Stephenson House is situated on the corner of Hampstead Road and Drummon Street, just north of the Euston Tower, has been Logica's head office for many years, and for the last two years it has been my office too.Now Logica is leaving Stephenson House preferring to locate staff outside of London (e.g. at St Albans, Reading and Leatherhead) and to maintain a minimal London presence for customer events etc.
When I first joined Logica, almost twenty years ago, when we had a number of offices in places like Newman Street (the original head office), Great Portland Street and Great Marlborough Street. But times change.
I work at home almost all the time now anyway so I do not expect the closure to have a big impact on me, apart from needing new business cards!
Yesterday was almost certainty my last visit there as I combined the administration task of submitting my expenses with collecting the few items I had in a cupboard in the office. I left with a bright yellow Logica bag containing a chunky mouse, a laptop power adaptor, yet another Nokia phone charger and a very purple thermal mug. At least the mug will be useful.
While the move to Smart Working (i.e., home working and minimal office attendance) suits some, there is a significant number that find it unsettling and predict that it will lead to poor communications between staff which may cause delays for any deliverables and could compromise quality.
ReplyDeleteI predict that Smart Working will fizzle out, especially after the company is merged/sold next year.
There do seem to be two contradictory moves at the moment 1) we must all work at home and 2) we must all join communities and communicate more with each other. I hope that the communities argument wins.
ReplyDeleteHappened on your comment when searching for an answer to this year's Armchair Treasure Hunt!. Thought you would be interested to hear that Logica's new owners are very much in favour of the office community and generally against working at home. So your prediction was spot on!
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