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've been saying the same for months, the customer service from our suppliers is shocking. I had to phone one person's boss last week to ask if she had internet access at home as she hadn't replied to a single one of my emails in over a month, suprise suprise I got a response 10 minutes later.

@Orangeboots

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?

Also at what sort of wages?

If you just look at the uk, wages in London are very different than the same job in the NE.
If a company is employing someone wfh, will they do so on a London wage or a NE wage knowing that that person w oils be anywhere in the UK?

@Crinkle77

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’m teaching at uni too... the ones who had already started are coping quite well. They know each other and can support each other.

The ones who are Just starting are finding it much harder. They haven’t got the opportunity to know each other like the other years an that has a massive impact. Esp because it’s the type of course where they have to put themselves forward and it can be quite vulnerable to do so in front of people you don’t know.

I’d be very careful to hail remote learning as always as good as face to face. There is a hell of learning that happens at break time and in corridors.

FWIW, from what I’ve read so far on remote working, the worst that could happen is for people to be partially at home and partially at work. Or for half of the team to be in the office whilst the other isn’t.
Because this means that the companies won’t be implementing all the things that are needed to make wfh WORK.
For example, people wfh are more likely to be forgotten for promotion because they won’t hear about it and won’t be seen By managers....

A good example atm is my DH work. To get some office supply there used to be a ‘cupboard’ where people helped themselves. It’s obviously not there any more. But his manager won’t autorise that sort of expense because it’s at the bottom of the pile (not important - no time). Cue for DH (and all of his colleagues) having to provide paper, ink for the printer etc etc themselves.

@TonMoulin I popped into the office last month to stock up on stationary, our admin services will post it out if required though.

It's a huge cultural change and as a pp said below a lot of that needs to come from adapted management, I was already managed remotely and the staff I manage are at a different office so we haven't really needed to adapt but we manage career progression fine, but it does take a cultural change to ensure equality, we manage and I'm sure other organisations will the more we learn and adapt.

Ridiculously sweeping statement to say it is only in 'very few cases' that people are more efficient. So, this poster can state with unassailable confidence that across all sectors, all job types and professions, all working environments, all organisational cultures, all stages of career development and all personality types wfh is only more efficient than a traditional office-based set-up in a 'very few cases'.

It's easy to discount comments like this.

• 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*

We've rung quite a lot of customer service etc lines for financial orgs, pension companies etc in the last year. We've noticed a marked decrease in wait time for most of them.

Much less productive and much more stressed wfh. Hate it. We cant wait to be back in the office!

@ErrolTheDragon

* 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*

We've rung quite a lot of customer service etc lines for financial orgs, pension companies etc in the last year. We've noticed a marked decrease in wait time for most of them.

The point is that, for those who DO give lower customer care, wfh and Covid is always the explanation. (Or that the employees. Are too lazy)

It’s never about the company not having the structure in place to ensure things still go smoothlyt

@TillyTopper

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.

That's @emilyfrost's general MO across MN, to be honest!

I don't doubt that SOME people slack off because of WFH. I know for a fact that one person in my team does but then she did beforehand anyway, and its very demoralising. But then it's her manager who needs to pull her up on that.

Anyway... I've wfh for 25 years. I hardly notice any difference interacting with my colleagues, even though they're usually mostly in an office. After a few hiccups, group communication improved.

. Some like our big user group meeting had far more attendees and better speakers because it was online rather than physical - no wasted travel time or travel budget issues. It made it into a truly global event.

It probably helps that by definition all of our customers are highly tech literate and generally not afraid of innovation and change.

From my point of view, WFH is a problem because of childcare and the need to isolate whereas my employers expect me to carry on working as normal.

If however I was wfh with childcare then it would be great.

As it is, I’d like a mix of wfh and in the office.

There’s no one-size-fits-all. Some companies are running better with everyone WFH and some aren’t. Some employees love WFH and some hate it. It’s not rocket science isn’t it?

Each company will make its own decision. Employees will then make theirs, depending on what their employer expects of them.

We're client driven, to be honest clients have probably received even better service as we're all online all the time, rather in pointless meetings.

No clients? No business.

I think it depends on the job and the team. I work in IT - boss 1 is in London and boss 2 is in Hong Kong. All of the team are spread throughout the world and we would never sit together as a team. It really really doesn’t matter where any of us work.