to think some people think WFH should be a constant nose to the grindstone?

Being measured by outcomes is all very well, but as we all know, time is money and having a good outcome is as much about delivering in an acceptable timeframe as it is about delivering a quality result. If you are required to interact with other people and all of you have to wait around more than would usually be necessary because so many of you are working remotely to your own personalised schedule there will be an impact on productivity. There just will and there's no point in trying to argue otherwise.

But the point is that there’s so much upset about people doing non work things, but the same doesnt seem to apply to those working in the office. Which shows it’s just jealousy IMO

I often chat when I'm working, we have the radio on and chat about what we're listening to (and other stuff) while working.
We also chat about the best way to approach a project that is tricky/not a standard job, and whinge about clients Sometimes it's a 3 way chat, sometimes with (MN favourite), diagrams!

Inane chit chat can help hugely with a cohesive team spirit. It's much, much harder to achieve that, or to train people effectively in an ongoing way when they do not ever share a physical space. Everything needing to be scheduled in advance is not conducive to a great teamwork or problem solving on the spot.

Yes you probably do. But every day they don't finish your job when you expected them to be working and don't see why they shouldn't be, is a day when you are inconvenienced and delayed. Let's say you had a carpet fitter booked in and they couldn't start until the painter had finished, but the painter took the view that he needed a few mornings off at short notice to go to some yoga classes. He insists that as it doesn't affect the quality of his painting and decorating it's not for you to demand exactly when he should turn up and he doesn't have to justify his half days to anyone. He's still going to bring your job in before Christmas as promised, so what's the problem?

So you have a choice. You either lose your slot with the carpet fitter, but his next slot is after Christmas and you really wanted that room finished for Christmas plus you've already taken up the old carpet. So it's going to look shit for Christmas. Or you agree to have it fitted before the painting is finished, which means fluff everywhere for a couple of weeks while it settles, and the painter needs to come back to gloss the skirting boards. But he can't get to the bottom of the skirting boards now, so there will always be that slightly annoying gap where he had to put masking tape on your carpet edge. The skirting boards are currently red and your walls are now off white and your new carpet is beige, so it will irritate you forever that you can detect a tiny trace of red along the bit where the carpet meets the skirting board, because the carpet was in situ when the painting was done.

And you wasted a Saturday ripping up the old carpet and taking it to the tip yourself, rather than letting the carpet fitter remove it when he laid the new one SPECIFICALLY SO THIS WOULD NOT HAPPEN. It might seem like a minor detail to your Yoga loving decorator, but to you, who planned things carefully so you could get a perfect job all finished before Christmas, it's a massive fucking annoyance and a waste of your time.

But some of you seem incapable of understanding that you are the annoying decorator in somebody else's scenario, because your right to swan off to yoga or take a long nap in the middle of a working day is more important than inconveniencing the people you work with, or for.

To list a few examples I have personally had of this poor excuse for a service I pay for, let me give special mention to my local city council, some of our suppliers for our business and NatWest personal banking (haha what a joke that particular personal service turned out to be.)

Actually as fate would have it, there is an article in the Times or Telegraph (can't remember which) today from the CEO of either Goldmans or Morgan Stanley (again, can't remember which) complaining about Gen Z's attitude to turning up for work in the office and thinking that hiding behind their computer at home means they can pick and choose their own hours and not be available to answer the phone if they don't want to. He's absolutely sick to the back teeth of it.

It’s also worth saying the WFH gives me hours back because there’s no inane chit chat. I imagine those angry about WFHers never ever have a matter with a colleague? You’re paid to work not to <insert non work thing> after all right?

But it does matter. Because realistically, Brenda is going to be stuck in a heated meeting or on the road between workplaces much of the time, which already does cut down her availability to be contacted, so why cut it down further by letting her go off to yoga between 9 and 5 and do her work when everyone else has logged off instead? It just compounds the problem.

As I said before, some people just seem over-invested in trying to defend this and make out it's not a big deal when it very clearly is.

And you agree that standard office hours exist for some people but not for you? So the people who should do standard hours are the ones who might inconvenience you if they don't, am I right? Oh the irony.

There’s nothing more amusing on MN than a WFH thread asking if it’s unreasonable to do something within the home in that time. There’s SO much jealousy. Or people who think WFHers should behave like they’re in the office - the kind of people who seem to covet the American life of no work/life balance that you dread one day is promoted to managing people.

I WFH and will sometimes do a food shop or have a 2 hour nap. But at the same time there are pit falls to always being accessible. For the last 2 Fridays I’ve worked late into the evening due to other people fucking up their deadlines and because there’s no office to leave it just makes sense to do it then and there. Give and take innit.

The sooner people realise that giving employees a better work life balance, agility and flexibility = better outputs, happier staff and therefore bigger profits, the better. I love that the slave driving culture is frowned upon and not tolerate anymore

I agree with above, "standard office hours" only exist for some people.

You are a receptionist, the catering clean, and so many others? You need to be available, that's the job.

Anyone else? Depends. Even if you only work during "office hours", most people still have meetings and a schedule meaning they are not "available" at a drop of a hat.

It doesn't really matter if Brenda is unreachable at 11am because stuck in a heated client meeting, in a plane on her way back from another work place or at a yoga session. I prefer if Brenda can be trusted and is getting on with her job, and I know she will be at her desk until midnight if and when needed, she'll be more efficient if she can go to her yoga session that morning.

Professional adults will recognise when a team meeting is essential and be there, online or not, unless strict work commitment elsewhere. Makes 0 difference if they are home or in the office. (they're usually more efficient from home anyway).

The need to wait and deal with written responses happens anyway in many businesses; people are not all on the same timezone and have other meetings or deadlines. My US colleagues will make an effort to get up early when I book them for something urgent, and I'll work late when they need me to talk to their client.

Let's try another way to explain how jobs can vary. I started Friday with 6 things to do: A prep for Thursday workshop for a colleague, B is 90% thinking and 10% writing a response that they'd like asap but could wait until end Feb for, C is fiddly online research plus write questions to go to 15 people and drawing ideas from responses, D and E are simple scheduled meetings, F is writing a paper that could be delivered anytime in the next month. They will all get work done but won't all finish as most are longer tasks being nudged forward, while urgent tasks G and H will show up around lunchtime needing a faster response. A, B, E, G are paid client work but the others aren't, so timesheets are needed and I'll be creative on that because I finished and sent task A during call D. Task B was mostly done while walking in the park, hanging laundry and lying on the sofa, because it involved thinking done better away from distractions; finally cracked the idea and wrote up between other calls so that's delivered much earlier than expected. Task E - I look most engaged sitting on a call and talking only about one thing, but it is largely client fluff and the least valuable way to spend my time. C I sent emails during the rest of call D but very little progress, F didn't happen at all, and H only took 5 minutes but I had to rush to respond while eating lunch because it was that urgent.

If I'd been in an office I'd not have finished A nor even started B; I'd have had to look engaged during all of D even though it only needed me to half listen and give opinions on 2 things, and H would have taken me much longer to deal with everyone panicking. Getting a room for D and E would have been tricky. I would definitely have moved C forward more easily; that task doesn't get done so well remotely nor by being done piecemeal, and I'm thinking of giving it to a junior because it's just not getting done right now. Highest value to the company were B and H, by a LOT.

@HamptonPlace it wasn’t lunchtime though! If it had been lunchtime I wouldn’t have mentioned it

Exactly this I run a small business and it's a bit of give and take. As long as there's flexibility on both sides it works well.

Again (for the million time on this thread) it depends on your role, your company and your industry.

The majority of my work doesn't entail problem-solving or collaborating with my colleagues. It's solo work. When we need to collaborate we make time for it in advance, which works because it's strategic collaboration rather than on-the-fly stuff.

And my team is a small international one which means, literally, everyone is working to their own timetable. If we lose anything by not all being in the same place at the same time, we gain it by the team as a whole being available round the clock.

Maybe this would be a problem for your company but it isn't for mine.

well their spending was definitely down a LOT too...

She might be rude but shes also right

i think the main consensus on here is that "the casual lazy breaks that a day in the office [DO AND ALWAYS HAVE] allowED

But that just means that any task or decision or project requiring input from more than one person or a whole team takes three times as long to reach a conclusion. Standard office hours are standard office hours for a reason. It's so that everyone who is working on the same project is available to work and to communicate and to problem solve at the same time. You can't just let every member of staff work to their own timetable and expect exactly the same level of productivity. It's just impossible.

I do understand why some people are so motivated to insist it's not a problem, but IT IS a problem. And companies have realised this, hence why so many are trying to get staff back in the office at least half the time.

It's pretty simple to understand when you put your mind to it.

If an acceptable time and amount of times, how is sitting out in the garden different than going out for lunch, or shopping, which many office workers have always done?

What do you do for work Op? @Yodeloo

just go to calendar, click 'meet now', join the meeting, then change your status to available.. Works a charm but sometimes need to reset after a few hours, or if your machine shuts down. Great trick!

You'ld pay for the job, not an hourly rate surely?

ok

Well you obviously communicate in advance about your hours. An "I'll be offline for the next hour" note in Teams tends to do the job. There are very, very few occasions on which an email response can't wait an hour.

If I'm sending an email at 6am or 7pm I obviously don't expect a prompt response from colleagues in European time zones. Just like if I send an email at 10am I don't expect a prompt response from American colleagues.