Will new art bring workers back downtown?
The Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring six new art installations downtown to make it more attractive for workers although how art installations are to make the office grind more attractive I do not know.
I just heard Michel Leblanc on CBC radio saying it was important to coax workers back to the office. Nobody asked him why.
I’m adamant that downtown exists to serve workers, we don’t exist to service downtown. If there’s a permanent shift in a segment of people working from home, it has to be better for the environment and it has to make the commute easier for the people who actually have to work en présentiel. There is no need to chivvy those people downtown every day to make the place look lived‑in.
Kevin 09:42 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
If your work comes from your computer and your ability to use it, you can almost certainly do your job better at home.
If your skills are lacking and your productivity is low, you desperately need people around you as camouflage so you can look busy.
Offices enable people who appear to work, but they do nothing to improve efficency.
walkerp 10:40 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
I’m pro-choice when it comes to working from home or the office and any management who tries to force an office on their staff is bad at their job. However, I have to disagree with your assessment of office work, Kevin. There are many situations and types of people who perform much better in the office environment. Furthermore, depending on where you are in your career and the culture of your org, people working together in the office can be much more productive for individuals and the org as a whole. Making friends in the lunch room or the fabled water cooler can often lead to cross-departmental communication that is very hard to make happen when everybody is working from home. Those kinds of relationships can lead to signficant improvements and efficiencies. Likewise, casual interactions within departments by colleagues can also lead to improved efficiencies.
Josh 11:17 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
Something else that disappears when everyone is working remotely: Worker solidarity. You don’t talk with your colleagues, you don’t know how they feel about anything, least of all whether they feel they’re being mistreated by the boss, say.
Robert H 11:51 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
That’s right. I’ve always been a big partisan of the city and the importance of a thriving downtown. But what’s the point of filling offices with workers who don’t need to be there? Perhaps the city administration is confusing what is good for its citizens with what is good for real estate companies worried about hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. Still that’s a lot of effort and expense to create a Potemkin Village. Easy for me to say: of course, it’s not as simple as that. I’m sure I’d feel differently if I owned a store selling clothes or food; or if I were a landlord trying to maintain my income and pay contractors; or if I were a politician concerned about collecting municipal taxes from full buildings. But it’s obvious that city centres are going through a profound shift. I don’t discount nostalgia either. I’m old enough to have a memory of downtowns of an earlier age. by the time I first came to Montreal in the 1980s, those downtowns were already gone in most North American cities I had seen. I thought Montreal was extraordinary. A few days ago, I saw a brief clip on Reddit of Saint Catherine Street in 1962. It was amazing: a kaleidoscope of blinking neon over crowded sidewalks and no visible vacancies. Now in the era of télétravail, and virtuality, we might have to accept that the streets downtown will no longer bustle as they once did and Centreville will evolve to something different that still serves les citadines but in a different way. Because as you say, that has always been the ultimate reason for its existence.
EmilyG 12:52 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
I enjoy art, I’m an artist myself, but art wouldn’t convince me to go back to an office job downtown.
Kevin 12:52 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
@walkerp
In certain situations being in an office and sharing material hard copies is effective — like, say, examining blueprints and looking for errors. But there are many workers and managers who spend a fair amount of their day looking busy – not actually being effective – and for them, the office is a necessity.
I also argue that any manager who is counting on water cooler talk to improve efficiency is inept. I can imagine the reaction if someone walked into the C-suite and said “our method of improving efficiency relies on random co-workers accidentally overhearing discussions and making connections that their managers failed to make.”
I’ve been working in offices since the late ’80s. Open plan, cubicles, places where everyone had their own room with a door, places where we had hours-long meetings each day. Offices have their place but they are not essential — not anymore.
walkerp 15:47 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
I don’t understand how the office is a necessity to “look busy” at a job? Isn’t it even easier to do that when working from home?
Uatu 18:03 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
I think the downtown chamber of commerce has to accept that it’s probably never going to return to the pre COVID days of a jam packed downtown core. What they should do is make downtown more affordable to live in and convert office towers into residential units. Personally I get more work done away from home. Less distractions and I have a clear separation between work and home life. People like me can probably get a cheap remote work place in the burbs within walking distance so that still doesn’t solve downtown’s problem. It sounds like the last gasp of Don Draper type office Luddites
Josh 18:19 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
Walkerp: I think what Kevin is getting at is that in the office you can take “meetings” and be seen walking around the place “working” with colleagues. That’s not possible at home. The only indication at all that you are working when you are remote is your output.
Kevin 23:31 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
Walkerp,
Have you never encountered people who act like the Forgotten Employee? Or worse?
https://sites.google.com/site/forgottenemployee/