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

But someone constantly underworking their hours is in breach of contract.

But again, that's a management issue, not an employee issue.

Yes But they still have a number of hours in the contract then an provision for such additional hours required or words to that effect

Working hours that can vary as much as you suggest tend to have annualised hours to accommodate peaks and troughs but will still have an annual number of hours required in the contract

for the avoidance of doubt I’ve not suggested that individuals cannot work flexibly. And yes this can vary significantly. But someone constantly underworking their hours is in breach of contract.

This for DH.

He was actually looking for a new job, to better suit his disability, until new management took over and immediately agreed to full time wfh.

He can go out during day as needed, but he limits it and works over weekends to compensate as needed.

Boss said productivity has skyrocketed.

In that case, it's weird that you asked me how my post, which is about the same thing as theirs, relates to the OP but didn't do the same for them. Did you realise I'm not the one who started that subdiscussion?

Oh yes, they go to all the pointless meetings and then arrange meetings to discuss the meetings. They come to my meetings when they don’t need to and contribute absolutely nothing
Pretty sure this wouldn’t be tolerated in the private sector

I set my own pay so no worries there 😂

But as you’re clearly not aware, it’s very common for salaried roles to be “work the hours required” with the understanding that some weeks that might be 20 and others sixty.

i wouldn’t volunteer to do anyone else’s job if I was finished with mine either - surely that just encourages other people to slack off? 😉

Your last post. I understand that poster fine.

How does what relate? I've made a number of posts and you haven't quoted. If you mean the most recent one, ask the poster I was replying to.

@SocoBateVira How does this relate to the OP, which is about tossing it off and not doing your job?

This is unintentionally funny. A lot of the roles where you're paid to be that responsive and for tasks rather than hours are pretty well renumerated, yes!

Is this some new kind of contract work what you like. I hope you don’t mind being paid there or thereabouts

Flexibility is fine as long as you work your hours overall. I’ve not suggested otherwise.

Again, not what the OP is about which is about taking advantage of being able to work less than contracted hours by being at home.

My example was about supporting the team goals when you could and others do the same for you in return. Not “random tasks”. What could possibly be wrong with that?

They may as well be saying "well, I can't do it so why should you be able to?!"

It's jealousy imo.

I've read it, thanks.

My question is why do you think that someone who can get their work done in five hours instead of seven is automatically "slacking off"?

Lots of contracts will say "an average of a 35 hour week" rather than expecting people to sit at desks for seven hours a day with nothing to do.

I think this is still a ridiculous presenteeism attitude. I WFH, and if there's a day where I am not quite busy enough to fill my full hours, I finish early but make a note of the hour or so not yet worked. Invariably there will be a day later in the week when I have more work than can fit into a standard day and I will work later that day, so my hours for the week always add up to what I am contracted for, if not more.
It would be really silly to start finding random tasks just to fill up my day for the sake of it, when I know stuff on my other projects is likely to hit later in the week.

The whole point of this thread is about managing people slacking off. If that was meant to be a gotcha perhaps read the OP again.

AI will have an impact on all kinds of jobs, both WFH and office-based.

People love to link up AI and remote working in this way. But if a role is going to be automated when technology allows, that's going to happen regardless of where it's currently being performed.

Re outsourcing pressure, we're talking about jobs that went remote no later than March 2020. That's a pretty long time. If they've not been outsourced, there are going to be reasons for that.

You're partially right OP, but there are also the issues of recruitment and the labour market.

There are certainly some instances of bad management. In other cases, there aren't enough staff and managers aren't allowed to recruit more. Then there's the issue of supply and demand. There are some roles where a manager might be able to recognise that the staff are either taking the piss or incompetent, but also know they can't realistically expect to recruit any better for the package being offered.

Presumably in the next few years, AI advances will eliminate a lot of the non-creative roles that can be performed on your own in your home. There’s also still quite a lot of outsourcing pressure, to move these kinds of roles to another country.

If I was younger, I think I might be worried about the impact of too much WFH on
my career prospects. It shouldn’t become a ‘mummy silo’.

logging off at home and doing something else is breach of contract if you are contracted to work seven hours a day and only work five.

Depends on the contract and whether you have permission to do so.

If you are a team of people working towards a common goal, that’s two hours you could be supporting the team inbox or helping out someone else who is busier than you at that time.

And, being a pedant, logging off at home and doing something else is breach of contract if you are contracted to work seven hours a day and only work five. I appreciate not everyone is 100% productive all of the time but there’s a difference between that and slacking off because you can.

It surely depends on the nature of the workplace and the job.

In my work, I’m on the phone to clients having confidential conversations or doing concentrated tasks unique to each client, in a high pressure environment and it works well, especially as we rely on large employers to train new joiners - poaching larger orgs’ trainees - so we don’t have a concern about isolated young people who are not learning the ropes, but I’m nearly 60, with many years of experience. This is a regulated profession, and if you read the reports about people who are struck off, it’s quite often people who have tried to conceal mistakes under pressure and I wonder whether this kind of behaviour may be more prevalent when people work from home. There was a recent case of a young dad struck off for filling in a file management form saying he had completed some non-chargeable file reviews to account for some missing hours in the afternoon when he had children in the house because of an inset day. I felt a bit sorry for him tbh.

I also WFH and do far more than contracted to as it's easier to just stay on for a little while. However some of my team really do not. Their productivity is less. Far less. Management let them get away with it because the rest of us step up. It's a massive bone of contention.

Same, and I say that as someone who is 100% wfh and a manager of a team that are hybrid -remote. I'm mid / senior level and have flexibility on my hours, but always make sure I'm online & available when my key stakeholders / senior managers are. If I have to do school pick up or appointments, I can block myself as ooo and just let people know.

When I do this, I make up the time later to make sure I can still get work done that is expected of me- this week I worked in the evening on Weds & Thurs to get stuff finished.

I have a couple of people on my team who take the piss out of the current wfh arrangement and I call them out on it and they've got shitty. It really really annoys me as our flexibility is a key benefit that's often overlooked and they'd be the first to complain if it got taken away