Why don’t they do it themselves first?
The City of Reykjavík is urging companies to encourage their staff to work remotely. I read that online a few days ago, and it struck me as odd. The words and the actions do not match.
The City of Reykjavík is urging companies to encourage their staff to work remotely. I read that online a few days ago, and it struck me as odd. The words and the actions do not match.
The city and the state should take the step all the way, instead of talking about this every four years just before an election, and offer people more flexibility to work close to where they live. That would suit people better, and it would attract more talented staff and give them more satisfaction in the job.
It is remarkable how good institutions and their representatives are at advising the rest of us, the people who elected them. They seem to think they should know better than everyone else, and tell us what to do when something has gone wrong in their own planning. They are diligent and conscientious about telling and teaching the rest of us how everything should be done, and about knowing better than we do, and then they do none of it themselves.
Why do institutions and others not offer workspace closer to where people live and want to be? That would greatly improve the quality of life for people and families, ease the load on the road system, reduce pollution, save people money on fuel, and lower the per-kilometre charge that a family or a company has to pay. Workspace close to home makes it more likely that institutions and companies can hire people who value flexibility, at a much lower cost than keeping them at the fixed workplaces they have today. Many studies show that, when asked to choose, people pick flexibility and a better quality of life over money or higher pay. People want quality of life more than a few hundred thousand krónur, and they would rather spend their time sensibly, with their family, than travel to and from work for more than 30 hours a month, as they do for example between Hafnarfjörður or Kópavogur and downtown Reykjavík or Borgartún.
People have no interest in spending a large part of the day driving to and from work. They do not see that as a bonus. They see it as a nuisance in every way.
Solutions already exist across the capital area and in the regions, open to everyone. Everyone who wants a better quality of life, to treat their surroundings better, and to enjoy each day as fully as they wish. This route is also cheaper in every way than the premises the state and the city pay for each employee today, by as much as 30 to 40 percent. It would not be a bad thing for us taxpayers if managers thought this way about us, the people who pay taxes in this country, and took a little better care of money that is ours, not theirs.