AIBU to think that if WFH employees aren’t getting their work done, the problem is with their management?

@Chessboardtable funnily enough this article popped up on my newsfeed straight after I made my post that basically confirms that mundane/non work tasks can help creativity

I agree with OP.

For context, I WFH and in my previous job I managed others who WFH too so seen both sides of the coin. My job is very much project/task-based rather than operational so that will shape my experience too.

I worked less productively in an office environment due to distractions/randomly being pulled into meetings or conversations that I wasn't really needed for/extended lunches with senior management etc. I make far more progress at home because I'm in a comfortable environment that's set up to be as undistracting as possible, and if people can't see me they generally won't bother me!

I hit my targets and I get good feedback. I'll not necessarily work a full 7.5 hours a day, but will work late when needed to to get things over the line in time. I've found that having time to 'think' provides better output for my job than trying to just fill up my time doing tasks (which often leads to just plowing ahead with your first method, when an alternative would have been better suited and more efficient).

Where team members/my reports are underperforming, management has been able to have conversations with them to diagnose why that is - is it (a) competency, (b) motivation, (c) confidence, (d) just shit work ethic? I've only come across one case where it was shit work ethic - all other cases were a case of the person needing additional support, and they ended up becoming valuable to the team following the right conversations + progression plan.

You can't measure someone's contribution to an organisation by meetings attended, keyboard strokes, or mouse movements - the most inefficient people are often great at all three. You'll find you get the most value from those who take some space to sit back and think about a problem, formulate a plan for how to implement it, and then go ahead and get it done.

E.g. compare the 'productivity' of someone who spends 1 hour manually copy-pasting values from one excel sheet to another vs someone who gets the same end product through a 20-second vlookup. Or someone who attends a pointless meeting for an hour where they contribute nothing vs the person who declines the meeting and comes up with an idea for an additional revenue stream whilst doing the laundry. But often the person who does the 1 hour copy-paste will often resent the vlookup person for not doing the 59.5 minutes of pointless work and the meeting attender will resent the laundry person for 'dossing'.

There are, of course, jobs that you need to be constantly present for - e.g. if you work remotely in a call centre/customer services etc. In those cases, you really can't be excused for stacking the dishwasher when your job role is literally dependent on your availability.

I'm much more productive at home. Noisy co workers just distract me

I love WFH - super productive....BUT that is not training the future of my field...so a mix for me is a necessity...but depends on field and company/organisation

I said ‘self employed’ They can hardly pay themselves extra for not being able to work from home.

I think there's some of both.

The people who are useless in an office, are also useless at home.

I am productive in both settings, because I am good at my job. But my high output also allowed me flexibilities other team members didn't get, my boss was more willing to allow me to flex my hours than others because I was always the highest performer..

Now I am a manager, and my team is agile so a mix of office, wfh and on the road. I won't micromanage them, and I expect them to work. If they don't, then we have to have a conversation although so far I haven't had to.

I love WFH, the flexibility, the not having to travel, the cost savings. My employer works on achievement and as long as I do my job there's no problem.

People who take the mickey spoil it for everyone. If I would I'd lockdown their entire internet access!

Employers who wanted staff "back in the office" did that in 2021. (although I know a few who are reverting to hybrid and remote because of the damaging effect on recruitment/retention/wellbeing).

Those employers who are still facilitating hybrid and remote are pretty committed to it now.

My own workplace firstly downsized from 200 desks to 20 and now to only 6. There is no "back to the office" going to happen here.

The genie is not going to go back in to the bottle.

Next on our agenda is a 4 day week.

I think the comments about WFH can come from a lack of understanding that some jobs have an ebb and flow.

I think they do understand, they just don't like it because their jobs don't work that way. I mean, there's definitely an element of "well, why should you be able to do it when I can't? It's not faaair" in a lot of the responses, even if they don't explicitly say it.

I work for myself and often pop back home during the day for various things - to feed the cats, to do some laundry, to have a coffee - it doesn't impact any of my clients as I plan my diary to give me those breaks in between jobs. But no doubt a lot of people think I'm slacking simply because they work somewhere where they can't do those things.

WFH and flexible working is the future of work. People born today won’t ever have open plan traditional offices to commute to to sit in front of a computer all day.

Some people will slack off at work full stop.

in offices I’ve seen people watch YouTube endlessly, pop out for unknown reasons and chat to their neighbours all day equally I’m sure they would be doing the same at home.

work ethic is completely separate from work location and commuting is bad for the planet, expensive and time consuming.

I think the comments about WFH can come from a lack of understanding that some jobs have an ebb and flow. There are some jobs and you have 60-80 queries a day and that’s the same everyday. A particularly busy might see 100 queries but those 20 queries will go unanswered. My jobs have always been days of about 6 hours worth of work or 12 hours worth of work. There’s quiet times and busy times.

Even before the mass WFH of 2020, I’ve always worked flexibly even in the office. Everywhere I’ve worked has had core hours of 10-12 and 2-4, you could be in the office 7-7 without having to let security know/follow lone worker policies. So you could take a long lunch to meet a friend for lunch, go get your hair done, go the gym. You could come in late and leave early if you had a quiet day but knew you would be getting a project in a few days which would require more time.

Those type of organisations, in my experience, promoted people to manager level not based on their ability to actually manage but based on their seniority and technical knowledge (often which couldn’t be faulted). So there were a lot of piss-takers even with 100% office. If you want to take the piss, you’ll find infinite ways of taking the piss. I think a big problem, regardless of where people work, is that we don’t invest in training managers.

r89 money diaries?

I mean, the flip side of that is why on earth are you doing more than you're contracted to do?

I agree. I work for a big company, and wfh since Covid. Most people work hard, but there are piss takers who everyone knows who they are, and because management don’t want to target those people, they threaten the entire work force with being pulled back to the office. I think management have to be strong, pull up the ones who are slacking, bring them back into the office, and not blanket target everyone.

This was the same for me for years - now I’ve just stopped doing the extra hours. I do what I’m contracted to and no more (with only a rare exception where it’s my responsibility, not a situation caused by other people not pulling their weight).

I figure that if there’s no reward for me doing twice the work of the people in my team who are WFH with young kids and never available, and nobody wants to address those people, then why would I put myself out?

This.

I WFH 99% of the time at band 7. In a flexi team. Recently, all workers have been told to stop doing certain time-wasting tasks and there's been the inevitable backlash and the finger-pointing at those of us who are WFH more.

a) we literally have different jobs so the comparisons are pointless and b) those people spend so much time doing unecessary things or things that they shouldn't be doing; hence the recent directives to stop doing them.

usually, the people complaining they are overwhelmed are not only doing tasks they shouldn't be doing, they're incredibly inefficient even in the tasks they should be doing.

I'm not flat out busy or stressed WFH because i'm efficient, know what is needed and not, and do my upmost to have boundaries and not waste time holding pointless meetings which generally degenerate into group moaning sessions or just groundhog day conversations about the same people or issues, and have very few if any, real outcomes.

And on the days I do venture into the office, there's an awful lot of 'busy complaining about busy' going on.

Pre-covid when it was realised I could do 99% of my work from home, I produced less and was stressed to the point of serious MH problems because I was constantly exposed to moaning, toxic people who took up so much of my time 'wanting a chat about this work thing' and 90% of the time they wanted spoon-feeding or just to complain about their lives, work and otherwise.

I've recently become 'that person' and am calculating public sector time wasted in pointless meetings. 8 people in a 2 hour meeting that resulted in nothing? So that's more than two days professional time wasted.

The public sector wouldn't be on it's knees quite as much, if people were more efficient and stopped having pointless meetings to tick boxes or just relieve peoples anxieties.

Agree OP. We treat staff like adults and trust them to do their work. We set fair parameters in place and core hours. How you manage your workload outside of that is up to you.

in four years we’ve only ever had to have an informal chat with someone once and that’s it.

The premises point remains, though.

Patient visits and then writing notes at home seems eminently sensible. Seeing patients in their homes is clearly not WFH is it

If you’re in a totally non clinical role, do not have to liaise with any clinical staff, can work in isolation, don’t need a sense of what’s happening in the hospital or community team then fine, WFH fully seems okay

The folk I’m about do not fall into those categories.

I wfh for the nhs and have no choice (i love it)

During covid, they sold our offices, so we now do not have any space in the hospital. We aren't patient facing and the monthly deadlines always get met. Where's the problem?

Mmm I was thinking the same re public sector. Enforced hybrid for a lot of desk based workers to save on cost of premises was part of the austerity cost cutting measures, way before covid. Lots of the premises have been sold or leases not renewed.

Good luck with that - our Trust are selling off premises all over the shop or shutting buildings down over holiday periods and asking staff to WFH to save costs.

In my service we work wherever and no one is really bothered as long as data is secure and the job gets done. If I'm going on a patient visit I'll tend to work out of the office that morning, go to do the visit and then WFH to write up notes etc... but I'm not going to drag myself into the office to sit on the sinking office chair of doom to just type out reports all day and sit on Teams calls - so I tend to do those working from home. Most of my colleagues do similar and it means that there's usually a mix of people out on visits vs people working from home available on Teams if anyone has any queries or needs to discuss a case as well.

Likewise the flexibility thing - we don't take the piss with it, so we're trusted to do our jobs - if I have to duck out in the middle of the day for a school meeting or whatever - I'll make sure I work, and document in my diary where the time's been made up - and everyone, up to even the band 8s do the same. It works for us.

I also have bugger all willpower and get drawn into chit chat and stuff I shouldn't be doing but end up doing as a favour whenever I'm in the offices!

Indeed it is.