Manager wants us to have in-person meetings of 15 from next week

[Wilker]

As in the title really... Apparently we are going to be having in person indoor meetings of 15 people from April 12th, and 30 people from May 17th.

Absolutely no business need for these meetings to be happening in person. We are all admin/office staff and have been working fine from home.

I wanted to check whether they are even legal? Aren’t the 15/30 people gatherings permitted for weddings only?

@BarbaraofSeville I agree they do need to be on site. It's the cognitive dissonance of people that I can't cope with. Teachers should stfu and get on with it, but take the word teacher out of the scenario and people are up in arms about how unsafe it is.

Teachers, nurses, NHS staff in general, factory and food production workers, supermarket staff etc have all been working with others throughout or through much of the last twelve months. Other workers haven't, in order to keep community case numbers down.

But I'm going to guess that OP and those others who are going to be expected to start meeting in person aren't posting because they think their employer is risking the community in general. They're posting because they're worried about their own risk. Well I'm afraid it's time to step up and, in the safest way possible, get on with it. Just like all these other workers have been doing in order for you to stay home.

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@Soontobe60

😬 I always find these threads bemusing when everyone tells the OP to work from home etc and the OP is terrified of being near anyone else inside and yet most those people are asking why teachers are complaining etc.[/quote]
I know.

Add to that many couldn’t wait to send their children back so have no issues with their children being in larger groups with no masks or distancing but won’t do it themselves.

I've never been worried about my own risk. I'm just posting from the point of view about how Health and Safety works. If you can eliminate the hazard or take steps to reduce the risk of bad things happening, that's what you do.

Telling office workers they have to all go to work in an office together because nurses, teachers and factory workers are all in contact with each other is like telling people they all have to do their work on a roof because that's where roofers worker. No-one would think that is reasonable, likewise in the current situation it's not reasonable to have people working together in an office when there's no business need for it to happen.

Ask your manager why it can't be remotely, but ultimately, many are finding that using zoom and teams isn't as effective and want to get back to what they know works.

The twice weekly testing has been offered now, you might have more luck with your manager asking if they can authorise everyone coming in late one day a week on rota to give time to go to get tests done / arrange for staff to be given lateral flow tests to do at home and ask everyone to do them at least once a week?

There is no risk unless someone in the room has covid. If you can't keep out of the room, making sure everyone in the room has a negative test is the next best option.

Just staying at home is no longer an option.

There is a difference between going in say once a week for a meeting that is in the middle of the day, and 15 people travelling to and from work at peak times and being in an office all day. The OP does not advise which is the case, though I assume the latter.

The government because they don't do detail should have specified certain professions where people must wfh or a maximum in the office at any one time. Examples for me are estate agents and solicitors. In my opinion too much has been on a 100% in the office or 100% at home, not a hybrid model as happens in the House of Commons, for example.

I so hoped that there would be a change to the way we worked after this was over. Its been shown that many people can work from home in the same way and in many cases with increased productivity. I think some of the more innovative companies are changing the way they work but for some people they cant get beyond office based.

@Langsdestiny

I so hoped that there would be a change to the way we worked after this was over. Its been shown that many people can work from home in the same way and in many cases with increased productivity. I think some of the more innovative companies are changing the way they work but for some people they cant get beyond office based.

Depends on your industry and how you work some of the more innovative companies are struggling with innovation while their teams are separated. Google CEO We firmly believe that in-person, being together, having a sense of community is super important when you have to solve hard problems and create something new so we don’t see that changing. But we do think we need to create more flexibility and more hybrid models

I teach adults. Up to 12 people in the same room for six hours a day for four days. All from different workplaces. Social distancing impossible, and I can’t require them to use face coverings (though generally they do, unprompted - they’re uncomfortable too).
Luckily my classroom has magical anti-Covid properties and I have been vaccinated because I’m over 60. Managers come in one or two days a week and are mostly alone in offices. Most other staff are working from home most of the time. It’s such a bizarre situation.

@Langsdestiny I share your wish and fortunately where I work does want a hybrid model. Even if the motivation is to reduce office space (one building's lease has a break clause shortly) it is welcome.

OP I think it is fair enough to ask your manager for details of the precautions which are being taken to ensure these meetings are covid safe and a copy of the risk assessment and I suggest you do so.

Yes I have worked face to face throughout the pandemic, other than first lockdown, but my office work has easily (and much more efficiently for both myself and my company) been done remotely. Luckily my manager can see this. Dh has worked from home throughout the pandemic and his company have no plans to open the office as yet, however they were already a company used to home working, they oversee multi million pound projects.

There's going to be such a social divide coming out of this. It's like something from a dystopian novel.

The 'important' people with their multi million pound projects will be working from their comfortable safe homes. The drones, ensuring that those pale can be fed, their houses kept light and warm, their Amazon purchases delivered, and their children kept out of their way, are out in the scary world, beavering away and providing all the Queen/King bees needs.

Pale=people

Of course it's legal. My DH has worked all through and had weekly company meetings.

Well that depends on your matter of opinion doesn’t it. I on the other hand think it is good to be modelling behaviour that shows they think it is fine to be meeting in person again when needed (which they clearly think it is).

But at the same time they’re also saying “work from home if you can” is in place until 21 June. If it’s ok to go and sit in an hours-long meeting with many other people (they really go on and on sometimes) from 7 May, why isn’t it ok for myriad other things to happen from 7 May? And it’s not a benefit vs disbenefit thing because the meetings have been taking place successfully remotely for some time now. They just can’t be arsed to get the primary legislation through.

@saraclara

There's going to be such a social divide coming out of this. It's like something from a dystopian novel.

The 'important' people with their multi million pound projects will be working from their comfortable safe homes. The drones, ensuring that those pale can be fed, their houses kept light and warm, their Amazon purchases delivered, and their children kept out of their way, are out in the scary world, beavering away and providing all the Queen/King bees needs.

Not quite! Dh is going into his client offices at the moment - who's in there? The CEO and the senior management team - because they do better work collaborating. The senior staff are in there driving the project forward and no doubt the rest will follow. I don't know how you effectively manage multi-million pound programmes from a very insistent distance - it's a risky strategy.

@BarbaraofSeville - exactly. I’ve said this before, although I think my example was about oil rigs. There seems to be an assumption from some posters that people wfh haven’t been pulling their weight, which is ridiculous.

As to the suggestion that the employer always know best, I always think posters are lucky not to have had authoritarian managers who get a kick out of ordering people around and enforcing needless policies to no benefit!

It is legal and up to your employers to decide

I find this thread bizarre. When teachers have said they feel a bit uncomfortable with seeing approx 150/180 different students a day in a small room with little natural ventilation we're told to get on with it & stop being so dramatic as it's totally safe.

Also other workers have been expected to continue - supermarkets, food production, recycling (handling waste of 1000s daily), police (dealing with protests), prison staff, NHS frontline, bus drivers etc....

I think if tests are being done then you need to get on with it!

Just to clarify I'm not telling an office worker they need to go in because I'm a teacher and I'm in face to face. I'm frustrated with the differing attitudes from the public towards face to face meetings. If there was constant acceptance that teaching etc is risky then fine. But teachers get stfu and office workers get sympathy and told to check RA etc.
There may be a business need for the meeting. The office may be starting a reintegration process to get people used to being in an office for part of the week. We don't know the reasons.

Some of our employees think they are as efficient WFH as being in the office
They truly are not,and if we don’t get them back the business will be in serious trouble

There are workplaces that arent suited to remote working, I am in one of them, I think my role is more important than most . How does people going into offices in any way make lives better for those Amazon workers. As I have said I have worked face to face for the majority of the last 18 months, the fact that some people were working from home actually improved my work situation, with regards to the commute for one.

As to the suggestion that the employer always know best, I always think posters are lucky not to have had authoritarian managers who get a kick out of ordering people around and enforcing needless policies to no benefit! Our team would leave if we behaved like this!

There's not much you can do. I work in admin at a university and they insisted we come back into the office last September. We were working from home before that without any issues and were contactable by email, Teams, Zoom and telephone. I raised it with HR and was told we needed to be in on the off chance students preferred to see us face to face. If I "couldn't" come to the office then it would be seen as me being incapable of performing my job. The only people with an exception are those who are shielding.