remodeling in the future. Sounds like all that empty office space will need repurposed. I asked someone why they changed to all the half wall cubicles with everyone able to see and hear each other. They said people felt isolated enclosed in their own cubicles. He also said people tended to be less productive too.

In my experience there were a considerable amount of people asking to work from home a few days a week before COVID-19. Our boss said productivity did increased when everyone started working from home. News of a vaccine coming hasn't changed the conversation. I sure hope the work from home continues indefinitely. It will be interesting to see if the businesses that don't lend themselves to working from home will change.

Just curious, do you use shopify for the sites you manage?

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

As more companies see the benefit of having people work from home I see a lot of remodeling in the future. Sounds like all that empty office space will need repurposed. I asked someone why they changed to all the half wall cubicles with everyone able to see and hear each other. They said people felt isolated enclosed in their own cubicles. He also said people tended to be less productive too.

In my experience there were a considerable amount of people asking to work from home a few days a week before COVID-19. Our boss said productivity did increased when everyone started working from home. News of a vaccine coming hasn't changed the conversation. I sure hope the work from home continues indefinitely. It will be interesting to see if the businesses that don't lend themselves to working from home will change.

Just curious, do you use shopify for the sites you manage?

I have never used Shopify. I need to explore it more. The sites I create are not intended to be for eCommerce which is not a good thing.

I am leaving Go Daddy, moving over to Wix. Wix is less expensive, better user interface and allows one to blog easily so as to increase SEO.

You can see one of my latest creations at Business Copiers | Www.trurocopiers.ca | Nova Scotia

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The future of work

I have never used Shopify. I need to explore it more. The sites I create are not intended to be for eCommerce which is not a good thing.

I am leaving Go Daddy, moving over to Wix. Wix is less expensive, better user interface and allows one to blog easily so as to increase SEO.

You can see one of my latest creations at Business Copiers | Www.trurocopiers.ca | Nova Scotia

I used wix. Anyone can build a website on wix if they have half a brain. (Obviously if I did it.)

This is my first attempt at building a website.


Copier Repair, Copier Sales, Service | United States | Toner One, LLC


Edit: You gotta get rid of those white boxes around the images on your site. There's several different programs that you can use to get rid of them. I used Publisher.

[D_L_P]

Re: The future of work

I have never used Shopify. I need to explore it more. The sites I create are not intended to be for eCommerce which is not a good thing.

I am leaving Go Daddy, moving over to Wix. Wix is less expensive, better user interface and allows one to blog easily so as to increase SEO.

You can see one of my latest creations at Business Copiers | Www.trurocopiers.ca | Nova Scotia

Nice website. It's easy to navigate and has a clean layout. Do you use search console for the blog posts? Or ad words to get any traffic?

My wife is planning on going to Wix. We've used Wordpress for 10+ years. She sells stuff directly from her site with woo commerce. It's kinda cumbersome but Wix seems to integrate everything seamlessly. In 2021 she wants to move the store to Wix and maybe keep the blog on Wordpress, we'll see. My site only makes 1/10th what hers does but my traffic is mostly from google. I need to build it up more.

Our goal is to both be working from home full time. This has been a good year, a few months she made more than my full time income, a few months not so much.

[D_L_P]

Re: The future of work

I used wix. Anyone can build a website on wix if they have half a brain. (Obviously if I did it.)

This is my first attempt at building a website.


Copier Repair, Copier Sales, Service | United States | Toner One, LLC


Edit: You gotta get rid of those white boxes around the images on your site. There's several different programs that you can use to get rid of them. I used Publisher.

Not bad. No offense but I am surprised.

[Bix]

Re: The future of work

I used wix. Anyone can build a website on wix if they have half a brain. (Obviously if I did it.)

This is my first attempt at building a website.


Copier Repair, Copier Sales, Service | United States | Toner One, LLC


Edit: You gotta get rid of those white boxes around the images on your site. There's several different programs that you can use to get rid of them. I used Publisher.

Great as a first try.
I want to give you some advice: you put a background behind the text, a shadow or a container. This is because it is difficult to read, the text blends into the dark background.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Sales employees working from home have a big new advantage.

They are free to market to much larger organizations without requiring a team of office co-workers to support their efforts.

Decision makers expect you to be working from a home office during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[D_L_P]

Re: The future of work

Bill Gates said 50% of business travel will not recover from this pandemic. Seems businesses will rely on Zoom, email, and phone calls more in the future.

It will be interesting to see how this new norm changes marketing. Business cards will probably not be as common but website traffic will probably increase.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Bill Gates said 50% of business travel will not recover from this pandemic. Seems businesses will rely on Zoom, email, and phone calls more in the future.

It will be interesting to see how this new norm changes marketing. Business cards will probably not be as common but website traffic will probably increase.

Before COVID-19, rookie sales reps were expected to make up to 20 in person cold calls a day and bring back business cards to verify.

During COVID, sales reps might get to make 5 in person cold calls a week. They now have to touch at least 20 people virtually a day with buyers now even less likely to respond to marketing emails.

[D_L_P]

Re: The future of work

Before COVID-19, rookie sales reps were expected to make up to 20 in person cold calls a day and bring back business cards to verify.

During COVID, sales reps might get to make 5 in person cold calls a week. They now have to touch at least 20 people virtually a day with buyers now even less likely to respond to marketing emails.

That's a big change. At least in person you can feel like you're accomplishing something. Businesses will know you exist and see what you have to offer whether or not they buy. Emails have such a low response rate, can seem discouraging.

Can you ever see copier sales being mostly an email or phone call endeavor?

How has advertising changed due to the pandemic?

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Canada’s first robot barista kiosk emerged in Toronto’s upscale Yorkville neighbourhood in September. The Dark Horse Automat espresso bar offers specialty coffee on demand, delivered without any human contact to the caffeine-seeker.

This is one of countless innovative new ways of getting work done that were born out of the pandemic. The automat is an example of technology that can replace several shifts of work, perhaps even a barista position or two, though it requires servicing and regular maintenance. In fact, there are few facets of the way that we approach and perform our work that haven’t been impacted by the pandemic.

While 2020 has served as a test for businesses’ pivoting and survival skills through a crisis, it has also been an inflection point in the way workplaces view automation, diversity and inclusion. As companies look to the future, there will be long-lasting effects of this work-from-home and automation experiment, during which women left the workforce in unprecedented numbers.

Following a year of human crisis after human crisis, experts say organizations will need to put the lessons from this year of soul-searching into action – and place innovation and diversity as top priorities for 2021 and beyond.

Economist Linda Nazareth who specializes in trends around the future of work, describes what has unfolded in 2020 as “a grand experiment.” According to Nazareth, the days when companies could “coast” are over. Coronavirus-related restrictions, which forced many workplaces to ask their employees to work remotely, have highlighted which companies are good at pivoting, and which ones have limped along under bad management, inadequate processes or weak leadership.


According to Statistics Canada, nearly 40 per cent of workers were doing their jobs remotely at the end of March during the first wave of the pandemic. The vast majority (85 per cent) of those working from home work in finance, insurance or education. The higher an individual’s education and earnings, the more likely you are to be able to work remotely. StatsCan estimates suggest that 22.5 per cent of businesses will continue to have at least 10 per cent of their staff still working from home post-pandemic.

“I suspect this was a sea-change, at least in jobs where there’s a war for talent. I think in a lot of cases, people won’t return to the office. The real test will be next year when jobs have to be filled and companies decide whether they’re going to look locally or all over the country,”

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

While the work from home trend hasn’t been possible for frontline and service workers, the economic downturn has exacerbated income inequality more markedly than previous recessions. Those who continued to earn incomes during the pandemic and lockdowns have seen their financial prospects improve; yet many of the most vulnerable workers – some who were already living paycheque-to-paycheque before March – have yet to recover financially.

While the seeds of income inequality were sown in the decade following the financial crisis, the legacy of the COVID-19 recession may be an even greater divide between the haves and the have-nots.

“We are looking at some workers being very much in demand and they can choose whether to work in the office or at home. In tech and higher-skill occupations, they can look forward to higher salaries,” Nazareth says.

“But we see a lot who will not have that same bargaining power.”

Meanwhile, with corporations looking to trim costs and many sitting on a cash hoard of an estimated $80 billion, according to a recent report by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce — the result may be a rush to automate.

Pre-pandemic, Canada was on track to lose nearly half of existing jobs to automationthere will be an “acceleration” of this trend, describing the scale of automation as a result of the crisis to be “bigger than that of any recent downturn.”

According to Blit, that’s because of the severity of this recession as well as its health-related component, which makes the case for less human contact. He predicts this will affect a broad range of industries beyond retail and manufacturing.

Many of the millions of jobs lost during this downturn may become permanent, which has major ramifications for the labour market. Blit writes that the benefits of automation won’t be “distributed fairly.”

Post-pandemic, he suggests doing away with the wage subsidy, which doesn’t incentivize companies to innovate. Blit also advocates for maintaining and perhaps increasing individual support for workers who face long-term joblessness without re-training.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The future of work

While the seeds of income inequality were sown in the decade following the financial crisis, the legacy of the COVID-19 recession may be an even greater divide between the haves and the have-nots.



Meanwhile, with corporations looking to trim costs and many sitting on a cash hoard of an estimated $80 billion, according to a recent report
Pre-pandemic, Canada was on track to lose nearly half of existing jobs to automation

Working from home and less human contact seems to excite you. It makes me incredibly sad for mankind. Humans need interaction. The more the better. Technology has crippled the youth in this country to a large degree. They're so use to communication on their smart phone that they're terrible with actual human interaction.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Another unique feature of this recession is its disproportionate impact on women’s employment, which was at historically high levels before the pandemic hit. Then, in March, women suffered 63 per cent of the job losses. And, months later, Canadian women have not participated in the recovery to the same extent as men.
According to economist Armine Yalnizyan, the COVID-19 health and economic crisis makes clear that the essential economy is reliant on the often ignored “caring economy” – unpaid work caring for children, elders and the sick – done predominantly by women.

This was evidenced by the sharp rebound in employment in September, when children returned to school after many months off. It was driven by women aged 25 to 54, suddenly unburdened by childcare, who returned to the labour force en masse.

“The future of work absolutely depends on how women are reabsorbed and retained in the labour market in the coming months, and what that means not only for current household income, but what it means for maximizing the learning potential and the earning potential for the next generation,” says Yalnizyan.

In a nod to the importance of childcare for the recovery, the Canadian government recently announced plans to spend $20 million over five years towards a childcare secretariat to guide federal policy.

A failure to properly support women who have children could result in another round of joblessness during the second wave. Yalnizyan, an Atkinson Fellow on the future of workers, says Canada has been largely shielded from the full economic impact of COVID-19 thus far.

“Between now and March are the critical months in terms of how bad things are going to get,” she says. Yalnizyan adds she fears the cascading effect of businesses shuttering over the winter months, turning layoffs into permanent joblessness, and disproportionately hammering women. By her estimates, this will take a toll on many households, reducing their spending power by 20 to 50 per cent, and deepening the economic rout.

Employers have a big part to play in supporting female employees in 2021, a year that lawyer and HR expert Laura Williams describes as one of “transition.” Legal requirements regarding accommodation, including making special arrangements for parents working from home while caring for young children, are changing rapidly.

Williams says she’s never witnessed a situation as fast-moving as this one in her decades of experience.

Williams says managers and leaders in Corporate Canada need to be on the lookout for signs of burnout, especially among parents who have been working long hours on the job as well as long hours on the home front.

“Single moms or other households that may not have much in the way of support available to them will need more flexibility.”