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

If my job is under threat, it's from AI, not cheaper people in India.

I wonder if the eventual compromise between employers and employees will be a 4 day week, but you must be in the office.

Of course it isn't, not least because good talent with the ability to speak English and work remotely have options other than the UK and our not especially high wage economy.

Totally agree. I've worked from home in some capacity since 2005! Either on occasion, or one day a week, or full time!

The cost of commuting is shocking. And the time. And that's when the trains work and are on time. When they don't, you get home in time to go to bed and start all over again.

And chlldcare should be tax deductible as it's a cost of working.

OP, I totally agree with you. However, I run my own business so my job has been fully remote for most of my working life. That is only possible due to the nature of my work, which is creative and studio based. Whenever, I have other people working for me, they have to do so onsite at my workshop. I have had some pushback since Covid but I reiterate that this is non negotiable and any job offer depends on it. But yeah, I did notice the trend.

There's always one.

It's been nearly five and a half years since lockdown. Any job that's now done remotely has either been so since March 2020, before then, or after then and likely for the whole of the time it's existed.

The number of employers who have employees who could be more cheaply outsourced, are currently too dim to notice but will magically realise at some point in the future is unlikely to be very high.

Also, outsourcing to cheap labour in India? Very noughties of you!

Your employer will soon realise that face and why employ you and all the financial burden of a UK employee when they can outsource to india or where ever and pay much much less in wages!!!!

This is often said - mainly by people who have never employed or worked in India. I have. Even a few years back now, the saving was not huge when compared with UK employees.

There is a lot of good talent in India but it is not as cheap to employ the good people as everyone seems to think it is. Annual, expected salary increases of 10-20% are making it less cheap every year. The expectation for benefits is far higher than here in the UK: 1-2 years full pay maternity, for example. Onsite subsisided restaurants, gyms. Guaranteed yearly development and promotion in a timley fashion. Regular hiring process because there are lots of other employment options and people tend ot move roles far more often than here.

It's way more complicated than WFH = lower output, whatever Jacob Rees-Mogg would like us to believe.

While that may be true in many cases, my team is now able to carry double the caseload we had pre-Covid, because we've largely carried on working the way we were during it. This is evidenced by reports pulled from the client database.

Instead of schlepping halfway across the county for face-to-face appointments with clients, we now do a lot of that work over the phone. Doing a PIP application with a client over the phone can save me 3 hours in travelling time compared to seeing them in person. It saves the employer shedloads in mileage payments, too and in premises costs, as they've closed a couple of local offices that were hardly being used.

And we actually work more collaboratively now. Pre-covid, if you had an unusual case, you'd save it to discuss at the monthly team meeting, because we were all based in different offices. Now we stick a message on Teams asking if anyone has ever had a case where the circumstances were X, Y & Z and what did they do about it. Nine times out of ten, someone has and will be able to give you the precise bit of legislation you need to cite to challenge a decision.

The organisation has a "40% in the office" policy, but I suspect that's more honoured in the breach than in practice. They've sublet approx a third of the office space, and I suspect that if everyone was actually doing 40% of their hours in the office, there wouldn't be enough desks to go round.

I can see if might be different in a commercial environment (I'm in the "third sector", which always sounds to me like something from a sci-fi movie.)

My personal opinion on this… I think a lot of companies had decent WFH policies pre COVID. The pendulum swung to the employee side during COVID and the couple of years post. Now the pendulum is swinging way to the employer’s side and will continue to do so for a while more.

I do think it will eventually get back to the middle and both sides will be more reasonable.

i think that if you are confident that your job can be done 100% from home and that there is no added value to going into the office to see people face to face occasionally then I would be VERY worried. Your employer will soon realise that fact and why employ you and all the financial burden of a UK employee when they can outsource to india or where ever and pay much much less in wages!!!!

100 per cent this and agree with @DisapprovingSpaniel. Our company only this are trying to force people back to the office after nearly 5 years of dully remote and then a very flexible 1 or 2 days in office. If you had a child at start of Covid then that child is starting school now, older children have either started secondary school or even finished and gone to college. People have got married, divorced got sick or even worse died. Life has changed dramatically for everyone since pre covid, we are all alot older now, some of us who were able to commute long hours are not physically able to anymore. Life has got a whole lot more expensive. Where i live, the main motorway has the most cars using it ever now up over 500k since 2019. My commute to where i work was 1 hour and a quarter pre covid - if i left at 7, if i leave at 7 now its 2 hours. You have to leave at half 5 to do it in an hour and a quarter now. One of our staff here unfortunately crashed on her way home, more accidents are happening. Public transport HAS NOT improved at all. House prices have escalated and so have rent- rentals are more scarce. Some companies here that have tried to increase office days have had to change as they are not getting the staff. One of the largest recruitment agencies here have released a report showing that that people are turning down jobs if they are not offering good flexibility remote working options. Here we are at full employment so filling jobs is getting hard. Alot of companies are also doing hidden remote work agreements in order to keep their staff aswell. Covid had a huge impact on way we work, it will never go back the way it was. Alot has changed and technology has advanced as well

Yup… she was shocked, shocked I say, when we presented her with our findings during her termination meeting.

I actually felt bad for her. I hired her and then 6mos after she was moved to another manager. I got her back a year later and found she hadn’t progressed since she had left me. So I started working with her and brought everything back to level I was at with her at the 6mo mark. 6 mo later she still hadn’t progressed. I think she was over her head and was not in the right position.

I love remote working and would never be fully office based. My role could be fully remote however I do one day per fortnight in the office

I do think you should treat remote working the same as being in the office though e.g. don’t look after your kids at the same time as you’re being paid to work

I wouldn’t ever apply for a role which clearly stated the hybrid expectation that didn’t align with my expectations. I will also cost up a roles net pay and take account of savings in fuel or wraparound care that isn’t needed. This means I’m happy to take home less if I don’t need to attend an office. I’m also happy to travel further afield if it’s just once a month in the office

I expect remote working as I know my role can be done remotely, it can save a company shed loads of money and I just don’t like sitting with people every day for the sake of it. However I choose companies who hold similar values in remote working as it makes my life easier and the tech/processes is generally much better. They set themselves up for it and life is generally more productive

It’s always worth asking. I know lots of people in jobs that weren’t advertised as working at home or even hybrid, but they asked for working from home and got it. A lot of companies know that to attract and retain good employees they need to be open to the idea of home working as people will just go elsewhere.

I know people who are getting badly bitten on the arse by this now

I do see your point but surely it's a good thing that people have moved out of cities and into less populated areas? I think employers should be offering more wfh or hybrid jobs. It's not feasible for employees to travel 5 days per week into the office. 2/3 days is much fairer and jobs with this on offer are bound to be more popular with more eligible applicants. The demand for housing in cities has gone crazy and it's time something was done about it.

Well that may be true, but the policy was global originating from our Swiss headquarters and includes our UK offices.

So whether you wanted them or not you got them (for my company anyway). So not exactly the big meanie US company. 😛

An important point.

I mentioned upthread that a lot of the time when people say a remote worker is less efficient or productive, they presume the comparison is with someone of the same competence who's working the same hours, just in person. A direct equivalent. When actually, that may not be their choice at all. Not when we've got soaring NHS waiting lists, chronic conditions and unpaid caring responsibilities.

There's also usually an unspoken assumption that they don't think they'll be paying any more for this in person remote worker. Another thing that isn't necessarily the case!

Why so? Kids have to stay in childcare longer hours due to the commute.

Yep. The answer, in all cases where the job could be done in multiple locations, is IT DEPENDS.

And then there are also situational factors, because some employers or employees will hold enough of the balance of power to be able to insist on something that isn't optimum for productivity. But again, this is very specific to role, sector, pay and lots of other things that it is completely pointless to generalise about.

It’s also the ‘I want to work from home to save on day care costs’ which is baffling.

But the alternative for lots of people to WFH is probably just not working at all.

I am of the people who moved to the countryside during the pandemic. Rents have gone up so much in London that I know can't afford to go back permanently, but my rent has also gone up so much here that I can no longer afford the train or a hotel in London.

I can't work from home in my industry so I've accepted that even though I'm in my mid-thirties, I'll probably never work again. I have always had severe mental health problems, which working actually tended to make better - but if work doesn't cover my housing costs, I can't afford to do it.