Al Czervik

He isn’t that baller. They are all under corporate travel restrictions. As soon as that’s lifted they’re gone.

CAirBear

This. Dude... (Not you, Al) we are SOCIAL beings. F not traveling for business or work again, F not closing deals with dinner/drinks and a hand shake.

I could care less about Zoom or FT. At some point in time, there will be a ton of suites in airports traveling for biz again.

I have corporate America slaves as friends back home. SOME are being told they may “work from home” permanently. If I were in their position I would be submitting my 2 weeks instantly.

Goijg to work, seeing your work friends, interacting with people, going to lunch, drinks after work and maybe dinner are important.

This C Suite management wet dream of everyone being socially isolated and working from home for the rest of existence is a wet dream.

deltabound

Contracts are more than legalese. They’re fundamentally based on trust and mutual respect, because every eventuality can’t be planned for and spelled out. Sounds trite, but looking another man in the eyes and taking his measure matters in the business world.

Zoom won’t cut it in business any more than it will in “education”. We’re one of the 5 species of homo apes still around; communication is much more than a poor simulacrum of televised visual and auditory cues.

Business travel will come back. All the flunkies in the office who are “tele-commuting” should be sweating bullets, however. If you can do your job from home, someone who couldn’t secure an HB-1 visa to do it in the US will do it for even less abroad.

(At least, I hope. I’m much more concerned with leisure travel into major urban areas. )

CAirBear said it better in the preceding post.

Al Czervik

I asked a friend that has become a big shot in finance about the future of zoom in finance. I was asking if the aviation industry should fear it. His quote was “absolutely not. That one of the main reasons we aren’t closing big deals right now. We do theses in person.”

wrxpilot

When I was working in an office, I would've been totally stoked to work from home permanently. Since we're talking about our anecdotal "friends", the ones I have that are now working from home are very pleased. They are saving money, not dealing with traffic, and see their families more. I haven't talked with anyone that misses going into the office 5 days/week.

People are still going to travel for business, as some things absolutely do need to be done in person. But there's no question a huge savings has been discovered by not requiring employees to be in a large, expensive office full time for many businesses, particularly those in the tech industry. Who knows, that might even create more demand from travel in the long run as people have more free time.

Oma4545

My wife is going to stay remote. We love it. It gives us the opportunity to travel with my time off, and her ability to not have to go in five days a week now. Get this, she never had to travel for work before. But they now plan on flying her in every other month along with co workers. Changes are happening, some good, some bad.

senecacaptain

my neighbor is a VP at Fortune 500 company. not a big deal, this company has like 100 “VPs” of various divisions etc

He said that his company, and many others mantra, is “if it can be done remote, then do it remote.”

in this environment there are not a lot of “new deals” to be made, requiring “warm handshakes” at dinner. Right now they are servicing current clients, versus sealing new deals

do individual employees want to get out and travel? some do. some do not. big management is calling the shots and often blocking corporate travel. some are exploring frax options for senior executives.

it is what it is

highfarfast

There seems to be a disconnect in some of the above posts.

Not needing to go to the office on a daily basis does not equal not needing to board an airplane to do business with someone in another city.

I don't know what's going to happen but those two things are very different.

Nucflash

When the economic green shoots start sprouting (could be a while, admittedly) the hustlers that are willing to travel are the ones that will be building business and closing deals. You won’t want to be on the sidelines on your Zoom calls as aggressive competition eats your lunch.

Qotsaautopilot

I have no idea how anyone with kids can be productive working from home. I feel like there has to be a major productivity loss having so many working from home and kids out of school.