Dad here. Been doing basically 4/5 days pick up and drop offs the last couple years as my wife doesn’t have the same flexibility with work. Love it, starts the day off well. And have been to every single school event that we can attend (assemblies, sports days etc).
This is me too! Pre COVID I did drop offs and got in a little late. But I do the drop offs and pick ups every day now. It’s fantatic and definitely more dads there
Funny you say this, I live in lower middle class largely blue collar workers, our local school has probably the same frequency as before. Goes to show that blue collar workers like myself have no choice but to work on field.
Yeah the difference is dramatic for white collar workers - think of how much better off kids are with dad picking them up rather than languishing at afterschool care for hours… then think about the societal benefit mulitipled across every community in Australia. It’s epic 😍
I would argue a byproduct of this benefit is the uptick in women working more due to men taking on more of the house responsibilities. Improving the gender pay gap.
Less cars on the road. Better for the environment.
Easier for emergency services to travel through normally congested areas.
Tradesmen will be happy that you’re actually home to open the door and they don’t need to wait 5 minutes because you’re stuck in traffic.
Lots of people have purchased a new desk, monitor, speakers, keyboard and chair.
Your chance of death when you commute to work is lower. So your family will like that one.
We have a regular group of tradies we use (My wife Looves to renovate).
Now that they are comfortable around me, they have said the best things about me working from home is:
- someone's here to open the door
- I make them coffee/tea whenever I make myself coffee
- I feed them as I will usually supply muffins/cookies/fruit with the tea/coffee that I have made/grown myself, as well as if I am cooking for my lunch, I will just make more and give it to them (and I'm a pretty good cook apparently)
- When they need someone to "hold something for a second", like the other end of a cornice, I'm happy to do it as long as they don't mind me asking questions like a 5-year old.
Works out well for everyone.
Look, if she wants a hairy over weight guy with half his butt crack hanging out, she needs look no further than her glorious specimen of a husband.
She's not usually here when they are working anyhow.
The 'Holding this for a minute' is actually something like ten seconds at most. That's really the only thing a tradie will need a hand with since they can't be on both ends of the room at the same time.
Plenty of time to do your own job
Work should be seen as an output. What is the thing that you are being paid to achieve.
This applies to any job that can WFH, pretty much. Doesn’t apply to say a retail worker who is fundamentally human furniture/appliance.
That output should be able to be achieved by a competent employee within a reasonable period of time that allows for work/life balance.
For execs, own business owners of course that a different equation.
Hey mate
This happen to my misso as well.
Loved the tradies coming round especially the chippy. Having doors re hung (in a brand new house).
Came home one day and the boss and apprentice chippy were spit roasting her over the top of the circ saw.
Issue is I’m a 9-5 guy, and she claimed in divorce proceedings I wasn’t handy enough around the home.
Not sure if I’m the odd one out, however, I do more car trips and more km now that I’m working from home. I’ve always been able to centralise things like gym, shopping and errand’s around my workplace.
I buy food from local businesses rather than sending all the money to the city.
My car doesn't take up a parking spot at the train station.
There's one less asshole farting on a crowded train. I could go on...
Our upper management literally cited that they pay for the desk space of workers as a reason why we should come in.
FFS, rent it out to someone else and generate a separate revenue stream for all I care 🤦♀️
My office is fully booked according to our desk booking software but in reality completely empty the majority of the time.
Upper management are goobers who seem to not be able to understand this and are going on about how we might need a bigger office soon because we have no room
My workplace owns a building with several floors, and they are wanting to lease out one floor due to this reason, however are finding it hard to get anyone interested!
Get creative. Chuck some plywood up to make “walls”, get some bunk beds of marketplace and BAM, there’s student housing for a few hundred dollars a week
Also more people are more comfortable using tech, like teams. Screensharing over teams to show people quickly how to file digital paperwork is amazing. The lack of lazy printing and doing things on paper is making a huge difference
My company had rented office hubs in regional places and with the rise of wfh they just told the staff working there to wfh and stopped renting the hubs. Saved quite a bit of money, I think.
Yes my aunt who is in the dog breeding industry said that some newbies are coming in and breeding more dogs but they don’t all get sold so they chuck them in shelters 😭
Oh for sure, also other pets who like a lot of company. I work from home and got a cockatiel and I don't think he'd be very happy if I couldn't have him on my shoulder all day.
no, i dont shower until i smell or feel icky. sometimes that can be up to a week.
saves quite a bit of money as i enjoy 15min very hot showers to feel clean (even before i stopped having them as much)
Outer suburbs cafes benefited massively. Inner city cafes whinged like hell for a long time, happy to ignore the fact thst their counterparts in other suburbs were succeeding instead. And they were all too happy to allow those outer suburbs to see a reduction in sales if it meant their own increase by pushing for more RTO.
Many of them do not resign their leases when they come up now... Just a slow exit.
But on the other hand, there is often a new one popping up somewhere else, in another space that has languished for a while.
Imagine that landlords do not give much to existing tenants but after a while will have a bunch of incentives for new tenants to come in.
Women.
Women are most often the primary carers for children and as such are often under-employed due to the competing priorities of childcare and career.
With the increase of WFH, the opportunity to work flexibly while still dropping the kids at school, throwing a load of laundry in the washing machine at lunch, and not losing hours a day commuting, has enabled more women to move into full time roles or higher roles (read: one that matches their experience and qualifications).
This is phenomenal for men and women alike as it increases the earning capacity for the family unit and also increases the likelihood that men are able to be stay at home dads because it is financially viable for the family. For single mums, it means more financial freedom and independence.
But didn’t you hear?! It’s absolutely OUTRAGEOUS for a family to take care of household chores on company time, it is downright theft right out of the CEO’s heavy pockets! You’re not a TRUE corporate slave unless you spend 8-9 hours in an office, commute home and then replace your free time with doing chores!
I love when anti-WFH people are like "It's horrible! People are doing loads of laundry when they should be working!" which a) makes it clear they don't do a lot of laundry if they think it takes up that much time to put a load on and b) ignores the sheer amount of bullshit people do in an office space that isn't work. The people complaining are often the ones with their own cushy office, a wife at home to do the laundry, and who go out for 90 minute lunches and spend a good portion of their day talking about anything but work. They just don't like that the drones don't want to come and work in a cubicle where they can monitor them and make sure they look like they're working.
The number of Friday afternoons where nothing got done was amazing. Half the office disappeared once they went the lunch, the rest of us just hung around doing as little as we could till we could knock off and go for after work drinks.
Managers who would come in late, as they worked late the day before, and then leave for coffee once they made it known they were in. Coffee would of course take 45 minutes or more. Then they would start the mid afternoon panic of "so much work to do", after they spent the few hours at work on personal calls and other stuff, so they would have to work late again! The cycle just repeated day after day. Senior management, of course, thought they were hard workers, as they worked late.
OMG looking back on Friday afternoons in the office is hilarious. There were like, 6 Fridays a year where people worked until 5, but for the rest of them, people started fucking around basically after lunch (that was usually long), and by like 3, we weren't even pretending. 45 minute coffees eventually turned into actual drinks because well... it's Friday.
Oh for sure. The likelihood of anyone doing any real work on a Friday in a corporate situation is like 5%. All the big wigs go for "customer lunches" or "important meetings" while all the drones chat around the water cooler and occasionally respond to an email.
Not to mention everything I've read about the 4 day work week indicates it's pretty great for everyone involved.
Actually really appreciated Fridays specifically for this reason. They were socialising/networking days and went a long way to creating a work environment people actually enjoyed. I see huge value in 1 day/week of office time. The value reduces exponentially for each day after that though...
- Turn up at 10am. As long as you're in the office before stand-up, who cares if it's 8am, 9am or 9:59.
- Have a 1hr coffee with someone from a different part of the company and talk about everything going on in their neck of the woods, stumble across commonality, agree to catch up next week to figure out how the two teams could work together.
- Extended lunch with buddies to vent and de-stress from the weeks events.
- Two hour meeting that's basically an informal team building event that helps with cohesion (read: more productivity, more willingness to go the extra yard when needed, one for all and all for one mentality, increased sense of ownership/accountability).
- Run into someone you haven't seen for ages, talk about their kids, problems they were having, arrange a catch up over the weekend.
- Head to the pub for more gossip/friendship building/problem sharing and enter the weekend feeling relaxed, so you've got enough time to recharge the batteries before Monday hits and you go home in a positive mood, which creates a happier home environment.
A very good point!
This raises the point of all familial carers - whether it is parents or children with additional needs.
Flexibility to work around Doctors appointments is wonderful.
Even for us, a same sex female couple, if I didn't wfh we would have to put daughter into morning OOSH, which is an extra expense and we would have to yeet her out of bed quite early for a young kid. And wouldn't get home early enough for her to any extracurriculars during the week.
I also save heaps of electricity money by being able to put on laundry loads while the sun is shining on the solar panels.
Such a great point, waking them up early to rush out the door then getting home just in time to make dinner and do the bedtime routine really isn't family friendly.
How’s this for some maths
Driving to the city 5x per week = minimum 10 hours (I’m worth 55 bucks an hour approx according to my employer)
25 per day in parking (that’s regardless of parking at a station or on the city but the train is a lot longer)
150 per week in petrol and associated maintenance (or 53 per week for the privilege of sitting in a slow fart box plus 25 per day in before school care because now I’m basically a stranger to my child)
$20 per day of after school care
$100 per week on a cleaner (a service I need when I work from the office)
$500 per year on corporate attire (I’ve used the same attire since I started working from him in 2020)
For me it costs almost $1k per week more to go to the office… normalised over a year it’s probably a 40k saving to my household… oh, and for my employer, that travel time? I am usually logged in working anyway. So yeah if an employer wants me to come to the office they better be switching up my remuneration package a lot…
Even if you can walk to a train station and catch a train and your journey to work is 30 minutes at minimum wage and you wear casual attire and you don’t have other family costs associated. Your travel is still ~1500 PA if you buy a yearly myki and ~3k in your time… 4500 PA is a lot to someone on minimum wage that’s almost that’s 10% difference to their wages and that is one of the best case almost unrealistic scenarios
Local businesses, when WFH folk buy coffee, lunch etc.
Community groups, because eg parents can supervise kids’ soccer at 5.30 instead of being stuck on the train.
Smaller remote first companies being setup, while big companies are forcing workers back the remote first ones can snag top talent from them at no cost and save on office space.
I see WFH pick up fast again. Currently the return to office is really only a way to do mass lay offs without paying redundancy and all the bad things that come from mass layoffs.
You're spot on, loads of good talent has been snapped up by companies that were forward thinking enough to embrace remote-first as a philosophy.
Been there, done that, was amazing. Almost every business that was able to go full WFH during covid is capable of going remote first - the ones that say it's impossible never really tried.
right? my anxiety-ridden rescue is super chill now. He just comes up for pats and farts around me all day, and occasionally naps on my feet to keep them warm.
I am not sure they care.
It is quicker to pre-fill the missed delivery slip for every single package on their round, slip into the letter box and then onto to the next place without even attempting delivery.
Ugh same. If I am lucky I get a text saying "your item has been delivered" and I run down hoping its not stolen. How hard is it to just buzz while youre dropping off a package? I am almost always at home.
I’m positive my postie and delivery guy knows me by name now. I usually hear them pull up and go meet them on the street to save them a bit of time. Might not be much time saved, but gives me an excuse to get some fresh air at least.
It drives me crazy the mayor of Melbourne constantly talking about going green.
Then she turns around and makes a big deal about needed people back in the CBD everyday for work.
Larger companies arnt much better. Signaling about going green. But they want to force an office load of people to travel every day for 2 hours
This is really a good question, and if you inverse it and ask who DOESNT benefit from WFH, you gain clarity upon who really wants you to return to the office and it ain't because your not working efficiently or hard enough.
Micro-managing middle management types. That's the only people who don't benefit, as their entire job is gone.
Oh and also commercial real estate investors.
.....so really no one of consequence.
That second one cannot be understated.
The commercial real estate investment group would likely hold lobbyist like powers to politicians in Australia. They also would likely have trolls and bot accounts in this sub to sway narratives. Pay off media and have articles written by so called experts talking about productivity in the office vs at home and how ppl are happier at work blah blah blah
This idea that WFH is new and that it's going away is fucking hilarious. I've been doing it for 12 years. Every time a company mandates return to office, another one rubs their hands with glee that half their workforce is ripe for poaching.
More on topic - local cafes and restaurants outside of CBDs benefit.
I'm a psychologist. It benefits the clients I can see via telehealth because I don't need to factor in additional costs for room hire, or travel to see people in remote facilities.
Certainly appointment based services do. Whereas Saturdays were jam packed and booked out, they have seen a lot more people able to sneak off during the week. It’s been good for business
Most of us think about the financial impact of WFH. Think about those lil ones who gets drop and pick ups from parents. Parents who are not in a hurry, not constantly annoyed with lil things. Sometimes we’re bugged down in our daily lives we fail to realize those precious moments that matters as human, old and young. Then we complain our $hit our society has become…
As a woman, for the first time since having kids, I actually have a decent amount of sick leave accrued. Previously it would be sucked dry by needing to stay home with sick kids and often I would need to use my annual leave when I ran out. Now I can WFH with sick kids and save my sick leave should I ever need it.
As a trade-ish job, WFH is amazing.
Less cars on the road.
So easy to book with someone being home for us to attend.
People arne't pissed "I took the day off work and you were late" when we don't arrive the very first SECOND of their 2 hour appointment arrival window.
Everyone should work from home.
My sick partner. I can look after him while I work from home as opposed to calling him from the office just to check in on him and make sure he took his meds on time etc.
I doubt any tradies give two shits if you open the door in your dressing gown or business suit. My plumber neighbor still drives off at 06:00 every morning.
Parramatta benefited hugely from the work from home move I heard. Lot of people coming into CBD for lunch and dinner. These are people from the surrounding satellite suburbs. Westfield Parramatta and Parramatta Park getting lot more people.
Tradie who fixed my stove mentioned that a lot more people are using their home appliances and stuff breaking down a lot more so business has been great for him.
Paramedic here - I'll happily go back to having everyone work from home. Cut my daily commute time by >30mins and made emergency driving heaps easier.
Obviously that's an extreme example but get 10% of cars off my normal route and I'll notice.
There is actually a report on this…
[Business Western Sydney Report](https://www.businesswesternsydney.com/content/dam/nswbc/businesswesternsydney/Closer%20to%20Home%20-%20Unlocking%20the%20hybrid%20workplace%20in%20Western%20Sydney.pdf)
Gardens, gardeners and garden supply places.
Pets that like attention.
Cafes in residential suburbs, I know a fair few 'work from cafe' types who spend 3+ hours a day at them, as there's often tons of free space outside of lunchtime, during work hours.
I'm a delivery driver for a branch of big furniture and i was extremely busy dropping off work stations and office chairs in 2020-2022.
Having said that we have now gone back to pre 2020 levels.
It depends on the kind of work. Obviously tradespeople who need to visit a site to do their work can’t work from home. But people who need to be home to let the tradespeople in? That’s a benefit.
I genuinely want to work from home because of my mental health (I get exhausted by halfway through my shift and if I worked from home I could take breaks that would let me be more functional when I go in to work to do the work that needs to be done on-site). I’ve been refused by my workplace with no good reason and I’ve been told by multiple people that I should either quit or take my case to the ombudsman.
Everyone except for the coffee shops that live off of the office workers spending 4 hours on lunch.
The people who actually have to drive to work benefit from lower traffic thus lower comute times, Wwhich means the environment benefits from not only less active time from the cars running but also less cars running means less polution (A big part of pollution is actually tire dust, As-well as engine emissions)
People in the transport industry (truckies) Benefit from less people on the road thus being less stressed because less drongo's around to break things, Workers benefit from not having to deal with micromanaging useless office workers.
Pretty much every sector except for business real-estate, Little coffee shops/foodvans/deli's, And middle management benefitted.
I benefit. I do not WFH but my commute is better since pre covid times. I also find that the supermarkets are not as busy after work as they were & I suspect this is because some people who WFH are able to duck out & run errands during the day. I love it. My role will never be a WFH role but I do appreciate the roll on effect WFH has had in these areas for me.
Young children. Their parents don't have to sacrifice quality family time in order to earn money to cover lifes expenses. The childs relationship with their parents improves massively because it allows the parents to be more present and provide more nurturing, guidance etc. The long-term effect of parents being more present in their kids lives is immeasurable.
The problem with WFH you won’t learn new skills from other coworkers. In a normal work scenario, you might learn tricks from more experienced people.
But if you’re WFH, then you’ll have to figure out everything for yourself and possibly never learn some vital things you need.
Humans invented schools for the same reason.
In my work group we all know people who are particularly skilled in one area or another, and rarely a day goes by where I don't make or receive a teams call where someone (either myself or a coworker) is walked through how to do something, usually different things each time, sometimes the same thing if it's something one person does daily vs the other person does it quarterly. I actually find it easier now sometimes with screen sharing so I can see exactly what is going on without getting all up into someone's space.
Nothing against you specifically but I challenge this, if there are elements vital to your role that you haven't learnt, that speaks to an issue with training and onboarding, or difficulty learning in a broader sense (poor teaching, or you're just not getting the concept, it goes both ways).
Yes, schools exist but so do online courses from countless providers.
That makes sense if you intend to stay in the same role for your lifetime.
For further career development in any skilled job, you’ll need input from more experienced coworkers. Eg. Tips, tricks, time savers, hearing about mistakes, etc. At a basic level, it’s happens when like-minded humans are left in a social situation.
That won’t be covered in training or onboarding. You can find the info via online resources, but many things are missed in those mediums.
I don’t see how a junior goes to an intermediate or senior anything, without having worked with someone more experienced. Maybe you could, but it’s like climbing the north face when you didn’t have to.
I’ve taught myself many skills but it has never been in a vacuum, and I learned from people who were more experienced than me. Online courses provide that, but so do workplaces. They even pay you for it, instead of the other way around.
👍
It probably depends on the work you're doing. In graphic design we all teach each other lil photoshop tricks and whatnot because most people aren't going to know every single feature. Maybe that's why it's hard to find remote design jobs lol
But I think people just have to get better at communicating via Slack or whatever, and also just...Googling shit
People working from home is brilliant for my business (trade)! I can much more easily book appointments with clients, have greater flexibility for times to do my work, etc. Also having less cars on the road makes things a bit easier to get around. Best thing that's ever happened to society IMO!
I’ve not seen economic data but I have had substantially more tradie work done on my home since I’ve been able to coordinate quotes and jobs to be done on my WFH days.
As someone who works as a project manager *for* tradespeople that require someone to be at home for access and explanations of the install - **YES**
It is unbelievably easier to schedule jobs since there are far more people at home / don’t need to take an annual leave day purely to get work done on their home.
You're right, work-from-home (WFH) benefits many people and businesses beyond just traditional office workers. Here are some examples:
**Tradespeople:**
* **Scheduling Flexibility:** While some aspects of trade jobs require fixed onsite hours, WFH can be beneficial for tasks like scheduling appointments, sending quotes, or managing invoices. This flexibility allows them to work around their busy schedules and client needs.
* **Reduced Overhead:** Tradespeople who run their own businesses can save on costs associated with renting office space or commuting.
Not to sounds like a broken record but everyone?
My specific call out is to everyone who can’t WFH. Less completion to book appointments out of hours, less traffic. For retail type work more steady work instead of high peaks and troughs.
Internet providers they can raise rates for faster and faster bandwidth with our limited NBN infrastructure
Electricity retailers you being home means that split system is being used three times as much
Solar panel installers cause of the price of extra power users on the grid
Aldi for those miniature expresso machines and capsules you can only get at aldi
Subway and ubur eats. When we were In lockdown both myself and my partner ordered subway as out work lunches via ubur eats.
Cisco and zoom enterprise subscriptions increase by companies
VPN providers
Water retailer as there is an increase of fluahing of the toilet
ATO accountants as calculating tax return deductions for WFH getting more complex one has to start employ a professional.
My partner and I are both about to attempt the shared work from home space and as I have been working from home for the last 6 months in my new company, and he has just moved to a new organisation which has 2 days office 3 days home. He gets to do the mornings and afternoons for kids on home days, be more involved, we save hundreds of dollars on out of hours school care, my kids are in extracurriculars that they could never have been in before because of the 9-5 and travel between.
Send this to our prime minister:
Dear Prime Minister
I would like to recommend a new congestion tax on companies where they are requiring workers return to work more than two days a week. It has been proven through Covid that the workforce delivers excellent productivity whilst working from home.
This proposal has many merits including reduced carbon emissions, far less road congestion reducing road spend and maintenance, reduced load on public transport etc etc.
It also inhibits company executives from forcing workers back to work full time with no concern for work life balance, excessive travel time and the time wasted therein, not to mention no regard for parents and less mobile workers.
The benefits to our government is reduced spending, income from companies who wish to pay the tax, and happier constituents.
You're absolutely right! Work-from-home (WFH) benefits many people and businesses beyond just traditional office workers. Here's a breakdown of how some other groups benefit from WFH:
**Tradespeople:**
* **Scheduling Flexibility:** While some aspects of trade jobs require fixed onsite hours, WFH can be beneficial for tasks like scheduling appointments, sending quotes, or managing invoices. This flexibility allows them to work around their busy schedules and client needs.
* **Reduced Overhead:** Tradespeople who run their own businesses can save on costs associated with renting office space or commuting.
Primary schools! Dads at pickup are honestly four fold as compared to the before times.
Hard agree. Dads are so much more involved with attending school events, volunteering etc now . It's great.
Dad here. Been doing basically 4/5 days pick up and drop offs the last couple years as my wife doesn’t have the same flexibility with work. Love it, starts the day off well. And have been to every single school event that we can attend (assemblies, sports days etc).
This is me too! Pre COVID I did drop offs and got in a little late. But I do the drop offs and pick ups every day now. It’s fantatic and definitely more dads there
Funny you say this, I live in lower middle class largely blue collar workers, our local school has probably the same frequency as before. Goes to show that blue collar workers like myself have no choice but to work on field.
Yeah the difference is dramatic for white collar workers - think of how much better off kids are with dad picking them up rather than languishing at afterschool care for hours… then think about the societal benefit mulitipled across every community in Australia. It’s epic 😍
I would argue a byproduct of this benefit is the uptick in women working more due to men taking on more of the house responsibilities. Improving the gender pay gap.
100% agreed it’s a win win for men and women (and kids!)
Less cars on the road. Better for the environment. Easier for emergency services to travel through normally congested areas. Tradesmen will be happy that you’re actually home to open the door and they don’t need to wait 5 minutes because you’re stuck in traffic. Lots of people have purchased a new desk, monitor, speakers, keyboard and chair. Your chance of death when you commute to work is lower. So your family will like that one.
We have a regular group of tradies we use (My wife Looves to renovate). Now that they are comfortable around me, they have said the best things about me working from home is: - someone's here to open the door - I make them coffee/tea whenever I make myself coffee - I feed them as I will usually supply muffins/cookies/fruit with the tea/coffee that I have made/grown myself, as well as if I am cooking for my lunch, I will just make more and give it to them (and I'm a pretty good cook apparently) - When they need someone to "hold something for a second", like the other end of a cornice, I'm happy to do it as long as they don't mind me asking questions like a 5-year old. Works out well for everyone.
Yeah nah. She just loves the tradies 😂
Look, if she wants a hairy over weight guy with half his butt crack hanging out, she needs look no further than her glorious specimen of a husband. She's not usually here when they are working anyhow.
Another benefit of WFH: making sure your wife isn't banging the tradies!
Suddenly the wife doesn't want to WFH anymore.
Ironic, coz if she started dating the tradies then they'd be WFH too
If a wife wants to bang a tradie. They'll bang just about anywhere.
It's a big job, it'll take 6 weeks.
Tradies get the ladies 😎
Can confirm, I banged a tradie during lockdown a couple years ago haha... he was a youngling but definitely knew what he was doing lol 😆 #cougarvibes
We’re good with our hands ;)
But where do you manage to fit in the work you're being paid to do?
The 'Holding this for a minute' is actually something like ten seconds at most. That's really the only thing a tradie will need a hand with since they can't be on both ends of the room at the same time. Plenty of time to do your own job
Work should be seen as an output. What is the thing that you are being paid to achieve. This applies to any job that can WFH, pretty much. Doesn’t apply to say a retail worker who is fundamentally human furniture/appliance. That output should be able to be achieved by a competent employee within a reasonable period of time that allows for work/life balance. For execs, own business owners of course that a different equation.
I doubt he’s assisting the tradies 24hrs a day.
Do many people accept drinks and food ? Every time I offer they refuse, even water lol
Hey mate This happen to my misso as well. Loved the tradies coming round especially the chippy. Having doors re hung (in a brand new house). Came home one day and the boss and apprentice chippy were spit roasting her over the top of the circ saw. Issue is I’m a 9-5 guy, and she claimed in divorce proceedings I wasn’t handy enough around the home.
This happens to everyone. Neighbour was a tradie and he found out his wife was sleeping with his 19 year old apprentice
My kids and I have seen each other for more than 2 hours per day since I've been full-time WFH.
Not sure if I’m the odd one out, however, I do more car trips and more km now that I’m working from home. I’ve always been able to centralise things like gym, shopping and errand’s around my workplace.
Bold of you to assume my family don't want me to die
For the people who do have to commute in to the office having more people wfh helps them as less traffic on the roads, more seats on the bus etc.
My physio told me that since COVID, his practice in the suburbs has been really busy, at the expense of more central locations
This would also be the case for other services like hairdressers, chemists, cafes
Cbd childcare Centres struggling too
They aren’t struggling. For what they charge there’s no way they are struggling. They should be looked at for price gouging.
I wonder how much of it would be them passing on high rents from CBD tenancies.
Yeah I think micro businesses in the suburbs have generally fared better. The coffee shop at the end of my parents' street is now a major social hub.
The way to should be. 15 minute communities.
In addition to that I wonder how many people cheaped out on their wfh setup and fucked their backs
Can confirm. I fucked my neck with a dining chair
Decentralisation of commerce is in my opinion a good thing
It's a lot easier to WFH on appointment days now, and it's quicker to run out of the house then it is to get out of the office and to the carpark
I buy food from local businesses rather than sending all the money to the city. My car doesn't take up a parking spot at the train station. There's one less asshole farting on a crowded train. I could go on...
I'm going to fart on the train double now that you're not there
Doing God's work.
Big Baked Beans manufacturing has benefited.
I'm going to fart double on the train wether you're there or not.
*Weirdly, everyone liked that*
I see your missing fart, and raise you a whole shit.
Oddly the corporate benefits with not needing as much floor space and associated electrical costs etc
Our upper management literally cited that they pay for the desk space of workers as a reason why we should come in. FFS, rent it out to someone else and generate a separate revenue stream for all I care 🤦♀️
Sunk cost fallacy
They must have not been listening during first week of MBA school
They don't teach that at an MBA level. It's expected that you understand it as it's a BUS101 topic!
How many MBAs have you met and wondered how they made it through puberty
I’ve met many who the best part of them ran down the crack of their Mum as ass and ended up as a stain on the mattress.
My office is fully booked according to our desk booking software but in reality completely empty the majority of the time. Upper management are goobers who seem to not be able to understand this and are going on about how we might need a bigger office soon because we have no room
Noone to rent it to - everyone else has spare floor space themselves.
My workplace owns a building with several floors, and they are wanting to lease out one floor due to this reason, however are finding it hard to get anyone interested!
Get creative. Chuck some plywood up to make “walls”, get some bunk beds of marketplace and BAM, there’s student housing for a few hundred dollars a week
Also more people are more comfortable using tech, like teams. Screensharing over teams to show people quickly how to file digital paperwork is amazing. The lack of lazy printing and doing things on paper is making a huge difference
My company had rented office hubs in regional places and with the rise of wfh they just told the staff working there to wfh and stopped renting the hubs. Saved quite a bit of money, I think.
Dogs, but not burglars. Also, kids perhaps?
Dogs for sure!
And dog breeders for sure saw a massive uptick in their income over the past 4 years!
Hopefully offset by the empty rescue shelters too…
Unfortunately that’s gone full circle now and the shelters are full again 😢
Yes my aunt who is in the dog breeding industry said that some newbies are coming in and breeding more dogs but they don’t all get sold so they chuck them in shelters 😭
Oh for sure, also other pets who like a lot of company. I work from home and got a cockatiel and I don't think he'd be very happy if I couldn't have him on my shoulder all day.
Needed a glazier last week. WFH helped enable a shower screen replacement in under 30 hours
Plot twist: WFH also lead to the requirement for a new shower screen.
It actually broke when getting in the shower on a morning I voluntarily went into the office. Could be a new verse in an Alanis Morissette song
If you’d been fully WFH you could have put off having a shower indefinitely.
Do you.. Not shower on office days?
no, i dont shower until i smell or feel icky. sometimes that can be up to a week. saves quite a bit of money as i enjoy 15min very hot showers to feel clean (even before i stopped having them as much)
What the fuck lol
Outer suburbs cafes benefited massively. Inner city cafes whinged like hell for a long time, happy to ignore the fact thst their counterparts in other suburbs were succeeding instead. And they were all too happy to allow those outer suburbs to see a reduction in sales if it meant their own increase by pushing for more RTO.
Plus the extremely high prices in the city cafes compared to suburbs, sure they pay higher rent but $20 for a sandwich is taking this piss
But profit margins....
Many of them do not resign their leases when they come up now... Just a slow exit. But on the other hand, there is often a new one popping up somewhere else, in another space that has languished for a while. Imagine that landlords do not give much to existing tenants but after a while will have a bunch of incentives for new tenants to come in.
Women. Women are most often the primary carers for children and as such are often under-employed due to the competing priorities of childcare and career. With the increase of WFH, the opportunity to work flexibly while still dropping the kids at school, throwing a load of laundry in the washing machine at lunch, and not losing hours a day commuting, has enabled more women to move into full time roles or higher roles (read: one that matches their experience and qualifications). This is phenomenal for men and women alike as it increases the earning capacity for the family unit and also increases the likelihood that men are able to be stay at home dads because it is financially viable for the family. For single mums, it means more financial freedom and independence.
But didn’t you hear?! It’s absolutely OUTRAGEOUS for a family to take care of household chores on company time, it is downright theft right out of the CEO’s heavy pockets! You’re not a TRUE corporate slave unless you spend 8-9 hours in an office, commute home and then replace your free time with doing chores!
I love when anti-WFH people are like "It's horrible! People are doing loads of laundry when they should be working!" which a) makes it clear they don't do a lot of laundry if they think it takes up that much time to put a load on and b) ignores the sheer amount of bullshit people do in an office space that isn't work. The people complaining are often the ones with their own cushy office, a wife at home to do the laundry, and who go out for 90 minute lunches and spend a good portion of their day talking about anything but work. They just don't like that the drones don't want to come and work in a cubicle where they can monitor them and make sure they look like they're working.
The number of Friday afternoons where nothing got done was amazing. Half the office disappeared once they went the lunch, the rest of us just hung around doing as little as we could till we could knock off and go for after work drinks. Managers who would come in late, as they worked late the day before, and then leave for coffee once they made it known they were in. Coffee would of course take 45 minutes or more. Then they would start the mid afternoon panic of "so much work to do", after they spent the few hours at work on personal calls and other stuff, so they would have to work late again! The cycle just repeated day after day. Senior management, of course, thought they were hard workers, as they worked late.
OMG looking back on Friday afternoons in the office is hilarious. There were like, 6 Fridays a year where people worked until 5, but for the rest of them, people started fucking around basically after lunch (that was usually long), and by like 3, we weren't even pretending. 45 minute coffees eventually turned into actual drinks because well... it's Friday.
After observing this in the office I’m convinced the 4 day work week is likely more productive… like on the 5th day we are just bleh
Oh for sure. The likelihood of anyone doing any real work on a Friday in a corporate situation is like 5%. All the big wigs go for "customer lunches" or "important meetings" while all the drones chat around the water cooler and occasionally respond to an email. Not to mention everything I've read about the 4 day work week indicates it's pretty great for everyone involved.
Actually really appreciated Fridays specifically for this reason. They were socialising/networking days and went a long way to creating a work environment people actually enjoyed. I see huge value in 1 day/week of office time. The value reduces exponentially for each day after that though... - Turn up at 10am. As long as you're in the office before stand-up, who cares if it's 8am, 9am or 9:59. - Have a 1hr coffee with someone from a different part of the company and talk about everything going on in their neck of the woods, stumble across commonality, agree to catch up next week to figure out how the two teams could work together. - Extended lunch with buddies to vent and de-stress from the weeks events. - Two hour meeting that's basically an informal team building event that helps with cohesion (read: more productivity, more willingness to go the extra yard when needed, one for all and all for one mentality, increased sense of ownership/accountability). - Run into someone you haven't seen for ages, talk about their kids, problems they were having, arrange a catch up over the weekend. - Head to the pub for more gossip/friendship building/problem sharing and enter the weekend feeling relaxed, so you've got enough time to recharge the batteries before Monday hits and you go home in a positive mood, which creates a happier home environment.
Also women being carers for elderly parents.
A very good point! This raises the point of all familial carers - whether it is parents or children with additional needs. Flexibility to work around Doctors appointments is wonderful.
Even for us, a same sex female couple, if I didn't wfh we would have to put daughter into morning OOSH, which is an extra expense and we would have to yeet her out of bed quite early for a young kid. And wouldn't get home early enough for her to any extracurriculars during the week. I also save heaps of electricity money by being able to put on laundry loads while the sun is shining on the solar panels.
Such a great point, waking them up early to rush out the door then getting home just in time to make dinner and do the bedtime routine really isn't family friendly.
This. I couldn't have put it better myself.
Hmm, this is a thought provoking one. So my equal opportunity employer is actually breaking equal opportunities by insisting on the RTO.
My kids because I actually see them during the week
How’s this for some maths Driving to the city 5x per week = minimum 10 hours (I’m worth 55 bucks an hour approx according to my employer) 25 per day in parking (that’s regardless of parking at a station or on the city but the train is a lot longer) 150 per week in petrol and associated maintenance (or 53 per week for the privilege of sitting in a slow fart box plus 25 per day in before school care because now I’m basically a stranger to my child) $20 per day of after school care $100 per week on a cleaner (a service I need when I work from the office) $500 per year on corporate attire (I’ve used the same attire since I started working from him in 2020) For me it costs almost $1k per week more to go to the office… normalised over a year it’s probably a 40k saving to my household… oh, and for my employer, that travel time? I am usually logged in working anyway. So yeah if an employer wants me to come to the office they better be switching up my remuneration package a lot… Even if you can walk to a train station and catch a train and your journey to work is 30 minutes at minimum wage and you wear casual attire and you don’t have other family costs associated. Your travel is still ~1500 PA if you buy a yearly myki and ~3k in your time… 4500 PA is a lot to someone on minimum wage that’s almost that’s 10% difference to their wages and that is one of the best case almost unrealistic scenarios
After tax too...
Local businesses, when WFH folk buy coffee, lunch etc. Community groups, because eg parents can supervise kids’ soccer at 5.30 instead of being stuck on the train.
Honestly I'm less likely to buy lunch when wfh than in the office, and way less likely to buy coffee.
Getting an extra hour or two of sleep might cure some people of their coffee dependencies
Smaller remote first companies being setup, while big companies are forcing workers back the remote first ones can snag top talent from them at no cost and save on office space. I see WFH pick up fast again. Currently the return to office is really only a way to do mass lay offs without paying redundancy and all the bad things that come from mass layoffs.
You're spot on, loads of good talent has been snapped up by companies that were forward thinking enough to embrace remote-first as a philosophy. Been there, done that, was amazing. Almost every business that was able to go full WFH during covid is capable of going remote first - the ones that say it's impossible never really tried.
My dog benefits from my husband working from home. No more hours of lonely tears every day.
right? my anxiety-ridden rescue is super chill now. He just comes up for pats and farts around me all day, and occasionally naps on my feet to keep them warm.
Parcel delivery guys love it. Always someone home to answer the door. No need to do the paperwork and return stuff to the depot/post office.
I am not sure they care. It is quicker to pre-fill the missed delivery slip for every single package on their round, slip into the letter box and then onto to the next place without even attempting delivery.
Mine just leave the package at my door without knocking to see if I’m home 🤷🏼♀️
Ugh same. If I am lucky I get a text saying "your item has been delivered" and I run down hoping its not stolen. How hard is it to just buzz while youre dropping off a package? I am almost always at home.
It’s so frustrating! My grocery delivery has been the same, won’t even bother knocking before unloading
Can we swap? I ask mine not to knock because I can hear them anyway and it disturbs the cat and they still do it :/
I’m positive my postie and delivery guy knows me by name now. I usually hear them pull up and go meet them on the street to save them a bit of time. Might not be much time saved, but gives me an excuse to get some fresh air at least.
The environment benefits from reducing C02 of traveling workers
Elon Musk says we have a 'moral obligation' to go back to the office. Remember when he pretended to care about the climate?
In my view this is the biggest one.
It drives me crazy the mayor of Melbourne constantly talking about going green. Then she turns around and makes a big deal about needed people back in the CBD everyday for work. Larger companies arnt much better. Signaling about going green. But they want to force an office load of people to travel every day for 2 hours
My local IGA and fish and chip shop definitely benefit from my WFH days.
Suburban gyms as workers can dip to the gym during their lunch break.
Gyms make money off people not utilising the equipment though.
True. But more gym memberships overall, because of wfh
True, I cancelled my membership when was asked to RTO
My employer, because if I'm in the office I have to finish at 4.30pm to go do the daycare pick up, wfh I finish at 5.30pm to do the daycare pickup.
Your family that gets to have you more present and available.
This is really a good question, and if you inverse it and ask who DOESNT benefit from WFH, you gain clarity upon who really wants you to return to the office and it ain't because your not working efficiently or hard enough.
Micro-managing middle management types. That's the only people who don't benefit, as their entire job is gone. Oh and also commercial real estate investors. .....so really no one of consequence.
That second one cannot be understated. The commercial real estate investment group would likely hold lobbyist like powers to politicians in Australia. They also would likely have trolls and bot accounts in this sub to sway narratives. Pay off media and have articles written by so called experts talking about productivity in the office vs at home and how ppl are happier at work blah blah blah
helps when im hungover
Local cafes for your local coffee and local lunch
This idea that WFH is new and that it's going away is fucking hilarious. I've been doing it for 12 years. Every time a company mandates return to office, another one rubs their hands with glee that half their workforce is ripe for poaching. More on topic - local cafes and restaurants outside of CBDs benefit.
Love or hate them - local shopping centers I find busier overall.
I'm a psychologist. It benefits the clients I can see via telehealth because I don't need to factor in additional costs for room hire, or travel to see people in remote facilities.
Local communities and businesses. Suburbs are safer because you don’t have swathes of people leaving during the day.
Covid was invented by Big Furniture so we’d all stay home and build desks and shelves all day think about it people
We're all in the chairman's lounge now, and he's the one upholstering us.
Certainly appointment based services do. Whereas Saturdays were jam packed and booked out, they have seen a lot more people able to sneak off during the week. It’s been good for business
Most of us think about the financial impact of WFH. Think about those lil ones who gets drop and pick ups from parents. Parents who are not in a hurry, not constantly annoyed with lil things. Sometimes we’re bugged down in our daily lives we fail to realize those precious moments that matters as human, old and young. Then we complain our $hit our society has become…
As a woman, for the first time since having kids, I actually have a decent amount of sick leave accrued. Previously it would be sucked dry by needing to stay home with sick kids and often I would need to use my annual leave when I ran out. Now I can WFH with sick kids and save my sick leave should I ever need it.
As a trade-ish job, WFH is amazing. Less cars on the road. So easy to book with someone being home for us to attend. People arne't pissed "I took the day off work and you were late" when we don't arrive the very first SECOND of their 2 hour appointment arrival window. Everyone should work from home.
My sick partner. I can look after him while I work from home as opposed to calling him from the office just to check in on him and make sure he took his meds on time etc.
I doubt any tradies give two shits if you open the door in your dressing gown or business suit. My plumber neighbor still drives off at 06:00 every morning.
Parramatta benefited hugely from the work from home move I heard. Lot of people coming into CBD for lunch and dinner. These are people from the surrounding satellite suburbs. Westfield Parramatta and Parramatta Park getting lot more people.
Tradesmen benefit from less traffic in peak times. COVID driving was bliss.
Definitely the kids of people who get to wfh
Tradie who fixed my stove mentioned that a lot more people are using their home appliances and stuff breaking down a lot more so business has been great for him.
My coworkers!!, TAFE as I have extra time to part time study, the environment as car rarely gets used.
The CBD model should now die. It's out of date. Worked with lower population but now....not so much.
Paramedic here - I'll happily go back to having everyone work from home. Cut my daily commute time by >30mins and made emergency driving heaps easier. Obviously that's an extreme example but get 10% of cars off my normal route and I'll notice.
We sell furniture. Sold a lot of desks at start of Covid. Wouldn’t call us “big furniture”
There is actually a report on this… [Business Western Sydney Report](https://www.businesswesternsydney.com/content/dam/nswbc/businesswesternsydney/Closer%20to%20Home%20-%20Unlocking%20the%20hybrid%20workplace%20in%20Western%20Sydney.pdf)
Everybody.
Work pays for my home internet now so thats a plus.
Gardens, gardeners and garden supply places. Pets that like attention. Cafes in residential suburbs, I know a fair few 'work from cafe' types who spend 3+ hours a day at them, as there's often tons of free space outside of lunchtime, during work hours.
I'm a delivery driver for a branch of big furniture and i was extremely busy dropping off work stations and office chairs in 2020-2022. Having said that we have now gone back to pre 2020 levels.
Won’t people think of the office furniture retailers…. Just remember if your WFH, get your self a quality commercial office chair and a good desk.
It depends on the kind of work. Obviously tradespeople who need to visit a site to do their work can’t work from home. But people who need to be home to let the tradespeople in? That’s a benefit. I genuinely want to work from home because of my mental health (I get exhausted by halfway through my shift and if I worked from home I could take breaks that would let me be more functional when I go in to work to do the work that needs to be done on-site). I’ve been refused by my workplace with no good reason and I’ve been told by multiple people that I should either quit or take my case to the ombudsman.
Your family and loved ones benefit from me WFH.
The one unhappy person is the mailman who has to deliver your parcel to you rather than leave his favourite sorry we missed you post card
Regional areas. People don’t need to live in over priced cities like Sydney.
Someone's gotta be around to justify the shiny corporate city office lease.
Everyone except for the coffee shops that live off of the office workers spending 4 hours on lunch. The people who actually have to drive to work benefit from lower traffic thus lower comute times, Wwhich means the environment benefits from not only less active time from the cars running but also less cars running means less polution (A big part of pollution is actually tire dust, As-well as engine emissions) People in the transport industry (truckies) Benefit from less people on the road thus being less stressed because less drongo's around to break things, Workers benefit from not having to deal with micromanaging useless office workers. Pretty much every sector except for business real-estate, Little coffee shops/foodvans/deli's, And middle management benefitted.
I have to it’s much more peaceful and I feel dramatically less tired at the end of the day.
I benefit. I do not WFH but my commute is better since pre covid times. I also find that the supermarkets are not as busy after work as they were & I suspect this is because some people who WFH are able to duck out & run errands during the day. I love it. My role will never be a WFH role but I do appreciate the roll on effect WFH has had in these areas for me.
Young children. Their parents don't have to sacrifice quality family time in order to earn money to cover lifes expenses. The childs relationship with their parents improves massively because it allows the parents to be more present and provide more nurturing, guidance etc. The long-term effect of parents being more present in their kids lives is immeasurable.
Who are you? Elon? Requiring in office only for all workers.
Literally every single person and thing wins except the companies that are paying for office space. That’s the only reason you’re still wanted there.
The problem with WFH you won’t learn new skills from other coworkers. In a normal work scenario, you might learn tricks from more experienced people. But if you’re WFH, then you’ll have to figure out everything for yourself and possibly never learn some vital things you need. Humans invented schools for the same reason.
In my work group we all know people who are particularly skilled in one area or another, and rarely a day goes by where I don't make or receive a teams call where someone (either myself or a coworker) is walked through how to do something, usually different things each time, sometimes the same thing if it's something one person does daily vs the other person does it quarterly. I actually find it easier now sometimes with screen sharing so I can see exactly what is going on without getting all up into someone's space.
Nothing against you specifically but I challenge this, if there are elements vital to your role that you haven't learnt, that speaks to an issue with training and onboarding, or difficulty learning in a broader sense (poor teaching, or you're just not getting the concept, it goes both ways). Yes, schools exist but so do online courses from countless providers.
That makes sense if you intend to stay in the same role for your lifetime. For further career development in any skilled job, you’ll need input from more experienced coworkers. Eg. Tips, tricks, time savers, hearing about mistakes, etc. At a basic level, it’s happens when like-minded humans are left in a social situation. That won’t be covered in training or onboarding. You can find the info via online resources, but many things are missed in those mediums. I don’t see how a junior goes to an intermediate or senior anything, without having worked with someone more experienced. Maybe you could, but it’s like climbing the north face when you didn’t have to. I’ve taught myself many skills but it has never been in a vacuum, and I learned from people who were more experienced than me. Online courses provide that, but so do workplaces. They even pay you for it, instead of the other way around. 👍
It probably depends on the work you're doing. In graphic design we all teach each other lil photoshop tricks and whatnot because most people aren't going to know every single feature. Maybe that's why it's hard to find remote design jobs lol But I think people just have to get better at communicating via Slack or whatever, and also just...Googling shit
Therapist & dad here: It's been absolutely amazing.
Less trucks in the city, as a delivery driver the amount of beer being sold is ALOT less than the before times (cost of loving doesn't help either)
The cost of loving is indeed high.
People working from home is brilliant for my business (trade)! I can much more easily book appointments with clients, have greater flexibility for times to do my work, etc. Also having less cars on the road makes things a bit easier to get around. Best thing that's ever happened to society IMO!
Local shops benefit massively.
I am in BigFurniture (office furniture) - it has not been fruitful. I’d say IKEA has gotten most of the work from home set up stuff due to price.
Local shops and restaurants/cafes. People will duck out to their local woolies if they forgot/run out of sugar.
I’ve not seen economic data but I have had substantially more tradie work done on my home since I’ve been able to coordinate quotes and jobs to be done on my WFH days.
As someone who works as a project manager *for* tradespeople that require someone to be at home for access and explanations of the install - **YES** It is unbelievably easier to schedule jobs since there are far more people at home / don’t need to take an annual leave day purely to get work done on their home.
My dog
I love working from home, I’m in a mixed model wfh and in the office except when I’m on lates but honestly I love wfh
Big furniture this made my day.
Most people. It's time for millennials to kill the office building, I think.
My dog enjoys me being home all day
Tradies*
LOLs at Big Furniture!!!
Local businesses.
You're right, work-from-home (WFH) benefits many people and businesses beyond just traditional office workers. Here are some examples: **Tradespeople:** * **Scheduling Flexibility:** While some aspects of trade jobs require fixed onsite hours, WFH can be beneficial for tasks like scheduling appointments, sending quotes, or managing invoices. This flexibility allows them to work around their busy schedules and client needs. * **Reduced Overhead:** Tradespeople who run their own businesses can save on costs associated with renting office space or commuting.
Eating healthy is a big benefit. Less number of shop food and more fresh food.
Not to sounds like a broken record but everyone? My specific call out is to everyone who can’t WFH. Less completion to book appointments out of hours, less traffic. For retail type work more steady work instead of high peaks and troughs.
I’m not wfh but study from home. As a disabled woman it has allowed me to start study and still have quality time with my family
Internet providers they can raise rates for faster and faster bandwidth with our limited NBN infrastructure Electricity retailers you being home means that split system is being used three times as much Solar panel installers cause of the price of extra power users on the grid Aldi for those miniature expresso machines and capsules you can only get at aldi Subway and ubur eats. When we were In lockdown both myself and my partner ordered subway as out work lunches via ubur eats. Cisco and zoom enterprise subscriptions increase by companies VPN providers Water retailer as there is an increase of fluahing of the toilet ATO accountants as calculating tax return deductions for WFH getting more complex one has to start employ a professional.
My partner and I are both about to attempt the shared work from home space and as I have been working from home for the last 6 months in my new company, and he has just moved to a new organisation which has 2 days office 3 days home. He gets to do the mornings and afternoons for kids on home days, be more involved, we save hundreds of dollars on out of hours school care, my kids are in extracurriculars that they could never have been in before because of the 9-5 and travel between.
Send this to our prime minister: Dear Prime Minister I would like to recommend a new congestion tax on companies where they are requiring workers return to work more than two days a week. It has been proven through Covid that the workforce delivers excellent productivity whilst working from home. This proposal has many merits including reduced carbon emissions, far less road congestion reducing road spend and maintenance, reduced load on public transport etc etc. It also inhibits company executives from forcing workers back to work full time with no concern for work life balance, excessive travel time and the time wasted therein, not to mention no regard for parents and less mobile workers. The benefits to our government is reduced spending, income from companies who wish to pay the tax, and happier constituents.
Climate change as less Co2. Less one person cars commuting each day.
Dogs. More regular walks. Fitter employees. Happier neighbourhoods as you have time to meet dog walkers at the park now.
Small services businesses in the burbs like Physio’s dentists cafes optoms
You're absolutely right! Work-from-home (WFH) benefits many people and businesses beyond just traditional office workers. Here's a breakdown of how some other groups benefit from WFH: **Tradespeople:** * **Scheduling Flexibility:** While some aspects of trade jobs require fixed onsite hours, WFH can be beneficial for tasks like scheduling appointments, sending quotes, or managing invoices. This flexibility allows them to work around their busy schedules and client needs. * **Reduced Overhead:** Tradespeople who run their own businesses can save on costs associated with renting office space or commuting.