If you're wfh and expecting to stay at home due tonthe huge success that wfh has been....

[BecomeStronger]

Is your employer doing any work to find out if the customer has enjoyed it as much as the staff?

I keep hearing about how brilliant wfh has been, how people won't be returning to their offices, they're more efficient at home etc etc, but if this is the case, why is it that I am constantly dealing with businesses who cant maintain basic service levels because staff are wft.

I'm in a nationwide group of professionals who use lots of advisory services, people who really should be able to work efficiently from home but without exception, people are incredibly frustrated at the declining quality of service and lengthening response times from these businesses.

i am much more efficient working from home - i work longer hours as dont have to clock watch - i dont get close to the end of the working day and think, i need to leave soon as i want to miss the traffic, or its going to take me 40mins to get home. Its greener as well, as i dont go anywhere I need to drive to

Osteomancer This is exactly what I mean. People have convinced themselves they are but in very few cases is at actually true, and all you’ve really demonstrated here is how it’s all about you and how it doesn’t inconvenience you.

Yes, we send out a yearly client survey where we ask about things like this. However, we also have a very young workforce due to the nature of the industry and many of them are very keen to go back to the office.
We’ve been told that going forwards the wfh policy will be much more flexible and we’ve already had people choose to make a permanent move out of London off the back of that announcement

I think it's difficult to generalise around this as people's circumstances vary so greatly. For me, it is better. I didn't have a very good office environment anyway, mix of teams, noisy, lack of quiet/private space for calls. Others in my team but different locations have found it difficult at home and returned to the office when they could. I think embracing flexible working can be good for a lot of organisations, but not necessarily all. Those who look at it as a negative thing regardless, with no consideration of the benefits for the the business of individual employee are extremely short sighted. This approach often doesn't show much trust or care for employees either, which is sad.

[quote catsmother20]@BecomeStronger which type of businesses? You won't be able to generalise, some people/departments/organisations will do better than others. As a customer I've experienced a mix bag this year but don't know enough about the set up to know how much WFH has impacted that. I'm sure any profit based business relying on good staff productivity and customer satisfaction will be reflecting on 2020. We've already amended our flexible working policy.[/quote]
I'd say the businesses where I've noticed a decline are:

HR Advisors
Insurance company
Payroll provider
Accountant
Fuel supplier
My gym's call centre
Supermarket customer helpline
Bank

All businesses where my dealings are exclusively on line or by telephone, so it should work, but it's not. I don't know if it is wfh that has caused the decline, but on each occasion I've complained (by which I mean chased things up) I've been told they're sorry but everyone's wfh.

*It’s not the case; people are more inefficient at home. It’s just those who wfh are desperate to stay that way so go on and on about how much more productive they are, when it simply isn’t true.

People will be back to the offices in good time after the vaccine has been rolled out whether they like it or not*

Absolutely not true in all cases. I work for a customer facing organisation which has had to make considerable adaptations to its business model to continue trading throughout the pandemic. They've carried out extensive analysis from both a customer experience point of view and also by looking at detailed productivity reporting internally and the evidence is pretty conclusive that customers are still as happy as they were and productivity is up around 7%. Home working will become permanent for a good majority of those currently working from home as a result, with occasional travel into the office as and when there's a requirement.

@BecomeStronger I think part of the problem is wrongly or rightly Covid is the scapegoat for everything in 2020 it's hard to pinpoint the exact cause for issues. WFH during lockdown 1 would have been more difficult for some with kids at home etc, I think one of the big problems has been companies furloughing (perhaps more than they should in some cases), getting a hold of technology, people self isolating, redundancies etc which means less staff on the ground and thus impacting customer service. I don't think WFH can be solely to blame for customer service issues.

somethings might be better others are worse, I'm moderately deaf and when rining someone working from home if their emploter has not provided the right equipment and they are relying on standard laptops the mic isn't good enough so you can't hear properly, at the beginning when weorkers were juggling child care background noise was a nuisance but understandable but now if someone is WFH I expect to be able to hear as by now employers whould have got decent equipment to homeworkers so they can actually do job

not everyone lives in a space big enough for a proper desk and chair for health management working all day on your bed or sofa with laptop is going to damagew your back and wrists as unlikely to be supportive enoyugh to prevent long term injury damage

for some it works well and can stay for other companies it will be back to office for 2-3 days a week for others back almost all the time

WFH when you are too ill to travel or are contagious but can do something might be here to stay instead of presenteeism when full of the cold

I have found customer service much worse and when all this is over I hope that all public facing advisers are back at the office. Obviously if you wfh in a non public facing role then that is the companies choice and it maybe does work well, but I have had much worse service since March from places like insurance companies and the like.

I'm taking about recent service experiences, not the full lockdown when everyone had chikdren at home.

I don't know what the real cause is but it's certainly wfh that the companies are blaming, if you find the service less than satisfactory.

@emilyfrost

It’s not the case; people are more inefficient at home. It’s just those who wfh are desperate to stay that way so go on and on about how much more productive they are, when it simply isn’t true.

People will be back to the offices in good time after the vaccine has been rolled out whether they like it or not.

This is ridiculous and wrong. I am far more productive at home due to the nature of my work. Don’t give blanket statements without thinking.

I'm in a contact centre so we are remote anyway even when in the office. Same equipment at home

In fact a lot of companies say don't ring them as the staff are wfh and try to encourage you to do their exasperatingly useless online chat instead.

@QueenPaws

I'm in a contact centre so we are remote anyway even when in the office. Same equipment at home

I imagine that's the case for most of the businesses I listed, but there has been a marked decline in service and they themselves have said it's because staff are wfh

Why does it have to be so black and white/one way or another?

Surely the compromise is every one who realistically can WFH could be allowed to do so between one-four days a week, dependent on role, circumstances, and managers regulating how much work is being done and to what standard.

This would also regulate the drain away from the cities as people would still need to live fairly close to their office based, whilst still having a lot more choice (e.g. a two hours commute twice a week might be do-able, whereas it wouldn't be 5 days a week). It would help all the city centre shops and restaurants etc as people might choose to stay longer/overnight during their "work days" and go shopping/for food in the evening. Would also help reduce traffic, encourage people to spend more in their local area, etc.

Agree that one good thing about it is the midway option when you have a cold but are ok to work, rather than using sick leave or infecting all your colleagues. Same for things like dr's appointments or emergency plumbing issues etc. A bit of flexibility goes a long way, but I don't see why it can't be treated like any other perk - i.e. could be taken away if someone is clearly taking the piss.

Whether a workforce is as productive or not (barring jobs that have particular physical needs to be in one place, shared kit, etc) is in large part a function of the effectiveness of their management.

Any company that can only manage its workforce effectively when they’re right in front of the managers needs to improve the skill of their managers. And every time I hear about managers who are annoyed their staff are ‘slacking off’ while WFH or can’t manage them remotely, I think that the problem isn’t a function of WFH, it’s a function of really poor management.

Yes our organisation (global and very large) has measured customer satisfaction which has increased. We also routinely measure productivity (software delivery) and metrics show that productivity has also increased and been maintained.

I think @emilyfrost is generalising without looking at any data and doing comparisons.

We don't have any customers.

Our completion rate on our work has increased by 50% in the time the workforce has been WFH.

I work in a university and my team is responsible for study skills support. We offer group workshops for various aspects of academic writing and research skills. Attendance for these has increased by 30% now they are being run online rather than face to face so students are obviously liking it. They're more convenient because they don't need to be in campus and some students can find them less intimidating. There are also drawbacks so I think eventually we'll probably have a blended approach where students can choose to attend online or in person. Personally I love WFH purely for selfish reasons. I don't have to get up as early, no commute time, I can chill out on the couch during my lunch hour. Love it! But I do accept that at some point we'll probably be expected to go back full in time. I'm currently going in one day a week and I enjoy going in and seeing people I admit I don't want to go back in full time but I'll just have to get on with it.

I now WFH, along with all my colleagues. The company has permanently closed the offices. Our clients are delighted and impressed with the service they get. There’s been no difference at all to them.

We didn't find wfh a perk, I hated it and retired, I was working in the small boiler room at home so that probably didn't help, DH is in the spare room but is retiring in a couple of weeks, thank goodness, then we can get our spare room back which has his work stuff in it. Maybe the places that give a bad experience are because people are working in poor, uncomfortable situations at home.

I work in contact centre change management. Yes, we are constantly looking at how agents are performing against feedback from customers. Most departments are performing pretty badly compared to this time last year when everyone was in an office.

Having said that, I am lucky enough that I can work remotely from anywhere, my most local office is only a mile away, and my kids are old enough to not need childcare, but even if they did, DH is not in work so can do that.

As a customer, I can tell when someone is working from home as opposed to an office but it hasn’t hindered the resolution of my issues.

I think what you might miss out on is someone in customer service who may not know the answer but could quickly ask a colleague who does, if they are based in the same office. I can see that causing delays in responses.

For our work (and I comment on nobody else's) some things are easier / better working from home. Other things are worse. When we eventually return we will be moving to blended working - up to three days from home (by choice - nobody will be forced to), two compulsory office days. This is the choice of my team. At least one person will almost never work from home - he has learned that it doesn't suit him.

Whether it's wfh to blame or not - it's certainly been the top excuse of the year for poor customer service from the following calls centres -

medical care, banking, mobile phone, accountancy software. Hours waiting on the phone, poor quality phone lines, poor access to customer information - wfh is apparently to blame for it all.
Interestingly our recent recruitment drive attracted very well qualified candidates from all over the world, willing to work remotely to UK time Zones - we have rejected them because our clients want us back in the office working alongside them but what if this wfh thing really takes off...will UK workers will be competing with much cheaper worker from outside the UK more than ever before?

My employer (huge UK customer facing org) is allowing us to decide for ourselves whether we wfh or go into the office from next summer. It's been hugely successful so far from a productivity perspective. @emilyfrost