If employers were mandated to allow employees to WFH unless there was a clear reason to need someone physically in a workplace

All these are perfect reasons why WFH shouldn’t be a thing.

Decisions on wfh by employers seem to depend very much on what senior managers like. So if they want to be in an office to be the big I am, or micro-manage, or avoid domestic responsibilities, or lech on attractive people at work, they will be in favour. My opinion is that one day a week in an office properly managed and with a bit of planning can give you most of the benefits of being face to face, beyond that it is diminishing returns.

An office space should always be available for those who prefer it, or for whom being wfh is bad or does not work for any reason.

What there should not be is people offered jobs on one basis with wfh at a certain level, and then having it different in reality, or changed at a whim. That verges on deception.

The readers of this thread
Not that difficult

No, the private sector pays a portion of costs.
And their econimics are different fgs. They have many more work-place benefits, but then again, they have daft laws. You cannot just tranfer a situation from one country to another. You are being faux naive
But please do emigrate to a 'better' country.

Aye flexible as in part-time family friendly hours, from day one.
Clearly it's not practical for bin men or heart-surgeons to wfh.

Personally I think making flexible working a legal right will make it harder for women to complete in the work place. She's got young kids / aged parents - skip let's not go there - sorry your application was unsuccessful.

I have friends and leave the house every day to see them and family. If you have these things the office is a huge crushing drag.

I have these AND still enjoy going into the office a few times a week.

Some people have always worked from home. I grew up on a farm, so we lived on the job. Of course, Dad was often out in his landrover, seeing to cattle or harvest or whatever, but all the office work was done in the house.

I've been working in IT for more than quarter of a century and I've been able to WFH most of that time - I've had to cover on-call 24/7 in various rotas over that time. I've worked in international teams where we've been spread out over different countries, so whether they're in the office is mostly irrelevant.

My last two jobs have been hybrid, which works well - we are asked to go in on one particular day, do we get to work face-to-face with people, whuch means I've got a lot of meetings tomorrow, but it's a change from sharing screens, and it does make for vloser working relationships. We can go in on other days if desired - there's a desk-booking app, because we couldn't actually accommodate all staff on the same day, but there are a lot of field-based staff who travel to customer sites anyway. I'm just 6 weeks into a new job, and being face-to-face one day a week really does help with getting to know people.

Everyone has the right to request flexible working. Businesses don't have to agree if it doesn't work for the business. The requestor needs to show how it will work for the business, and even then, they may not agree. Different businesses have different needs - not all office jobs are the same, and of course, many roles cannot be fine remotely.

Of course some people take the piss with WFH, but then there have always been some people who took the piss when entirely office-based, and when you've been in a business a little while, you usually know who those people are.

Good teams mostly get on. I don't hate any of my colleagues. Some people can be frustrating to work with - different communication styles and so on. But most of them are actually all right IME, and I've made good friends, been on holiday either some, been to weddings, funerals, seen their children grow up. But even those where we've not been that close, we tend to get on well enough that we can work well together. (There have been a couple of exceptions over the years.)

if you're someone who really does hate everyone in the office, you should probably consider whether they're the problem. It's probably not whether or not you WFH or in the office.

Luckily you don't rule the world so you don't get to dictate what companies offer and how everyone should feel about it.

I don't usually quote an OP, but these are all also reasons why wfh might not be a good thing.

• We need to be exposed to build immunity

• I don't eat better at home. With the fridge nearby, I eat far more than I do at work.

• for serene read boring and isolated, not good for everyone

Personally, managing a ream which includes large numbers of young new entrants every year, my business reason for "needing" experienced staff in is so that that experience can rub off on the youngsters, just the way that they benefited from he experience of others. I don't care if you do think you're more efficient at home without interruptions, you're skipping an important part of the job, one that is really important to the future of the business.

I am not sure if the government should be able to facilitate how a company operates in terms of office based vs. WFH.

Although, I absolutely love working from home and my company is extremely flexible with the whole hybrid/office based/WFH.

You can pretty much work from any of those bases anytime you like, as long as people are achieving targets then they have no issue with where you choose to work. I choose fully remote and it works for me, I find myself much more productive WFH and more relaxed.

There does seem to be a lot of hate towards WFH and I really don't get it, my company is flexible and that's great for me. I would hate to go back to working in the office, WFH is great for my mental wellbeing and I do have a social life so I am not a total recluse!

I work for a local authority who refuse to give us an office space so work exclusively from home. I wish everywhere possible was a mix rather than one or the other

I think it's about balance. I am looking for another job to avoid 💯 wfh as I need to see other people not move from just working to cleaning the toilet between meetings lol and

A lot of businesses have done this.

As the quality of different sectors rises in those markets it'll happen more and more. I don't think working in an office will save you from that though.

Any excuse to be lazy then

OMG you have no idea about running a business!
You are just playing us now aren't you

Cloud cuckoo land thinking
Why should people just expect the world to revolve around them? being part of society means doing stuff that doesn't satisfy all your needs all of the time.
Sometimes, you have to be a bit 'out of your way' to make life work.
Or let's mandate that nurses and police have the option to work from home, and if you need an ambulance, just pop round to the nearest paramedic working from home.

When it suited employers for people to WFH it was allowed now when it doesn't we get ordered back into the office.

I don't think it ever suited employers, they did what they had to do to keep their business a float!

Exactly, it's ridiculous! Dread to think how many companies would go out of business if this did become law

Working from home should only be allowed part time.

It is an incredibly divisive and antisocial idea which suits those who are middle aged with large houses. Residential areas are primarily for living, not pseudo offices. There is always tension between those WFH and everyone else, be it other family members or other houses just enjoying their young children in the daytime making normal noise.

In addition, I do think it damages productivity, if not short term then long term. You cannot mentor someone effectively if you can’t have a proper face to face meeting and after work drinks are really useful to bond different generations. And, of course, there are at-home skivers.

I do suspect some of the productivity research was done by WFH employees who, at least, had a subconscious bias.

A little flexibility for WFH is a good idea, but one to two days a week should be the maximum.

Covid had millions of parents on their knees and employers needed to understand.

Trying to ensure children didn't fall behind with school.
Trying to entertain and provide stimulation for pre-schoolers.
Trying to work.
It was relentless

I honestly don't know why anyone would do that by choice especially not preschoolers and work. And I honestly don't believe it can be done without neglecting either the job or the children or probably both.