To feel relieved that flexible working might be on the agenda again?

Agreed.
Has anyone actually tried to call HMRC recently? Don’t try and call at 8.30am or 3pm. Calls simply go unanswered.

Also had recent problems with John Lewis customer service. No answer after 15 minutes so I emailed instead.

Well, not very often. It's one of the many reasons the UK has a major NEET problem. I do accept it's not the only reason, and not the biggest reason.

I used to be involved with training new graduates in a business. Being able to see and hear the way other colleagues did the job role was absolutely key.

Yep I’m happy to stay online at home and finish something off but in the office I leave sharp as I have a train to catch.

If someone needs accommodations to be able to be onsite, that’s the company’s responsibility (and help from Access to Work).
And yes, I’m someone with protected characteristics which require some accommodations.

That’s good to hear. When I last mentioned the challenges for new young workers on a similar thread, I was quickly told that I was being ableist.

Rest assured some of us agree x Some learning needs to be face-to-face.
Plus some of us prefer being in the office. Very grateful DH works well at home (unlike me) and his role suits remote working.

Exactly! At a previous workplace, our bosses complained about people being late due to traffic/train cancellations and delays/weather issues, etc. But then also hated us WFH even though we were always on time. Make it make sense.

I completely disagree with you. I don't think it's the role of the state to interfere in the relationship between company and worker (except of course where there is exploitation or rights being abused). If a company wants their workers in the office because that's the way they want to run their business then that's their decision. If people don't like it they should work somewhere else but they can't demand or expect it (I'm not talking about people with ill-health or disabilities).

I work in an industry where more work and more is being offshored - if it can be done remotely then it can be done remotely in another country for much less money. Young people are already suffering because of the NI and minimum wage increase, the new worker's rights bill and AI. Yeah let's just cripple their opportunities even more by adding another layer of governance which business needs to adhere to. Madness!

It's interesting, i am starting in a new role and some of my colleagues in an adjacent role have the option of WFH, they have to work for 12 hours, have to be available at all times other than breaks, would be properly in the shit if they walked away mid shift, have to maintain strict GDPR and deal with complex clinical scenerios where it can be handy to bounce off another person, as a consequence most of them choose to come in to work premises to do their shift. So it would seem that for many it is the flexibility rather than the working that makes WFH attractive.

WFH definetly needs robust management and disciplining of staff taking the piss.

I totally agree.
I hate working at home (when I’m able, or when necessary) but understand it works much better for others.

Most new graduates.

@Badbadbunny Yes - I agree. Young people and their training in the work place is compromised by home working. They find it more difficult to socialise and can fail to form work friendships. Teams via a screen aren’t the same as being in a physical team and learning from the team. Yet again, older people get what they want and young people are abandoned.

I am often a lone voice on this kind of thread so won’t say too much. But I can say that there is a generation of young people who are starting work and really struggle without being able to consult managers easily in the office. They need to learn and have role models there sometimes. They have queries which they feel embarrassed to put in an email or a teams chat but could be easily answered by a quick question face-to-face. A lot of skills are learned by face to face interactions and watching others work together, communicate and negotiate.

I support hybrid working. But we do need senior people to be in the office so that young people can learn from them. Yes some young people can’t come in and have to wfh so flexibility is needed. But many others want to come in and learn. We already have a generation with anxiety who are scared of even answering calls. We are letting the next generation down again.

I used to be in office every day. We deliberately bought a house 10 minutes walk away. For 7 years everything was good. Then Skype and Teams came in and suddenly people starting having meetings online. The noise level rose. Nobody left the room to go to a meeting anymore. Within a year we had multiple people in back to back meetings all day long and I couldn't hear myself think. I work with spreadsheets and I need to concentrate but found myself with people opposite shouting into their headsets, people behind and beside me doing the same.

Then Covid hit and we had peace and quiet for a while, but everyone came back to the office and it started again. I have tried everything to get a reasonable place to work in but it seems it is no longer possible. Apparently it's "the way we work now" and it's perfectly reasonable to be trying to work in what resembles a marketplace most days. There is no sound proofing and no private offices. We all just sit in a large open plan office and listen to 8 hours of chat that in most cases could have been dealt with by email.

I was told bluntly "if you don't like it, work from home". We moved house so that I had space to work from home. Now I'm being told I have to go in. Make your bloody minds up. I have a 45 minute commute in the morning that can be anything up to 3+ hours in the evening because the roads are so bad and there are crashes daily that shut down the entire area. Or I can sit at home and work a long day completely uninterrupted. Makes zero sense.

I have a feeling AI could be one of the reasons for this, as more and more businesses adopt the technology (which is exceptionally good now ) employers are going to be looking for alternatives to the traditional 5 day 37.5 hour work weeks, the framework of full time work is hopefully shifting…

Tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of school leavers, college leavers, graduates, etc are taken on by employers every year. It's happening usually at least twice a year. It isn't a "rarity" at all. Where do you think all the youngsters entering the workplace get their "first job"???

How do you know the away person is working from home?

I’ve been “away” for 4 hours now on Teams. No one messaging me would know where I’ve been for that time (it’s travelling to and attending a client meeting). In fact, working from home is the only time I get back to every response within the hour.

But that doesn't mean a new recruit needs someone there holding their hand for 1.5 years. I'd be really concerned if someone lacked capacity to work independently on assigned tasks, with hands-off guidance.

That's not answering my question. I asked how often is it happening? In most workplaces it will be a rarity, as most employers aren't going to be actively recruiting people with no work experience.

When it does happen, for the most part it's quite easily managed with a bit of communication and organisation.

Well, most firms have two graduate intakes each year, so that's some new trainee staff every 6 months, who each take longer than 6 months to "train" - some training can take 1-5 years in professional roles.

Continuity and Consistency when training raw recruits is essential - you can't have 5 different people training up a brand new raw recruit - a different person on each different day of the week. It just doesn't work.

Firms are reporting that new trainees are taking longer to get up to speed, taking longer to learn "soft" skills, etc. It's not surprising if the more senior staff training them are located somewhere else or they have a succession of different people trying to train them.

Even "experienced" new staff, i.e. who've been recruited from other firms, still need training in the new employer's systems, ethos, structure, etc. I've moved from one accountancy practice to another a few times, and each time, despite me being experienced and qualified, it's been several weeks before I was fully up to speed with different software, different filing/admin systems, different staff/management structures which has necessitated lots of "questions" directly at the staff on nearby desks over many weeks. When you're set next to others, you can choose the right moment to ask questions, i.e. you can avoid when they're stressed, clearly busy, etc or ask someone else - try doing that remotely and you're just going to annoy the person you constantly interrupt and start being reluctant to contact them.

Hard agree X

Literally everyone is without experience in their first job.

Loneliness, social anxiety, depression all on the rise and this is being touted as a solution to that. Rather than often a cause or exacerbating factor.

Is it beyond the realms of reasonable to expect people to be able to have conversations and agree on what days they'll be in the office?

How frequently are people being recruited into office roles with no experience whatsoever?

Nail on the head. Especially the point re "the glue". There's a small firm where I used to work where there was a receptionist who'd literally been there since the year dot - she racked up 50 years service before she retired. She'd seen all the staff/owners come and go, and most of the clients come and go. She was the ONLY constant in the place over those 50 years. Literally everything else had changed including office location, computerisation, etc. At first she was one of several receptionists/typing pool, but over the years, with computerisation, she ended up the only person in admin/reception. The owners at the time of her retirement decided they didn't need a receptionist as they believed her post was well covered in her lunch hour and in her 6 holiday weeks by random other staff answering the phone and going to the door when the bell rang. The place virtually fell apart within weeks of her retirement. That's no exaggeration, I still did ad-hoc work for the firm, still knew some of the staff, some of the clients, etc. She was very badly missed as she was indeed "the glue that held the firm together" and it was only when she wasn't there keeping things moving that they realised the void that she'd left behind. They took on a new receptionist, but due to the time gap between the old one leaving and the new one starting, so much had been lost as there'd been no transition/cross training. The owners merely thought she answered the phone and opened the door, and remained blissfully unaware of everything else she did that was "invisible" and done without fuss nor fanfare simply because she'd been doing it for decades! She wasn't "missed" during her lunch hours or annual holidays because she'd been pro-active to get ahead with things like ordering supplies, job planning, diary organisation, etc. i.e. to "cover" short absence periods, but that all fell apart when she retired for good.

Our admin team work from home a lot of the time and it is bloody annoying. Half the time there’s nobody in the office so you can’t stick your head round the door to ask for batteries/book a visitor parking space last minute/find out who’s in charge of events in a different department, etc. People do their tasks, but not the glue that makes the place run more smoothly.