To wonder how we ever did 5 days a week in an office?

That's so true

But in my experience the ones doing absolutely nothing at home were often the same people who tried to get away with doing as little as possible in the office.

But yes, having toddlers there while you "work" , blatantly being very underproductive, being reluctant to put camera on for teams calls etc all ruin it for those people who work incredibly hard at home

The problem is that WFH seems to work for professional efficient people.
*obviously talking about the only jobs that CAN be done from home! Remote firefighters or remote hairdressers.. doesn't quite work.

It doesn't seem to work so well with the ones who like to faff, waste hours with inane little chats, who would achieve nothing at all at home and picture everyone else lying in bed watching tv all day. It doesn't work for those who think it replaces childcare and they can look after their kids instead of working.

The ones who get the job done do it more efficiently at home, and have an actual life out of whatever working hours they do.

Those who think showing their face is enough, who talk about their "work family" are probably ruining it for the rest!

100%!

Even in my first job straight out of uni, I would have loved WFH - even if a day or 2 in the office would have been useful from time to time.

I have made friends through work, but I have never used my workplace as my social life either. The time gained from not commuting would have gone straight to my hobbies where I met people with similar interest.

That’s just bad planning though.

At my work, if someone needs something, they just jump onto teams and call/message. And get an instant reply/conversation, because everyone is working at their desk as they should be. It’s probably quicker than having to walk across the building to find the person you want to talk to.

You're not qualified to overrule someone else when it comes to their assessment of their subjective experiences.

Interesting that you are all about making work accessible but you have just provided an example of something - a banking app removing the need for branches - that is making basic life inaccessible for many that have physical, mental or financial challenges as well as the older population

@Thursdaygirl No, I never likened myself to a miner, but I used to find it hard. I don’t mind admitting it.

But it's not hard. You just don't like it.

Yep. One person's quick chat is another person's significant, work adding interruption. Only thing is, a lot of the latter group hadn't really clocked that it could be different until March 2020.

But, (in a different profession) those "quick chats " for another team were constant interruptions for me which meant I couldn't get on with my urgent task and often ended up doing it when I got home anyway

Drafting documents, researching (and up against a deadline), typing an email,.on the loo, taking a call on my work mobile...

Sometimes I show as available because I have logged into do something outside my actual working hours.

they tried to make me WFH and it didn’t work. I also hated it. Pref to be in the office a d be available. When i try to call someone who’s available and unresponsive, it makes me wonder what they’re doing. I once got a call back from a colleague who said they were selling a cooker and some one was collecting. In your own time, not work.

I think employers who can offer WFH have realised they need to allow some kind of hybrid working, or they can't recruit. They might not need to if the local employment market is not very competitive, but when other comparable organisations in the same area offer WFH, and you don't, you do lose out on candidates. You often lose the best candidates too, who can pick and choose where they work. But this causes huge issues for the pipe-line of professions that cannot work from home, it's a massive contributing factor to the recruitment crisis in public facing roles. Particularly graduate professions, where graduates can choose to do something where they have hybrid working, or do something like teaching for example where they do not. The lack of flexibility in some necessary public sector professions is a big problem, it's one that the next government will need to tackle somehow. Understaffing issues will continue to compound, making the problem worse, and it's already dire.

But there weren't delays before, if we had a problem he stopped whatever he was doing, we sorted it out and he continued with whatever he was doing before. As for getting more comfortable with those kind of delays....having 6 people stood about for 2 hours instead of 20 minutes tops is hardly productive is it? and we only have 1 site.

What are you on about? I'm talking about people being onsite in work....I know all about modern communications tech and how to use an app and I haven't used a bank branch in years....have you always been this patronising or did you take a course?

let me give you an example of how WFH impacts the shop floor where I work.

The machine I use relies on precise specs which, if out by so much as a millimetre would render the product unfit for purpose. Now back in the old days it would be a quick 5 minute walk to the planners office, a quick chat with him and QA (who shared his office), and the issue would be sorted. Now we have to email the problem, wait for a reply (which could take a while), email response to his questions, wait for reply, wait for QA (who are cc'd in all emails about such things) to download the new specs, read them, email planning guy who would then email to say "go ahead". The best part of 2 hours with 1 machine out of production all because the planning guy cba to be in his office anymore.

I did office wfh way back, 10-20 years ago, before you could just login via the web or apps. It was slower and you had to port in to your work system directly, cannot remember how. I eulogised about it then, my girl friends didn’t ask their own jobs if they could do it themselves but instead struggled with childcare, sometimes in tears over work hours and commutes. Their jobs probably could not accommodate but actually nobody asked their work.

It’s always striking to me that some of the loudest voices decrying WFH are those who are retired and no longer working (some of whom may not have worked for decades).

In short, people who don’t know that colleagues are more connected than ever before via Microsoft Teams and email and who just don’t understand the world of modern work.

If I couldnt work from home I would be dependent on benefits. We definitely need to support this as a way of working.

Not only does it stop me depending on benefits but it also means the public sector gets the benefit of my highly valued and niche expertise and I always meet all my targets. I am very good value for money (I could earn a lot more in the private sector)

I actually do feel that many jobs benefit from or are improved by a regular presence in the office. And I changed roles because I knew my body wasn't up to giving juniors the training and mentoring they deserved.

But many of us who work at home hugely value the fact we are able to and work phenomenally hard to ensure that we are always trusted to work at home

Great, what would suit me in my working environment would be having people on site to deal with issues as and when they arise, not having to wait for them to do whatever they are doing at home before they answer their bloody phones/emails. What used to take 5 minutes now takes well over an hour. But hey, you carry on believing WFH is more productive because for those of us who have to deal with WFHers it's really not.

Again we are trying to break the news to you that not everyone can work from home.

It is not a choice for a lot of people.

My company doesn't offer work from home jobs.

I looked at all the similar jobs that I can apply for in my area, none of them offer work from home options.

Not everyone has a choice to do it.

You can't just change industry either.

Industries hire by experience

I am yet to meet a Black woman who hasn't evangelised about the benefits of WFH. I've said it before and I'll say it again - WFH as a policy is as good if not better than every single workplace policy.