To think people applying for hybrid roles while living nowhere near the office - then refusing to come in - are part of why the job market feels so broken right now?

You also get hiring managers who toe the company line when interviewing then have off the record chats with new hires/people they are making offers to agreeing to fewer days in the office than the company's hybrid model allows for. This is not backed up in writing and causes issues when that manager moves on. The employee doesn't have a leg to stand on, but it causes friction and bad feeling to insist they come in and of course the person may just up and leave.

I have colleagues who had no issues coming into the office 5 days a week pre Covid. Now it's as though they've been asked to walk through fire naked to come in!

@TempestTost
Your employer pays you to perform in the way they want you to, is the fundamental issue. You are being paid foe the service they want, not what you want. The managers get to decide what best way is to manage the business.

An employer and employee relationship is based on a contract of equals. 1 has a skill and the time to perform that skill the other needs, one is willing to pay money and potentially other things for those skills and time.

It is absolutely not a feudal system although I know many who have that mindset.

If that contract doesn't include things one of those equals wants, they don't have to sign it. I've never walked into a business and made demands of things that were never offered. What I said was if they offer flexible working to some, they should offer it to all.

A small proportion of the managers make decisions, the other managers are gate keepers and responsibility holders, they have absolutely no more power to make a decision than the non-management employees. In many places this is because they don't know how to reward employees outside of offering management positions.

But it's also a matter of large vs small picture. Even in cases where individual jobs can be done at home, that's not the big picture. There may be issues with trying to create synergies in workplaces, training and mentorship,

And where did I disagree with that?

there may be people who need more direct supervision and management (whether they admit that or not.)

I started early, I was still in junior school when I first had a paid job and no it wasn't a family firm. Outside of the tiny businesses I've worked in, almost all of them have had people who do less than the minimum required.

That isn't through a lack of beady eyed managers or people WFH. They get away with it because they can, it's very hard to get rid of workers, there is a reluctance to even try. It's not a new phenomenon from the lockdowns, WFH, or anything else, some people cannot self motivate anywhere and many managers either don't have the training or the ability to motivate, many are frightened that they won't be liked if they try and get work out of people so don't try or use passive aggressive tactics that can cause low morale for everyone.

There's also an element of fairness, it may be undesirable for all kinds of reasons to treat employees differently and not all may be competent enough to work from home.

I've worked in small individual businesses to global companies as non-management and middle to senior management, on site, hybrid and remote, all of them have worked for me at different times in my life and I've no issue with people utilising any flexibility, if everyone has a fair crack to do so.

Everyone should be have the opportunity to be treated fairly which was the crux of my previous post.

Yes to the management time.

It drives me nuts when I go to a lot of effort to schedule things so everyone's "at home" needs are met, and workplace needs are met, and there is some event or meeting I'd like to get done, or other job that requires a certain number of people with certain skills - and then on the one day it's supposed to happen one of the necessary people has an issue or something comes up where they need to be home after all, and the whole thing is fucked up.

Even where it's possible to demand they come in otherwise it adds a lot of stress and bad feeling.

It seems like just having everyone in as a normal thing reduces management time and effort and stress massively.

Your employer pays you to perform in the way they want you to, is the fundamental issue. You are being paid foe the service they want, not what you want. The managers get to decide what best way is to manage the business.

But it's also a matter of large vs small picture. Even in cases where individual jobs can be done at home, that's not the big picture. There may be issues with trying to create synergies in workplaces, training and mentorship, there may be people who need more direct supervision and management (whether they admit that or not.)

There's also an element of fairness, it may be undesirable for all kinds of reasons to treat employees differently and not all may be competent enough to work from home.

I don't vote Reform, however I would suggest that most voters don't actally bother to read the manifesto of the party they vote for either.

They should because they are often worth the effort for the laugh of derision

Organisations that still expect employees to be 'in office' when the job can be done perfectly as well from home, are living in the past.
Less congestion, better for the environment, more productive....wfh is modern working.

I don't know if it's any consolation, but I doubt many Reform voters read the manifesto.

I work for a local authority which since May elections will now be led by Reform. One of the ststements in their maifesto is to stop council employees WFH. We are an hybrid agile team meaning we visit people in the Community and the expectation is we do 2 days in the office. Since lockdown the ethos of coming into the office has changed, the same peoole do come in every week and the same people don't. Some new starters come into the office for a few weeks at induction and then aren't seen again as they just WFH. I'm not a Reform voter but interested to see what happens. It's a shame we can't have a happy compromise. The few spoil it for the rest.

My bf just called. He went for his weekly mandatory office day. The manager asked why he was there since she didn't see anything in the calendar that would warrant for him to drive in 😅

I think there has to be a balance, lots of people are finding that hybrid or flexible working gives them a better work-life balance, less time wasted commuting, easier to work round childcare etc.

But being in a workplace isn't always an arbitrary rule about bums on seats. It has to work for a business as well, in order to make a profit. I work for a small business and there needs to be a minimum number of people, in the workplace, for it to function properly (answering calls, letting clients in, running errands, seeing suppliers etc) Some people -despite knowing this - are much more reluctant to come in than others, even if it's only once a week.
In my own workplace (and I've seen several times on MN) people have moved an inconvenient distance away and then complain or want to change their hours because it's too expensive/too difficult to get to work on time. That's not really the employers fault, if the job description or location hasnt changed.

If you say so.
Not everything is down to an employer being shit you know. It's very possible for employees to be shit. And when employers lean into AI or nationals from other countries don't be crying here. Just keep going with more of your 'Employers are at fault for everything' bollocks 😂

I recruit a lot- finance function of 250 people with 4 main offices across the UK. 40% in office requirement. That’s our policy and it isn’t up to candidates to decide they don’t agree with it- poor cultural fit if they think that.

We have evidence we have more risk events at home.

It is now an interview question and something we track closely, with managers told that not coming in enough without an agreed exception is a performance issue.

There’s frustrations on both sides- lots of companies are not clear on their expectations regarding days in the office and/or don’t implement their own policy. Equally employees sometimes decide that they don’t want to adhere to the policy or it doesn’t apply to them.

I would hate it from a personal level, but my work load managing this stuff would decrease if everyone was in 5 days a week. It takes up a great deal of time!

One of the problems with the WFH culture is that there are still jobs which can't be done from home, and don't have a lot of flexibility, but with more and more people coming into the job market with expectations of flexibility, it's harder to find staff who don't think they can write the rules. Hence you get parents doing jobs with Christmas working being surprised when they get rostered in for Christmas and begging childless colleagues to swap.

It's become more and more of an expectation now that employees should be able to pick their hours, particularly with kids. The concept of fitting your lifestyle to a job is diminishing in favour of fitting a job to your lifestyle. And then people wonder why so many jobs in the care and hospitality sector are being filled by people from overseas. It's not just the low wages, wages have always been low for those types of jobs, it's the fact that presenteeism is becoming a dirty word, and having to work to the job's needs, not your own is anathema.

That's not to say I don't agree with PPs who think one shouldn't have to sit in an office when you could easily WFH, but the increased expectations of flexibility are making it difficult for employers for whom it actually is crucial to have people present at specific times.

I still fail to see how your link supports this statement:

'ConkerGame · Today 13:35
Most roles don’t actually require it though. It’s just employer preference. Usually a decision made by a straight white male in his 50s/60s who has no childcare responsibilities and is rich so can live in a 4 bed house in London.'

FTSE 100 companies are not the blueprint for how other businesses run and CEOs are macro not micro. The actual placement of an employee's backside is not relevant to them, the business results are. Decisions are made off the back of productivity and sales analytics.

Edit: failed to quote @ConkerGame 's link, which renders my post rather useless. Apologies!

If you get the staff you want, it can't be that much of an issue then? In which case, your organisation doesn't fall within that category.

I've worked in a lot of jobs over the last few years owing to short-term contracts and a mix of remote, hybrid, and office work. I've found that a lot of office-based roles are just a bums on seats exercise due to a lack of trust or poor management, and the companies that struggle with productivity with remote work always have weak managers in charge and a culture of micromanagement and poor leadership.

I don't actually mind going into the office, I'd probably choose to work hybrid given a choice, but I do resent being made to work 100% from an office because my manager cannot effectively lead and motivate their team.

I also disagree that training cannot be done from home in most roles. If you struggle with that, it's a management issue, not an issue with remote work.

They should just be fired.

If the company can be flexible on working at home then anyone should be able to work at home. Yes as a carer I find it useful to work from home but I don't see why Jim 30 single, no responsibilities can't have the same flexibility if he wants.

That's not taking the piss it's being fair.

Why do we have a system where we all have to behave in a performative manner just because it suits some levels of management to justify their roles and some employees who work better from a work base than at home?

I'm self employed so I'm very motivated and set up to work from home when I take on a contract. It shouldn;t matter if I have responsibilities at home or not, if it can be offered and the employee is covering their prescribed work there is bugger all reason why they should be in the office anymore than someone like myself who needs to be around home.

It's the same outcome. Companies that treat their staff like respected professionals and give them the freedom to decide where to work, so long as the work is done to a good standard, will attract better staff, retain better staff and have a happier, more diverse, and more productive workforce.

Companies that treat their staff like naughty children, micromanage them, and deliberately fight against their work-life balance, will have staff who act like naughty children.

Because employers tend to put "opportunities for work from home" or "hybrid" or "flexible working options" in the advert and then clarify what they offer at interview.

It depends on the pay… I have to go into London but the train fare in 2/3 my day rate… and there’s literally no reason for my role to be in the office apart from bums on seats numbers to justify the rent I imagine. So I can well understand people negotiating not to go in. Really don’t see how it affects the market… apart from wages being too low to allow people to commute

I'm experiencing this at the moment with recruitment, and it's a repeating problem. The role is an outreach one in a charity. It's essential the office has staff in it every day in case we have drop-ins so we hybrid work on a rota. Although we each work specific days at home, sometimes that has to change at short notice if we need to see someone in the community.

We keep getting applicants who accept the terms and then start pushing for less time in the office when they get the job, despite us making it clear in interview what the requirements are and why. The pressure is then on other team members who have to come in to the office more in order to meet the needs of the service users.

We're a small local charity. Recruitment and training is expensive. It's not a case of 'just fail probation and rehire' when people do this.

But we get the staff we want. The candidates trying it on at offer stage just end up not getting the job, one way or another. There iare often a few really, really good candidates and some of them end up negotiating themselves out of an offer by being difficult. But why waste my time and theirs getting to that point?

I think poor or weak management and HR are a significant part of the issue.

Of course if people can save money and time by wfh more than agreed they will try to do so. Even before you factor in building issues or colleagues who annoy you even unintentionally.

It doesn't help that so many companies say hybrid, but then neglect to say where they are based.

I came across loads advertised like this and you then have to look up where they are based and hope that they mean that location and not some kind of satellite office.