Back to normal ?

[Richardtr3a]

After the Covid threat has receded people are talking about back to normal or how it was before. It will all be different. On line shopping will wipe out shops. More people will work from home in all disciplines, now that they know how it can be done easily.

My son who lives in Devon has a Bosch dishwasher used every day and it came up with an error code.  He has trouble finding an engineer willing to come out. But he found an semi- retired engineer advertising for work and he took the dishwasher to him in Exeter. He checked all the different parts and found no faults. The dishwasher was taken home and the plumber working on the  rear extension of the house fitted a new waste connection and it all works now. The retired engineer charged £25.00.

Things are not going to return to normal again.

Richard & B

[Tony_C]

Sounds a result to me Richard!

[Misfit]

Normal, it will although not for a while.

[MilesA]

Yes, things will be different. 

The long term consequences won't be straightforward. Based on my experience so far. many businesses have realised that they can operate just as well, if not better, with staff working from home the majority of time. Many staff have realised the benefits in terms of quality of life of working from home too. Fear aside, many employees do not want to commute to offices each day to do what they can do at home. Occasional office attendance will become more activity based: periodic appraisals, periodic face to face meetings for team or groups, certain training and so on to supplement all those things taking place on line. So these businesses will seek to reduce costs by offloading part of their office real estate.

This in turn could lead to a retail and hospitality shift, with more people shopping and socialising locally and less so around their old work locations. The need for the weekend dash to some superstore may reduce with the continuation of more regular local shopping during the week. Local businesses could thus, benefit in the longer term, especially as social distancing reduces. A proportion of the increase in online shopping will remain but there is a social element to visiting physical shops of all types that will always remain. 

There will be lots of other differences, but they won't all be bad. This is just one that I hope 'sticks'.

Miles 

 

[ntc]

The biggest permanent change imho will be your local GP practice they have certainly changed ours as it safer and more productive, far less person to person appointments.