To think if you moved out to the countryside during Covid, you can't demand remote working?

@Crikeyalmighty eho? My employer or their competitors?

@Twilightstarbright they have the right idea -

Unofficial WFH agreements have worked very well for employers. Employees no longer having to pay the costs of being 'in the office' accepted low or no pay increases.

Now that lower pay is baked in, many employers want to have their cake and eat it. They want to keep the low pay and also force employees back into the office. If anyone complains they are told that WFH isn't a right so tough.

Many employers are doing this because they can. They perceive the pendulum has swung in their favour so flexibility, soft benefits etc get reduced.

Many employers believe fundamentally that the ideal employee is sat at their desk, head down, working constantly. Preferably wearing shirt and tie. Never wanting time off to deal with family matters. This is perceived by many employers as the status quo. Anything which isn't this is new and therefore dangerous.

A lot of management practices haven't moved on or adapted to deal with WFH. 'Productivity' is often mentioned without it being quantified.

What we will end up with is presenteeism. Then employers will wonder why flexibility has been lost, why employees are no longer willing to start early or finish late to deal with an urgent problem.

@WhatTheShit I agree with you in general, but the company I work for gave an additional bonus last year on top of the target ones in contract, gave everyone extra annual leave and private health cover. We have 5 days called ‘being there’ which are paid ad hoc days for childcare/boiler breaking/carers stuff. Above inflation pay rises. So I feel like they specifically are treating people well.

In terms of industry, our peers/competitors state 3 days a week in the office, we say two. We actually seem to recruit great people because of the lower requirement but won’t do remote only.

Wfh also makes it much easier to contemplate part-time working.

Since the pandemic the cost of a peak time return to work for me has shot up from £36 to £59.60. Capacity is still around 60% on the train post pandemic. Costs like these make part time in person work unfeasible, even with the ‘flexible season’ offerings, unless you are earning over £50,000 full time.

agree it’s a mixed bag but it’s seems hard for employers to accept that while they are paying close to the same salaries as before tbe pandemic, the cost of EVERYTHING has shot up since the pandemic.
And especially in the areas mentioned like childcare, vet bills, train fares with less reliability, petrol prices and longer commute times, bus fares and longer commute times because the roads are congested again. I don’t think employees are necessarily being massively ‘entitled’ to look for ways to not lose so much money per week when housing prices to pay rent or mortgages payment and the overall cost of living like eating and heating and basic goods are at affordability crisis levels and wages haven’t really risen for 15-20 years.

My public sector employer is still offering salaries very close to 20 years ago and having a much lower headcount. Meanwhile the upper management who are on much higher salaries moan about how how they can’t attract quality candidates or retain trained staff. But those people got on the property ladder and can live much closer to the workplace way back when it cost much a lower proportion of household income to do that.

They can’t seem to accept that we are paying peanuts and we expect much harder work from staff because headcount has been reduced massively and caseload rises all the time. They can’t see that to most of the staff it is incredibly expensive to be able to afford to live in even a basic way, now. So it makes them an out of touch and unattractive employer.

@CarpetKnees That's why I said 'outside the public sector' in my post.

The post I quoted hadn't specified sector.

People feel entitled to working from home and seem to forget that this never used to be the norm at all

Depends when you are going back to.
I wfh for over 10 years before covid.
A few streets over from where I live, there are historic 'nailers cottages' where workers literally made nails in their homes. There's 100s of years of history where people have wfh.
We now have the technology to enable most office based jobs to work from wherever they like.
Wonderful how the world evolves as it moves on, isn't it?

Why don't you support businesses supporting working parents? Why don't you support parents being able to pick up their children up at a reasonable time? Do you support long commutes and children in lengthy after school care?

What about people caring for elderly parents? Fuck the parents? Fuck the employee? It doesn't have to be that way.

As a co owner of a small business I'm often surprised at how many people on MN insist they're only being asked back simply for presenteeism or "bums on seats" without considering there might be a genuine business reason or need to have people in the workplace.

@Twilightstarbright I agree - it’s very role dependent and performance dependent too - there are some roles that it’s quite hard to monitor or quantify and in some cases too management ( but not owners) who are also happy to take advantage.

Maybe they can’t afford extended childcare it is expensive.maybe their kids can’t cope with extended long childcare. Maybe they can’t afford to live near work. All possible. As long as you are ok! Do you think then they should resign or try to ask for wfh if that is the choice.

Some people with kids etc may not be able to work to the same extent without wfh. Previously women ( mainly women) in my sector would work part time and this sector is one with national shortage of skilled workforce. now they can go full time. So this js great for women, single parents and disabled people. Other people can polish their halos and self congratulate themselves for staying on the corporate hamster wheel and network in person. Everyone can be happy.

Yep also the colleagues that now have babies/children and/or pets - demanding to WFH because they need to look after their kids / can’t afford nursery / school pick ups? / whos going to walk the dog?
It’s utterly ridiculous

Well quite. The key to getting employment isn’t mindless office attendance, it’s having skills and experience the business needs. It really is as simple as that.

Yes this is true as well.

Do you think perhaps some of those people might know more about their roles and sector than you do, and thus not be particularly concerned by vague generalisations?

Those people who say they will look for wfh-only jobs will get a culture shock if they look for a new job. These jobs are fast vanishing, and most jobs state 2-3 days working in the office. In reality, the companies may be more flexible, but they’ve stated it in their job advertisements to cover themselves.

Pre 1945 many people worked a six day week. Expectations change.

This is the wrong comparison though, because there's no reason to suppose a factory unit or office block would open in a deprived area as an alternative to wfh. There isn't an option where you get to choose between a factory and some remote workers.

We were already seeing significant centralisation of office work well before widepread remote working kicked in. Many towns and smaller cities who lost lots of offices in the last 40 years or so. Those offices would not be springing back up if people were doing less wfh. That model had already gone.

The relevant question is whether a deprived area is better off with only cleaners, maintenance workers etc and anyone wanting to do office work has to commute, or with those jobs plus remote work.

I’ll demand remote working for whatever reason I please.

Those who moved in 2020 or 2021 thinking full time wfh would be permanent have little sympathy from me. I do however have some if wfh continued a lot longer, or where a job was advertised since with a level of wfh or hybrid working and the requirements have been changed.

I think a fair amount of the drive to 4 or 5 days a week in an office has been because of managers not being willing to deal with the slackers, the poor performers, those who do as little as they can get away with. The benefits of face to face conversation at work can easily be achieved in many jobs with one or two days a week in an office.

The expensive and in the case of rail poor public transport makes going to an office less attractive, and for those who drive, the many people on the road who I would ban from driving and never return their licence to them.

I agree that those who WFH during covid shouldn’t be demanding to continue to do that now. But I had friends who moved from London back to their home down during Covid as it was cheaper to buy a house there, I asked what would happen if they weren’t allowed to WFH after Covid cleared up, all said they would just get a new job. Wasn’t really an issue and still isn’t an issue. Most just need to go in one day per month. Most employers now realise that WFH is beneficial to the company as they don’t need a physical office plus all the other expenses it costs to run it. I don’t really care as it doesn’t affect me doing my job but I can see the appeal to it.

But equally they don’t have 2 hour commutes because their employer shut their local office/ their skills are rare….!

TBH I’d rather get a minimum wage job than commute to my London office 3 times a week.

Anecdotally, there absolutely are some individuals @Twilightstarbright but, anecdotally, there are also examples on this thread about people being able to do so much more due to the fact they work from home.
I can give you a list of all my team members who achieve so much more at home than in the office. I can give you examples over decades in the workplace of the odd person who seems to do very little work whilst in the workplace.
But Jennps is making wild claims about "most people".