12 ms·

Deloitte tells staff they can work from home forever

220 points by rchaudhary 5y ago

alfiedotwtf 5y ago
This will be interesting to watch, as people jump ship from the other Big Four, especially when some of the others have forced staff back into the office.
rabuse 5y ago
I've been working from home for most of my life. I honestly love the freedom it gives me to manage my own time.
mfer 5y ago
I wonder how much Deloitte will save in expenses by doing this. I imagine that played into the decision
- shados 5y ago
  I can't speak for Deloitte, but having seen some of the numbers of a bunch of large companies, it doesn't matter a whole lot. Like yeah, in absolute its a big number, but relatively, for most companies its nearly a rounding error. It's much more about talent acquisition/retention vs perceived output, etc. For a lot of companies that did go all in, they generally give the money they would save in some other form (eg: food cards, paid home work setup, etc). The real estate itself is often also locked in for 10+ years anyhow so they can't easily get rid of that, and at best saves them from locking down extra locations.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    Yeah this is true. Apple's brand new state of the art campus cost $5 billion. That's a lot of money, but Apple printed ~$60 billion in profit last year alone, and will do a bigger number this year and the next and so on. $5 billion one time really is just a rounding error in that context.
BrissyCoder 5y ago
Can't imagine working in an office again. The bathrooms, the bad food you inevitably end up eating, the hour a day lost to commute, the interruptions, having to shower and wear pants. Yuck.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  Remove the commute and all is solved. I pay 4000 USD a month in rent in Hong Kong to sleep near my bank lol
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    Not really. I've lived near where I've worked my entire life. The furthest I've lived is about 4 miles, and even then I'd bike 6, just so I could bike along the beach. I still prefer remote.
  - thret 5y ago
    There is something glorious about walking five minutes to work and knowing your co-worker spent an hour in traffic. It's like cheating death on a small scale.
    - lmkg 5y ago
      It's literally cheating death, only spread out over a long period of time.
      - labster 5y ago
        And by not driving, you cheat death a little bit more on behalf of other people. Less air pollution is good for literally everyone.
    - annoyingnoob 5y ago
      When I had this situation I was expected to show up any time, like if the alarm went off or to let a contractor in, etc. I was unofficially on-call for all things office. And blamed if something odd happened after hours. Walking to work was glorious.
MattGaiser 5y ago
Isn't this with the caveat when they are not on a client project? My impression with Big 4 was that they spent a lot of time in client offices.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  If the clients are also working from home where are you going to go?
  - BrissyCoder 5y ago
    The Pub?
- awsthro00945 5y ago
  Yes. Even before the pandemic I (and most of my Big4 colleagues) worked from home when possible (my firm didn't care at all if you came to the office), but 80%+ of the time we were at the whims of our client and were traveling to their offices, anyway. This announcement probably means a lot more for the internal services staff and the accounting teams that don't go to clients often, but for almost all of the client-facing staff I doubt this makes much of a difference.
  - xivzgrev 5y ago
    that's what i was thinking too. most consultants are on site 4 days a week
- alexrzem 5y ago
  Nope. I haven’t been into the offices for the majority of my clients, and when I have, it’s only been to pick up a secured laptop and physically sign papers.
1270018080 5y ago
I'm not a doomer who thinks the commercial real estate market is going to crash the economy, but I can't help but wonder what its going to look like in 10 years. That's 350k people who can work remotely now. Then you'll have the other Big 3 trying to stay competitive. That's 1 million employees who are going to be doing... something? Sure, not all will be remote, but still. That's a dramatic shift.
- tjr225 5y ago
  > That's 350k people who can work remotely now. Did you even read the article?
awsthro00945 5y ago
This is only the Deloitte UK firm, and does not apply to any other Deloitte country firm, such as the US.
r00fus 5y ago
This is the smart choice - carrots over sticks. Companies can always find other levers to get people into the office if desired - ie, promotion track traditionally favors those who work in office.
nomy99 5y ago
So I interviewed at Facebook, multiple banks, along with my current gig at ”nyc company”, and they are all heavily enforcing returning to the office. This news seems contradictory to the reality I’ve witnessed
- Infinitesimus 5y ago
  How recent were these interviews? Some of these companies only just started allowing fully remote hires.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  I can't imagine a bank ever being at the forefront of anything and I used to work in the innovation department of one. But yes, the remote fervor does not seem to be matched even by a quick skimming of job postings on LinkedIn.
  - mancerayder 5y ago
    >I can't imagine a bank ever being at the forefront of anything and I used to work in the innovation department of one. It was imaginable in the mid 90s to early 2000s, distant history at this point.
- 8ytecoder 5y ago
  While the media has been reporting that Facebook has embraced wfh, the reality on the ground seems different. When I spoke to their recruiter, they seem to decide based on team, manager…etc. Even then they still expect you to be in office a few days a week. A non-starter for me.
  - benglish11 5y ago
    I had a similar experience. Interviewed, did tech screen (and did well) and then was told they weren’t hiring remote for that position anymore, which sucked because I really aced that tech screen.
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
ab_testing 5y ago
Since most of Deloitte employees are travelling consultants who travel to client sites Monday to Thursday and only go to the Deloitte office on Friday, I don't think it would make much of a difference. If you are a client of Deloitte and the client wants you in their office, you would still have to travel to the client site.
- zitterbewegung 5y ago
  That may be true but now Deloitte can liquidate any commercial property or not renew a lease.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  One the advisory side, sure but the audit and tax groups are more of a mixed bag and somewhat seasonal/cyclical.
bitwize 5y ago
Surprising, as I thought the big consulting firms favored a stockbroker lifestyle: the offices are in a high-rent area, and your digs are expected to be high-rent and near the office. Both to make you more accessible and to inflate your cost of living so you're more dependent on the company. Or is it a thing like "unlimited time off" where if you actually take advantage of it, you're considered last for promotions and first for pink slips?
- thehappypm 5y ago
  I think your understanding of consulting is way off. Consulting is mostly on-site with clients, and consultants live worldwide.
- htrp 5y ago
  >Or is it a thing like "unlimited time off" where if you actually take advantage of it, you're considered last for promotions and first for pink slips? consulting ranks/promotes you by what you bill (or sell once in management), so if you start taking too much PTO, your year-end bonuses start to go down and you get put into the firing line Most firms don't care where you live because you're 99% traveling to a client site anyway
user3939382 5y ago
I hope enough of these big organizations can make this change that we surpass a critical point and trigger a cascade where it becomes a major competitive disadvantage to require an office presence.
tibbydudeza 5y ago
I was involuntary retired due to Covid - best thing to ever happen - why waste my time left on earth doing meaningless soul crushing "work".
- 0des 5y ago
  Glad you made it through, wishing you the best on your new life.
- tenebrisalietum 5y ago
  Better than being involuntary homeless due to Covid I guess.
  - 52-6F-62 5y ago
    Also better than beating death just to go back to a job that makes you wish you were.
- astrange 5y ago
  Hopefully not due to long-term disability from it!
curiousllama 5y ago
For context: consulting firms like Deloitte were typically remote-first for front office staff, even before the pandemic. They will still be traveling to client sites. And when not traveling, most managers like to be in person anyway. For a lot of people, this change is… literally and exactly nothing.
- eikenberry 5y ago
  The article says nothing about this not also applying to their consultants. Did I miss it, or are you getting this information from another source?
  - nsonha 5y ago
    Can't imagine the policy to have control over how client wants to be engaged.
elevenoh 5y ago
2030s: work from anywhere, get paid in non-nation-state currency
harikb 5y ago
It would be great if there was a way for these articles to clearly differentiate many things companies allow. 1. Work from home in your primary geo, commutable distance, but be ready to come to work x times a week / on demand 2. Work from anywhere, but restricted to states where company has a presence. 3. Work from anywhere within primary country. 4. Work from anywhere in whatever time zone and country. May be different terms?? Right now WFH is a big bucket May be label them like we call self-driving car levels :)
intrasight 5y ago
I wonder if Deloitte management working in the commercial office sector will put some behind the scenes pressure on staff to spend time in the office.
tyingq 5y ago
Assuming they are mostly consultants, this isn't terribly meaningful, is it? Whether they can work from home will be determined by the client most of the time.
intrasight 5y ago
The Economist has had a lot of interesting articles on this. In one, they said that office building owners are going to have to make their office spaces so cool that people will want to return. I've worked at home for years, but I'm curious what the larger tech worker opinion is on this. Will fancy new offices with that perks that SV workers have long had convince you to return to the office?
- flukus 5y ago
  > Will fancy new offices with that perks that SV workers have long had convince you to return to the office? If "fancy" means open plan and "perks" means sitting next to a foosball table that will further entrench my WFH preference. Things like free drinks and food might make a difference to whether to work for company A or company B, but there's nothing I care about enough to give up the extra time I have each day.
underseacables 5y ago
We are back in the office and I love it. I can talk to my colleagues again, have in person social time instead of awkwardly staring at someone’s head looking at my chest. I’m very glad to be going back to the office now.
antoniuschan99 5y ago
Been thinking wfh will be axed once things really go back to normal and the pandemic is history. There will be a larger set of remote first or hybrid companies for sure though. Commute time is really the main issue here and people including myself will hopefully consider shortening that for the betterment of our overall health and wellness.
midrus 5y ago
Some people prefer to go back to the office. Some other people prefer to keep working from home. That's fine, everyone has his preferences and his own situation (commute time, friends at work vs just coworkers, making your own food vs catered food, etc). Luckily, we can switch jobs easily in this industry. Just go and join a company that suits your preference. I'm already remote, but I'd definitely switch if my company forced me to go back. There's plenty of opportunities out there and life is too short. If your company wants you to go back, fuck them. Go and look for something else. If your company goes full remote and you miss your coworkers, fuck them, go and look for something else. Meet your ex-coworkers after work at a pub.
rStar 5y ago
is actually forever or is it google “free photo storage for life”-forever?
awaydeloitte 5y ago
This is a misleading title at best. Deloitte US (article is about Deloitte UK) has announced a hybrid model. Most US employees will fall in a 30-50% "co-location" range. Co-location is defined as any time 2 or more employees (or clients + employees) are in the same room at the same time. Deloitte does a lot of on-site work with both corp and gov, so if they want the Deloitte consultant on-site, that's still going to happen. From inside the company, it's feeling like a lot of the back-office stuff is going to be remote first. Leadership has been explicit about NOT ALLOWING employees to move outside of commuting range of a Deloitte office. I'm personally in the lower co-location model, less than 10% "co-location". Given most of my team is in the north-east, and I'm located in south-east, I may fly in twice a year to have a few days of lunches and "planning" sessions with my team.

220 points by rchaudhary 5y ago

This will be interesting to watch, as people jump ship from the other Big Four, especially when some of the others have forced staff back into the office.

rabuse 5y ago

I've been working from home for most of my life. I honestly love the freedom it gives me to manage my own time.

mfer 5y ago

I wonder how much Deloitte will save in expenses by doing this. I imagine that played into the decision

shados 5y ago
I can't speak for Deloitte, but having seen some of the numbers of a bunch of large companies, it doesn't matter a whole lot. Like yeah, in absolute its a big number, but relatively, for most companies its nearly a rounding error. It's much more about talent acquisition/retention vs perceived output, etc. For a lot of companies that did go all in, they generally give the money they would save in some other form (eg: food cards, paid home work setup, etc). The real estate itself is often also locked in for 10+ years anyhow so they can't easily get rid of that, and at best saves them from locking down extra locations.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Yeah this is true. Apple's brand new state of the art campus cost $5 billion. That's a lot of money, but Apple printed ~$60 billion in profit last year alone, and will do a bigger number this year and the next and so on. $5 billion one time really is just a rounding error in that context.

BrissyCoder 5y ago

Can't imagine working in an office again. The bathrooms, the bad food you inevitably end up eating, the hour a day lost to commute, the interruptions, having to shower and wear pants. Yuck.

xwolfi 5y ago
Remove the commute and all is solved. I pay 4000 USD a month in rent in Hong Kong to sleep near my bank lol
- lostcolony 5y ago
  Not really. I've lived near where I've worked my entire life. The furthest I've lived is about 4 miles, and even then I'd bike 6, just so I could bike along the beach. I still prefer remote.
- thret 5y ago
  There is something glorious about walking five minutes to work and knowing your co-worker spent an hour in traffic. It's like cheating death on a small scale.
  - lmkg 5y ago
    It's literally cheating death, only spread out over a long period of time.
    - labster 5y ago
      And by not driving, you cheat death a little bit more on behalf of other people. Less air pollution is good for literally everyone.
  - annoyingnoob 5y ago
    When I had this situation I was expected to show up any time, like if the alarm went off or to let a contractor in, etc. I was unofficially on-call for all things office. And blamed if something odd happened after hours. Walking to work was glorious.

MattGaiser 5y ago

Isn't this with the caveat when they are not on a client project? My impression with Big 4 was that they spent a lot of time in client offices.

chrisseaton 5y ago
If the clients are also working from home where are you going to go?
- BrissyCoder 5y ago
  The Pub?
awsthro00945 5y ago
Yes. Even before the pandemic I (and most of my Big4 colleagues) worked from home when possible (my firm didn't care at all if you came to the office), but 80%+ of the time we were at the whims of our client and were traveling to their offices, anyway. This announcement probably means a lot more for the internal services staff and the accounting teams that don't go to clients often, but for almost all of the client-facing staff I doubt this makes much of a difference.
- xivzgrev 5y ago
  that's what i was thinking too. most consultants are on site 4 days a week
alexrzem 5y ago
Nope. I haven’t been into the offices for the majority of my clients, and when I have, it’s only been to pick up a secured laptop and physically sign papers.

1270018080 5y ago

I'm not a doomer who thinks the commercial real estate market is going to crash the economy, but I can't help but wonder what its going to look like in 10 years. That's 350k people who can work remotely now. Then you'll have the other Big 3 trying to stay competitive. That's 1 million employees who are going to be doing... something? Sure, not all will be remote, but still. That's a dramatic shift.

tjr225 5y ago
> That's 350k people who can work remotely now. Did you even read the article?

awsthro00945 5y ago

This is only the Deloitte UK firm, and does not apply to any other Deloitte country firm, such as the US.

r00fus 5y ago

This is the smart choice - carrots over sticks. Companies can always find other levers to get people into the office if desired - ie, promotion track traditionally favors those who work in office.

nomy99 5y ago

So I interviewed at Facebook, multiple banks, along with my current gig at ”nyc company”, and they are all heavily enforcing returning to the office. This news seems contradictory to the reality I’ve witnessed

Infinitesimus 5y ago
How recent were these interviews? Some of these companies only just started allowing fully remote hires.
MattGaiser 5y ago
I can't imagine a bank ever being at the forefront of anything and I used to work in the innovation department of one. But yes, the remote fervor does not seem to be matched even by a quick skimming of job postings on LinkedIn.
- mancerayder 5y ago
  >I can't imagine a bank ever being at the forefront of anything and I used to work in the innovation department of one. It was imaginable in the mid 90s to early 2000s, distant history at this point.
8ytecoder 5y ago
While the media has been reporting that Facebook has embraced wfh, the reality on the ground seems different. When I spoke to their recruiter, they seem to decide based on team, manager…etc. Even then they still expect you to be in office a few days a week. A non-starter for me.
- benglish11 5y ago
  I had a similar experience. Interviewed, did tech screen (and did well) and then was told they weren’t hiring remote for that position anymore, which sucked because I really aced that tech screen.
qbasic_forever 5y ago

ab_testing 5y ago

Since most of Deloitte employees are travelling consultants who travel to client sites Monday to Thursday and only go to the Deloitte office on Friday, I don't think it would make much of a difference. If you are a client of Deloitte and the client wants you in their office, you would still have to travel to the client site.

zitterbewegung 5y ago
That may be true but now Deloitte can liquidate any commercial property or not renew a lease.
elliekelly 5y ago
One the advisory side, sure but the audit and tax groups are more of a mixed bag and somewhat seasonal/cyclical.

bitwize 5y ago

Surprising, as I thought the big consulting firms favored a stockbroker lifestyle: the offices are in a high-rent area, and your digs are expected to be high-rent and near the office. Both to make you more accessible and to inflate your cost of living so you're more dependent on the company. Or is it a thing like "unlimited time off" where if you actually take advantage of it, you're considered last for promotions and first for pink slips?

thehappypm 5y ago
I think your understanding of consulting is way off. Consulting is mostly on-site with clients, and consultants live worldwide.
htrp 5y ago
>Or is it a thing like "unlimited time off" where if you actually take advantage of it, you're considered last for promotions and first for pink slips? consulting ranks/promotes you by what you bill (or sell once in management), so if you start taking too much PTO, your year-end bonuses start to go down and you get put into the firing line Most firms don't care where you live because you're 99% traveling to a client site anyway

user3939382 5y ago

I hope enough of these big organizations can make this change that we surpass a critical point and trigger a cascade where it becomes a major competitive disadvantage to require an office presence.

tibbydudeza 5y ago

I was involuntary retired due to Covid - best thing to ever happen - why waste my time left on earth doing meaningless soul crushing "work".

0des 5y ago
Glad you made it through, wishing you the best on your new life.
tenebrisalietum 5y ago
Better than being involuntary homeless due to Covid I guess.
- 52-6F-62 5y ago
  Also better than beating death just to go back to a job that makes you wish you were.
astrange 5y ago
Hopefully not due to long-term disability from it!

curiousllama 5y ago

For context: consulting firms like Deloitte were typically remote-first for front office staff, even before the pandemic. They will still be traveling to client sites. And when not traveling, most managers like to be in person anyway. For a lot of people, this change is… literally and exactly nothing.

eikenberry 5y ago
The article says nothing about this not also applying to their consultants. Did I miss it, or are you getting this information from another source?
- nsonha 5y ago
  Can't imagine the policy to have control over how client wants to be engaged.

elevenoh 5y ago

2030s: work from anywhere, get paid in non-nation-state currency

harikb 5y ago

It would be great if there was a way for these articles to clearly differentiate many things companies allow. 1. Work from home in your primary geo, commutable distance, but be ready to come to work x times a week / on demand 2. Work from anywhere, but restricted to states where company has a presence. 3. Work from anywhere within primary country. 4. Work from anywhere in whatever time zone and country. May be different terms?? Right now WFH is a big bucket May be label them like we call self-driving car levels :)

intrasight 5y ago

I wonder if Deloitte management working in the commercial office sector will put some behind the scenes pressure on staff to spend time in the office.

tyingq 5y ago

Assuming they are mostly consultants, this isn't terribly meaningful, is it? Whether they can work from home will be determined by the client most of the time.

intrasight 5y ago

The Economist has had a lot of interesting articles on this. In one, they said that office building owners are going to have to make their office spaces so cool that people will want to return. I've worked at home for years, but I'm curious what the larger tech worker opinion is on this. Will fancy new offices with that perks that SV workers have long had convince you to return to the office?

flukus 5y ago
> Will fancy new offices with that perks that SV workers have long had convince you to return to the office? If "fancy" means open plan and "perks" means sitting next to a foosball table that will further entrench my WFH preference. Things like free drinks and food might make a difference to whether to work for company A or company B, but there's nothing I care about enough to give up the extra time I have each day.

underseacables 5y ago

We are back in the office and I love it. I can talk to my colleagues again, have in person social time instead of awkwardly staring at someone’s head looking at my chest. I’m very glad to be going back to the office now.

antoniuschan99 5y ago

Been thinking wfh will be axed once things really go back to normal and the pandemic is history. There will be a larger set of remote first or hybrid companies for sure though. Commute time is really the main issue here and people including myself will hopefully consider shortening that for the betterment of our overall health and wellness.

midrus 5y ago

Some people prefer to go back to the office. Some other people prefer to keep working from home. That's fine, everyone has his preferences and his own situation (commute time, friends at work vs just coworkers, making your own food vs catered food, etc). Luckily, we can switch jobs easily in this industry. Just go and join a company that suits your preference. I'm already remote, but I'd definitely switch if my company forced me to go back. There's plenty of opportunities out there and life is too short. If your company wants you to go back, fuck them. Go and look for something else. If your company goes full remote and you miss your coworkers, fuck them, go and look for something else. Meet your ex-coworkers after work at a pub.

rStar 5y ago

is actually forever or is it google “free photo storage for life”-forever?

awaydeloitte 5y ago

This is a misleading title at best. Deloitte US (article is about Deloitte UK) has announced a hybrid model. Most US employees will fall in a 30-50% "co-location" range. Co-location is defined as any time 2 or more employees (or clients + employees) are in the same room at the same time. Deloitte does a lot of on-site work with both corp and gov, so if they want the Deloitte consultant on-site, that's still going to happen. From inside the company, it's feeling like a lot of the back-office stuff is going to be remote first. Leadership has been explicit about NOT ALLOWING employees to move outside of commuting range of a Deloitte office. I'm personally in the lower co-location model, less than 10% "co-location". Given most of my team is in the north-east, and I'm located in south-east, I may fly in twice a year to have a few days of lunches and "planning" sessions with my team.