to think WFH can completely change one's work life balance?

Yup, i only wfh now. I hate cramming my actual life around work! The commute is a real killer: we used to live round the corner from DPs office so he was home at 5.10pm and we felt like we had a proper evening together. Now we're an hr away so he's up much earlier, home at 6 if lucky and by the time we've eaten he only has 2/3hrs to cram his whole damn life into :/

I'm a teacher and WFH approximately 12-15 hours per week in the evenings and on weekends in addition to my pupil and parent facing role during school hours. I get much more done of the tasks I perform at home (planning, marking, preparing displays and making resources etc) than if I tried doing them at school. I obviously don't get additionally remunerated for these hours; teacher contracts stipulate working however many hours it takes to do the job, so clocking off isn't really a possibility, but being able to do those extra hours from home makes a huge difference.

Couldn’t agree more. I have hybrid. So on home days I have more sleep, no public transport, no packed lunch to make, no office nuisances like constant annoying noise or smell. Fewer office clothes to sort out. And the house jobs are done. Even something simple like putting a load of laundry on makes a huge difference, I remember that was difficult when I was full time in an office. Wfh made such a difference to my mental health that I will never go back to full time office.

I work hybridly and it's perfect for me. Two days of not doing the commute makes a huge difference and using my lunchbreak to do some basic chores and sort life admin is a game changer. I am fairly sociable though, so I enjoy my office days and the location of my office and surrounding area is great, so I enjoy going in.

@Yih I have had friends in office jobs that barely had any training, they didn’t really interact with anyone in the office and also vice versa, I don’t think it’s clear cut of wfh = impossible for young people to train. It’s more likely coming down to ethos of the company vs wfh or in person.

Also depends on the type of work. Our new starters have to work closely with other staff within a team as there is no way they could be let loose on their own, they don't have the knowledge or experience. I was still learning after 5 years in my career, there was always something you'd not come across before.

I've been working predominantly from home since covid and I find I have less boundaries than when I worked from the office, BUT I can go to the gym before work. I can walk the dogs at lunch and as my husband has recently left leaving me with 3 dogs alone that is quite useful.

Working from home has changed my life too. I’m sad that I was doing an awful commute throughout the years my DD was small. It would have made a massive difference to my life and hers!

It's probably easiest to look for remote workforce friendly companies and go from there. Whilst I like to be in the office, the company I own has a remote first policy, with office as an option if that is a preference. This is for ALL positions.

How do you get these jobs?

Love WFH! Will never go back. I have to go into office 2 days a month. I am happier & work life balance as a Mum/home owner is wonderful

I love.my home but.i.dont. want to be under house arrest

I dont really like wfh. No.colaboration.no natural.conversations. just a slog

I agree. I WFH 4/5 days and the one day we are in the office, so little gets done due to the yapping of everyone, including the boss .

I agree but I guess they are renting huge offices that are half empty!

Absolutely. My husband worked in a city an hours commute from our house pre-covid. He was out the house from 7am-7pm 5 days a week. He barely saw our children mid week when they were babies/toddlers. But it was just the norm for most of our friends and family.

Now he does 3/4 days work from home and he has breakfast and dinner with me and the children every day, he likes to do the school run before work every morning, is less stressed and gains an extra 2 hours every day that is not spent commuting. He can spend more time with us and his hobbies, so his mental wellbeing is far improved.

It has had such an incredible impact on our family - the kids have such a close relationship with their Dad and our relationship is stronger. We save thousands a year in train fares and I have been able to increase my working hours, due to him doing half of the school runs.

I am the opposite. I worked from home from March 2020 until January 2025. I now work from a wonderful shared office (I have a lockable office).For me, WFH meant zero boundaries - my home / work balance was a bust. I now work walking distance from home - this has been a huge gamechanger. I am self employed and can WFH if I need to or go in late. So I have the best of both worlds.

I definitely agree that WFH is far better than forced hours in the office with a long commute. 10 hours per week on a commute is just silly - that's a whole day of lost time. Employers who are forcing teams back full time are being really short-sighted ignoring this

If I couldn’t work from home one day/two days alternate weeks I would have had to give up work due to ill health!!

Training is always going to vary from company to company, my first proper career job was wfh, great training, really engaged, had the opportunity to shadow meetings, knew exactly who to contact with issues remotely, “met” lots of people who really helped me, I have had friends in office jobs that barely had any training, they didn’t really interact with anyone in the office and also vice versa, I don’t think it’s clear cut of wfh = impossible for young people to train. It’s more likely coming down to ethos of the company vs wfh or in person.

Yes I agree as it makes the day shorter. When WFH I can drop off the kids at school and pick up from ASC easily but if I have to travel into the office it's just not possible. We make it work as DH does drop offs and pick ups on those days but one of us being able to WFH most days is really helpful.

It gives me time to clean, do laundry and I save money by eating lunch at home.

I love having the opportunity to work from home, but I do think it depends on the organisation.

Until the beginning of last year, I worked for a call centre. Initially we were on site and I worked my way up and off the phones into an admin position. Along the way I was able to take advantage of some great opportunities because people could see how I worked and got to know me; it was in a small community so everyone knew everyone else and generally got along well, the work wasn't always great but the people made it.

When I was pregnant with my second, covid happened and we were all sent to WFH. Then they basically closed our call centre and farmed everyone out to other campaigns. By the time I returned from mat leave, I was working under people based all over the country, some of whom had never even heard of where I lived, let alone that we had a call centre there. Suddenly we weren't people any more, just numbers on a screen. I kept pushing for better opportunities and to get back off the phones (my old role was long gone with the closure of our site) but we had pretty high turn over of staff, including team leaders. I remember talking to one about an opportunity I was interested in, him saying he'd put my name forward for it, and by the following week he was gone!

When I was pregnant with my third and suffering from HG, there was no compassion and I ended up having to work with a bucket between my feet, putting people on mute to throw up, because my request to move to another team which would suit me better was refused. Their attitude was no, just phone in sick if you're unwell. So I spent a lot of that pregnancy signed off, whereas I think I only had about 4 weeks off total unwell with the previous two pregnancies, which were also both HG!

Last year I reached a point where I couldn't do it any more and it felt like a room in my house had become toxic because that was where my work PC was. It was also the room where I stored my craft stuff, but I avoided it because it meant going in there and if it wasn't a work day, I wanted nothing to do with it. I could feel my mental health slipping and decided I wanted out and actively looked for a job that would take me out the house.

And now I have a hybrid working arrangement. I'm in the office one morning and two afternoons. The two afternoons, I work from home in the morning. It's a pretty recent arrangement (due to space in the office and my 4th HG pregnancy) but it works well for me. I feel like I have to do more work on the mornings I'm at home, to kind of prove that I'm working because at the call centre you always had someone breathing down your neck; here I don't but old habits die hard!

I enjoy my 'commute'. It's a 15 minute walk to and from the office, but it gives me space to go from being Mum to work mode and to unwind at the end of the day as well. I always used to have to go and start my call centre PC up 30-60 minutes before my shift because of the time it took to load all the systems and I definitely needed a bit of time to do that mental switch to be ready to work.

I like that on my mornings when I'm at home, I can get up later, take a shower and still be ready to start for 9am. When I'm a little less sicky, I'll be able to have breakfast with my kids.

Back when we were first WFH during covid, I did love it and it suited my introvert personality. But I do value the time I get to spend with my colleagues now.

I work from home three days a week and I absolutely love it .
I have time to go to the gym ( which would have been commuting time) . I get time to do little jobs around the house .
I am generally happier which has had a positive effect on the rest of my life .
The irony is that I always get more work done when working from home than going into work

Completely agree, I was on the verge of leaving my job in late 2019 due to the ridiculous commute (which was taking 2 hours due to rush hour traffic). Now I WFH as much as I want (I still travel UK wide for off-site business meetings so it breaks up the monotony of being in the house). The work life balance is amazing, I can go to the gym before work, and I'm home when my kids get home from school. On the days I do go I to the office, I don't actually get any work done as people want to chat to me! 🥴

I do agree we need to reconsider how we train new staff. Hopefully hybrid working is here to stay. But few people are giving enough thought to how their management approach needs to change to reflect the new office reality.

I know I learnt by listening and observing- overhearing a debate between colleagues, observing body language in meetings, chatting to people in the kitchen. Now people are going to online training and reading their emails at the same time. Some bad practices have crept in - and a new approach is required to make sure we don’t see a skills erosion as a result of hybrid working.

but this takes maturity for people to acknowledge there are some downsides and address them. I would rather address them now than have have something go wrong somewhere, it be blamed on WFH (rightly or wrongly) and the policy be revoked.