To be so glad WFH became a thing (and to absolutely hate anyone who tries to curtail its availability)

Wait till your kids enter the workforce.

There is definitely that. However one disadvantage is that if you’re really sick if you work from home you’re less likely to take time off, or I am at least. Always feel like a fraud.

I’ve had a horrendous cold for the past three weeks, and haven’t felt able to take time off. Not least because I had months off because of my transplant anyway and now that I’m back feel I need to be giving 150%. And not having to commute in I feel I need to make more effort.

This definitely benefits the employer but it’s a disadvantage to the person who is ill.

One advantage with WFH - have fewer sick days off. Obviously my last job was at a supermarket and couldn't work a month due to badly twisted ankle. There was no opportunity to rest the foot all day.

If the situation happened again at my current job or any hybrid/WFH role, providing I can get the affected foot raised - no sickness.

There’s no right or wrong answer.

I do think though that WFH is a bit like a boiling frog situation in many instances, and often people don’t realise it until something changes.

For many people, working from home means being able to have a social life during working hours. Going out to the gym, having a coffee, picking up the kids, and the reality is that many work hours are lost. But for those people it’s a convenience which means having to spend less time at their desks.

But for others in customer facing rolls, call centres, webchat services etc it’s a different story.

I WFH full-time. I have a disability and it has been ideal. I don’t have to commute. I can go straight into my office and I’m at home as soon as I log out. And I have a dedicated workspace, so there’s no overlap between my home and work environment. I am also fairly recently immune suppressed following a transplant, and so WFH gives me the opportunity to not have to come into contact with to many germs, especially in the first year which is the most crucial. But….

I’ve worked for the same company for 3.5 years. During that time I’ve spent every day talking to customers, initially on digital webchat, and then on the phone. I did all my training remotely. I am good at my job. But there’s no opportunity to pop out for coffee or the gym etc, I’m there to work, my office is my office and I get two ten minute breaks and a lunch break. If I’m on not available for more than a couple of minutes management want to know why. Ditto comfort breaks.

Again, it’s an ideal situation on the face of it.

But in those 3.5 years I’ve never met a single one of my colleagues in person. Not one.

I also live mostly alone. My DC are here, but mostly not, and so it’s possible to go days without seeing another human being in person.

And whether people admit it or not. Talking to people on teams and the phone isn’t the same.

And it took me spending 4 months in hospital where I spoke to people every single day to realise how isolated I had become.

It honestly hadn’t occurred to me, because I was working, it’s what I do and it was convenient.

And then I came home, and back to work, and am back to not seeing people. My customers are now on the phone, so I do at least physically speak to people, as opposed to when I worked in a digital team and I spent all day typing to them instead.

But still there is no physical interaction with actual people.

Staff who work closer to the office are now highbrid as the company changed its policy from full-time wfh where they hired people all across the countries.

And those who were told to go into the office two days a week were absolutely furious at first. They objected to having the rules changed, although most of them had come from working in a full-time office environment to WFH in lockdown and had got used to the new culture.

And within weeks of having to go back staff started to say how much they realised they’d missed interacting with people in a real environment.

They all work highbrid still and still enjoy working from home. But they do now admit that going into the office has benefited many of them mentally.

There’s no right or wrong really.

But I do think that we need to think about what this level of isolation is doing to us as a society.

We now live in an era where people are communicating ore and more via social media and online, via teams etc, and we’re losing the ability to communicate in person.

And as social animals, what is that going to do in the long term?

WFH works, but we do need to look at the bigger picture. Because the truth is that most people’s interactions happen at work, and now we’re seeking to remove those. So where are those interactions going to come from? Or should we just accept that actually humans should now be solitary beings?

My work quite strictly enforces that staff must have 2 days per week in the office. I assume so they can keep an eye on us and to encourage team building etc.

The problem is, when I go back after mat leave, due to my hour long commute each way, awkward train times and my nursery’s opening hours, the office days will become impossible for me. I would be late to work each morning after dropping baby off and then I’d be late picking baby up each evening. Getting a nursery near work wouldn’t work as what about my WFH days?

If I put in a flexible working request, I’d need to request starting an half an hour later and finishing half an hour earlier on office days. Or alternatively, going full-time WFH.

I think it’s obvious which option would negatively affect the business more. Allowing WFH as and when needed benefits the business as much as the employee.

My job though admin based I need to log into a cloud based system all the time and change status when on breaks, meetings, IT issues etc. So can’t meet up for coffee etc. Had to clock out for going to the dentist which was OK’d by a manager

We have been told to get away from your desks both WFH and office for breaks as gives you time to stretch, refocus etc

It's about more than your wages, as premises cost money to run. And if that poster got her way, we'd need many more dedicated buildings to do office work in than we have now. No doubt as a civil servant you know all about how many have been sold off.

Though it's also about wages too, because there are roles that employers allow to be done remotely as an alternative to paying more.

Post Covid I worked from home every day except maybe one or two days a month. So for 5 years I WFH. Now I'm in the office 100% of the time (5 minutes from my house) and I enjoy spending time with my workmates but am definitely not as productive. One or two afternoons a week I have to go home to get my work done.

It's a game changer and I defend everyone's right to do it. But it does take good management to make it work. I think all managers should go on managing people working from home training to be able to performance manage remote staff.

Those of us in the office do not get paid more than those that are at home. I'm a civil servant in a role without WFH on exactly the same salary but with greater work expenses.

There are companies that are 100% remote working.

I WFH 3 days a week but it isn’t the sort of job where I can nip out to do a school run, or do housework in between meetings. My job is customer support so I am essentially tied to my desk in between breaks (2 x 15 min breaks and a 30 min lunch break). If I leave my desk for more than a couple of minutes when not on a break (or without having a pre-authorised reason) it flags on the system and a manager calls my personal phone to ask what’s going on.

It’s nice to not have a commute but I am jealous of those WFH who have a bit more flexibility throughout their day. I gain 2 hours each day WFH (commute to office is 1 hour there, 1 hour back), but during the actual working hours I am just as snowed under and stressed as I would be in the office. And the breaks don’t feel so much like breaks - when I’m in the office in the city centre I’ll nip out to the fancy coffee shop across the road for a matcha latte which is a distinct change in environment - it’s my treat and I look forward to it every day I’m in the office. Whereas at home sometimes I just find myself looking at my phone during breaks whilst still sat at my desk.

I know people who WFH in a different sort of job (admin) and they are shocked when I explain to them that I can’t just “nip out” to meet up with them for a coffee on mornings when I’m WFH. One of them has a certain quota of tasks she needs to do daily, and 2 meetings per week - she has found she tends to be able to complete the quota in 4 hours and then is relatively free the rest of the day, she just occasionally checks Teams every half an hour or so to see if anything has come up. I’d love that!

Overall though, WFH is still worth it and it’ll be especially worth it once mat leave is over (currently pregnant) - that extra hour with baby in the mornings and evenings not spent commuting will mean the world.

Apologies I misunderstood, I completely agree.

I have seen people take the piss and they get found out in my organisation because the work isn’t done. You can’t wfh with a dc under 9 and if dc are at home colleagues are expected to speak to their manager. It’s very obvious if someone isn’t replying/delivering their work.

I have a member in our team (not one I manage directly) who is only 40 but so stuck in the past. For him work is his life so I do see he’s been negatively impacted, but all of my team (except 1) are parents and value the hybrid working (mostly from home). I’m a manager who measures work on outcomes not presenteeism.

I’m not saying that home working should be stopped, I’m just pointing out that it isn’t ideal for everyone and isn’t a level playing field. I’m only pointing out the class divide.

Good to hear from people in your position, and hopefully your higher disposable income is helpful for your local area too.

I'm not sure some posters realise that in many cases, it's not about whether an employee would be better off in the office. Because there are some people who can only do the job if it's remote.

It’s brilliant for parents and carers. And just life in general. I think a mix is great and wish bosses could all embrace

I hate working from home. I feel isolated. I don't have the space either.

However I live in Cornwall and without remote working I wouldn't have a job like this. As jobs like this are not available in this area and I'm stuck here for another few years (DH armed forces)

If I couldn't work remotely, I'd probably be a seasonal cleaner or a seasonal pub worker due to the lack of opportunities in the entire county (even Devon lacks opportunities so that's approx no jobs for me for 100 miles!)

I am therefore very grateful and love the fact I am making a difference to the economy by being able to spend and save. And save for my pension

Anyone who begrudges someone from earning well from remote working is a bellend.

Certainly it's no more about money than working in person is/was, anyway. It's always been the case that people with resources could exercise more control over the sort of surroundings they worked in anyway. If a plush office was important to someone before the remote work era, they had more chance of accessing it if they had in demand skills and could afford to live near somewhere where such organisations are found.

If people want to raise the issue of money affecting access to working environments, that's fine, but the majority of workers are still in person. Meaning it makes more sense to start there.

We work hard at ensuring that staff feel supported and connected.

we do it in an different way to how it’s done in-person.

our staff surveys show that our staff rate is very highly on flexibility, wellbeing, inclusiveness and feeling supported by their managers.

we have rarely have to recruit because our retention is so high but when we do we are inundated with excellent candidates and we can recruit from anywhere in the country and are not limited to a small geographical location.

if you just try to replicate an office culture remotely you will fail. Wfh is different and you need to nurture and support that difference

The thing is, it's not really about money. I don't have money. I'm quite low income, always have been - hybrid working is one of the things for us designed to make up for that. There's only 'space' in my house (rented) for a desk because I live in a disadvantaged area where rents are lower. Or, were lower when we moved here - my rent hasn't kept up with others in the area and I will be screwed if and when it does. There's no privilege in housing insecurity.

Definitely. In a country as metrocentric as the UK, that really matters.

Yes, and now some of us who can’t afford to buy in a big city can look at home ownership elsewhere. That’s another benefit wfh has brought to me personally.

And? That’s life. People with money will have a more comfortable life in a lot of ways, WFH is one of them.

When we saw the tide changing with home working we couldn’t afford to upsize in our area so we took the decision to relocate to a cheaper area where we could afford for me to have an office. Obviously still a privilege to be able to make that choice, but again, such is life. Would you stop all home working because not everyone can do it ‘comfortably’?