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

Does your work only exist in London, or could you move to a lower rent area of the country where you could access work?

It's only my situation but before WFH I was limited in the hours I could work due to childcare and the commute. Being able to WFH meant I could increase my hours and work the time I would normally have been commuting. I still go in to the office on a hybrid basis but I would be out approx. 6-8 hours commuting time per week if I had to go in full time. I work another 4/5 hours flexibly during the week that I would also lose. That's 40+ hours a month 😬

YES , the bobby axelrods of the worlds or the mike princes all want the worker bees at the office because in theory the worker bees are ment to support the local economy eg starbucks etc too. which to me is buy supermarket and make in advance not spend over £5 just on one drink etc

then that also applies to managers etc and their view of how they think it is or is not productive

plus the facts are there about companies that were running during covid if the workers were not productive then the companies share prices etc would of dropped and or projects stalled

plus the whole colab thing. sometimes yes in person it can help but other times its a mix

People have realised there is more for us out there than being up early in the morning, stuck on a long commute, crammed into an office, to come home with barely any time with our families in the evenings.

All to keep the people at the top richer. They want us to keep spending on public transport, in coffee shops, buying meals, in offices where they collect high rents and rates. They don’t want us at home, rested and relaxed, with our families and with money in our pocket.

WFH allows the work life balance to tilt towards a better way of life for us at the bottom at that won’t do. We get one life. Call me unproductive or lazy all you like. My performance says otherwise. WFH has certainly improved mine and my families and for that I’m grateful.

even then theres more distractions at the office and then traffic delays etc, covid proved the old office model is outdated

Least of all the tax take.

Is that really happening though? Let’s say I work 9-5 with a 2 hour commute 1 ea way. Are people generally logging in at 8 and working until 6?

I’m not sure that’s common. I would think most people would be logged in from 9-5.

This is such an important point - the cost of everything, including rent and transport, shooting up has coincided with post-covid adjustments.

If I had to go back into the office full time I would need to drop my hours back to pre-Covid hours to accommodate the commute which would mean I lost out financially, which would mean I'd need to leave. There wouldn't be any benefit to that for anyone.

You can always request flexible (including remote) working in any job, and you can walk with your feet if it doesn’t suit you.

I moved out to the countryside many years ago (a decade before COVID). I have a very niche skillset and most jobs are in London or other big cities. I don’t want to live in a city.

Every time I’ve been hired for a role as part of negotiations over the contract, I’ve made it clear that I needed to have remote working approved and that I would only accept a job on the condition I was allowed to wfh at least part of the week. I wouldn’t have accepted the role otherwise and it’s never been refused. I would have been happy to walk away though if the arrangements didn’t suit me.

My approach is that you get the best from me when I have good work life balance. A long daily commute isn’t conducive to that. My colleagues are all over the UK so all meetings are online anyway. The office is often very empty. If you want me to be doing my best work, then get out of my way and let me do it. I’ve never had an employer not happily approve my request. Again they knew I would have walked otherwise and they were keen to hire me.

@JacquesHarlow covid proved most office roles can be completed remotely especially with tech etc it seems for some reason bosses prefer people in the office but for some myself included there are more office distractions etc

You can ask, but increasing companies want work in the office now, so you can’t demand.

it does to a degree straight away 2 hours taken off travelling = extra 2 hours at the desk etc

My H has a big client with a lot of under 35s and very few with families and a lot of flexibility . The lack of productivity and ‘snap’ is incredibly noticeable from what it was. I think mumsnetters are taking it personally because ‘they’ are perfectly productive as are their partners but some people just simply aren’t if they can get away with it - and it’s very hard to monitor in certain jobs too, apart from noticing that everything takes longer and not much gets done. Problem is it would seem some of the managers are of similar ilk too because they recruit on their own image.

Do any of you think that we should be able to request fully remote when applying for a job, no matter what the employer's policy is? And that it is "discrimination" if they don't?

Yes we should be able to ask. Always. Ultimately people looking for a job are as much entitled to interview a prospective employer as the other way around and if you don't ask, you don't get. Whether it's discrimination or not, based on either not allowing someone to make the request at all or refusing it, depends on the circumstances of the role.

I think people seeking employment can 'demand' whatever they want. It's all a negotiation, and if they're worth their list of demands (so very dramatic!) then they'll get them. If they're not in high-enough demand, themselves, they likely won't.

You may think they're acting entitled, but I don't see how this is any different than negotiating a wage. Once they've been told that wfh isn't possible, they should leave it and look elsewhere, but aside from that, I don't see a problem with 'demanding' a wfh position.

Depend how good they are. We had a key employee do just this. The company didn't dare dismiss him.

I wasn't happy about him being a special case, but it was the only possible decision.

I definitely see this view a lot among people I know. People feel entitled to working from home and seem to forget that this never used to be the norm at all

I just don’t see the 4 day work week ever really taking off for any reason.

The experiments that have been done are outliers and are not indicative of widespread chances for success. Our cultures are all based around the 5/2 model and I think it would be very hard to transition organically.

I'm actually surprised nobody's cited AI as a reason why we shouldn't be wfh. It's usually happened by a couple of dozen posts in.

Sounds like a compromise which would work for men wanting Fridays on the golf course, but as ever not very helpful for mums with caring responsibilities.