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

fully agree! New recruits who turn up to a near-empty office will pack up and leave within a year. Every person that is able to come to the office should adhere to a hybrid policy. The reality is very different.

Away doesn’t mean not working though, I’m frequently away because I’m working on a system outside of Teams

In theory nothing wrong with WFH and if conscientious employees it works for everyone particular in professional roles where the worker could be spending relatively long periods of time concentrating on a piece of work where there is limited need for lots of contact with colleagues/suppliers/customers.

However, far too many customer service standards have nose dived especially in front line customer service roles especially in public sector like HMRC, DVLA, local councils, NHS, etc., where it's nigh on impossible to speak to anyone as the phones are never answered, and when you do, the quality of the line is poor, or there is dog barking, kids screaming, doorbell ringing, or whatever in the background meaning the staff member isn't concentrating on what you're trying to talk to them about. Then other IT problems, i.e. "I can't log in to that system at the moment as my internet is down", etc.

I think customer serving roles definitely should be back to being in offices, call centres etc., and WFH banned completely.

Roles that don't routinely involve significant amounts of talking to customers/suppliers/other staff should continue to be WFH optional, but with proper management to ensure the staff are available and working at times required by the organisation.

I once won an achiever's award for a piece of business I did that absolutely wouldn't have happened if I'd been working remotely. A genuine real life watercooler moment. I was making a drink in the kitchen, and pondering a deal that was almost but not quite done. A more experienced colleague came in and we were making small talk, I mentioned this deal that was nearly there and she said why don't you....

You just don't get that remotely.

Eta I wouldn't have called her to ask for help, I didn't know her particularly well, which would have been even less if we worked remotely, I didn't realise I was asking for help, and I wouldn't have known she was the person to ask for help anyway.

There's also the issue of shit pay not covering the huge transport costs of many entry-level jobs in big cities when workers have to commute in - transport costs which have risen higher and higher in the years since Covid.

I was talking to someone who's trying to find specific entry-level work in the sector they're trained in in London - £25,000 a year and the transport costs are £6k a year from their home. How's ANYONE going to afford to actually undertake that job with those sorts of costs? The option of moving closer to London is out, too, because the salary just wouldn't support the cost of paying rent.

I guess, the answer to that one is; 'find work in a different sector, closer to home' but there aren't enough jobs to begin with, the pay is even lower and, quite often, there are zero options to begin a career in the sector you've studied for years to get into when the salary just doesn't adequately allow for paying high transport costs.

If it's difficult to manage teams based all over without people taking the piss, why woukd any form of remote working be different?

Managers are employees like any other, and many are not particualrly senior or well paid. Companies are supporting them when they insist on a move back to the office.

To be honest, I’m expecting some attrition, and I’ll welcome that, as it will give me the flexibility to select my own new team. Of course people don’t like it: but a team PIP means I demonstrate the same expectations of everyone working in that team, and everything is transparent. Everybody logs their output in the system; everybody gives an exception report where they haven’t been able to; everybody has a target response time on a particular communication or activity. It’s going to become apparent who’s performing, who’s taking the piss, and who’s struggling because their work is being affected by others.

The argument that people need to be in so managers can manage them also falls short when in many cases i know, people have managers who don't sit in the same office. Or do sit in the same office, but hybrid policies don't mandate they're actually in on the same days as people they manage!

Managers need to lead by example. The tricky thing is when you have a global company that has teams dotted around the globe, all reporting to managers not based in the same office. Everyone ends up taking the piss.

I agree. I manage 20+ offices globally. The constant “can’t do the call as “I’m waiting for a delivery, I have a plumber in, I need to X Y Z” drives me insane. London employees with London weighting should come in and stick to their hybrid working policy. I mean, you moved out to the sticks and still getting paid a London wage…come on. Other countries have the same issue. Management in a lot of companies see it as a brilliant opportunity to reduce floorspace, close offices and save a lot of money. And that’s when employees start to make a fuss “yeah but, no but”. It’s a massive sinking ship.

As always, the badly-behaved few ruin it for the well-behaved many.

Work from home was removed from our company due to some people simply not being available during work hours. Teams status set to ‘away’ for the majority of the time, phone ringing unanswered.

I think the people who are clamouring to be allowed to work from home still, don’t have insight into just how many disciplinaries are going on with people due to misuse of the policy.

I love the way 'poor managers' are always trotted out when a company struggles to know it's remote staff are productive. Of course it is, but why would you expect a company not to have poor managers? They're often fairly junior roles, given people management responsibilities without training, and can be the ones skiving when wfh just as much, if not more, than the 'staff'.

Companies need the managers in to manage them properly, as much as the managers need the staff in.

I'm really surprised by this change of tack.

My employer is having a back to work push atm and it is needed. Some people might be just as productive at home and obviously some people are lazy in the office, but productivity, training, networking, general working relationships and collaboration are all better when people are in the office.

Yes, good managers may be able to work around it, but just like in every other post, every business will have it's share of not perfect managers, and this makes it easier to manage.

I would be thinking what would make more AI proof, WFH or going into the office?

Hybrid working not only wfh.

I wouldn't mind if they were working from home, a lot are taking up tables in my local café.

No, totally disagree. Since covid the country has completely changed. Once the panic was over everyone should have returned to the office. We now have people claiming that a 40 minute journey to work is excessive, 40 minutes!!!! Plain lazy. As for our disabled yes, of course WFH is sensible but it is not easy to get work in the first place if you’re disabled.

I think it should be down to businesses and not imposed via regulation. The UK has a productivity problem and businesses should be trusted to do what’s in their interests to manage that.

Ok, the new starter is in the office. Who's there to train them?

So the answer is hybrid working with a greater office attendance say for the first six months, and anyone having the option to be in an office more than the minimum.

If anyone ever put me on a whole team PIP because they couldn’t work out who was doing work and who wasn’t, I’d be out of there so fast. I mentioned upthread that I work with a guy who does nothing on his wfh days and nothing on his office days, and I am not having my performance linked to his in that way!
A new manager who came in and dealt with the actual piss takers, I’d stay a long time.

If you have had some or all days wfh for a period of time, perhaps since the end of all Covid restrictions, it should be deemed in law to be your employment contract. At the very least a period of notice and consultation, say three months.

Of course its' all about management.

Most people ARE more efficient at home, when THEY chose to be home and know they have the space and set up to work there. WFH and flexible hours existed long before covid.

Generally the ones who are so against WFH are the ones who are useless anyway

We do need much more severe crack-down for the ones confusing WFH and doing childcare. Being the adult in the house with a 10yo doing their own thing is perfect, looking after toddler, KS1 or naughty children isn't.

People who watch tv, disappear to run errands etc are the same ones who do naff all in the office anyway.

It is about management, although plenty of people dislike being managed as much as they dislike being in the office, and particularly when you manage a large, collaborative team where everybody’s output rests on everybody else’s input, it can be difficult to establish when everybody is WFH exactly where the weak links are. I recently inherited a team and have implemented a whole team PIP as well as some individual PIPs for particular team members. My view is that what’s been happening is that about half the team have been taking the piss by going off running errands or doing childcare or “having connectivity issues” for hours during the day, and their piss-taking has then filtered through to the members of the team who perhaps weren’t originally taking the piss but have been struggling to do their work because of not being able to get hold of colleagues, and have just decided they might as well play the game as well.

Clarifying who falls into which category is a painful and unpleasant process, for all of us. It’s my job as a manager, it isn’t getting me popularity, but this is what management looks like. Honestly, it would be a lot easier to have everyone in the office where I’d be able to see that Sarah and Jason work hard and diligently but are genuinely coming up against barriers because Tom and Kate are always wandering away from their desks, or arrive late most mornings, or don’t show up for meetings; or whether Sarah and Jason are just as guilty of all of that.

Flexible working never used to mean working from home. It meant starting or finishing at different times and making up your hours. WFH is a problem in many businesses as too many people take the piss. All summer long Id had calls with various companies disturbed by passing children as people seem to have given up on childcare (which then closes and then they are upset they can't access it anymore).