No more WFH or flexible working

[Lizzie523]

Been WFH for a year now - about 6 months ago the company MD said we had done brilliantly, was thrilled by how we had risen to the challenge etc. We were then told the future would likely be hybrid working & we all had to complete detailed consultations about our preferences RE this. Personally ive been more productive overall & I feel a mix would work well.

Imagine our shock to now be told we are all to go back to full time at the office 5 days a week. They said they would no longer consider the results of the consultations and wished they hadn't done it - many of us tried to appeal this but were just told 'no'.

I moved during the pandemic which means I am just far enough away that 5 days a week in the office is going to be a hassle (not to mention awful for the environment).

We work with a few people with young kids and it obviously isn't inclusive for disabled people either. Our main competitors have already confirmed their commitment to remote working.

Is everyone else headed back to the office or am I right in thinking most places are being more flexible now?

@flippertygibbit

Find another job then but err on the side of caution. At the moment all wfh re hse is still, 1 year later, classed as temporary. If it becomes permanent: Your home will have to be set up as a full ergonomic office space if you are an employee. You may have to register your specific space as a non-domestic property resulting in business rates. Your house insurance most likely will increase. Your wfh job can be done anywhere in the world. Your employer will need to consider increased IT security. Your home will have to meet the employers insurers spec.

There's a lot more than being home for the kids or reducing your travel time and if you're on the career ladder, it's the faces people will remember.

I've worked from home for the past 4 years and none of these things have been an issue for me or my employer at all. What are you basing these statements on?

At the end of the day there is no blueprint for what makes a business or organisation successful. This is despite lots of research into successful businesses. You can copy everything a competitor does and not make any ground. Some very successful businesses have been led by tyrannical bullies, who were beloved by their workforce. Some have incredibly unhappy and unfulfilled staff who stay because they have no choice.

The opinions being expressed here don’t have a lot validity or context. They are personal opinions on whether it’s better to work from home, go to the office or implement agile working (which is not “flexible working” as legally defined). More research would be needed over longer time periods to say one way or the other what’s better and I expect it will differ by sector and employer.

Leaving aside the pandemic, in my experience agile working has been implemented to save overhead costs. Also in my experience people who are productive at home are productive in the office. They are generally not the problem whatever you do.

As to people leaving being a threat. It’s not a problem if you can recruit. People leave all the time. Never think it’s the ultimate threat to say you will leave. A good manager will thank you for your hard work and will have contacts that mean that can replace you. If you are good they will have expected it.

I don't wfh and can't wfh and am happy with the situation because it wouldn't suit me, but have been a bit frustrated with the whole wfh situation throughout the pandemic. Yes, in the early days it was understood that everyone was at home, managing as best they could but now, more than a year on, to still be experiencing massive delays in customer service, to pop into my bank and find no one there but the poor sod on the front desk, to not be able to hand deliver time critical documents because there is no one in the solicitor's office, it can't continue.

Whilst I think there are points to be made about industries which have suffered because of the move to wfh (and I abhor the callous way in which some just shrug their shoulders and say "new normal" in response to those points), the bigger concern to me is how this translates to ongoing customer service. And by customer service I don't mean just phoning Sky, or popping in to the council office, there are issues with internal customer service in my company caused by management wfh but I doubt they are even aware of it. The same appears to be true of other industries with which I've dealt. I've no doubt there are people who genuinely believe their productivity has stayed the same or increased, and are not saying it just because it suits them, but for whom it's simply not true. I don't want to tolerate it for much longer, and as soon as I have options to not have to tolerate it, I'll exercise them, including in my own career.

I have to admit too, to rolling my eyes at some of the reasons given for wanting to wfh. As others have said, many of those who are still citing covid seem quite happy to be socialising left right and centre, they don't give a fuck about the environment normally so to chalk up a desire to wfh as being of benefit to the environment, while quite possibly true, is rather disingenuous. And the much lauded reduction in office costs... I wonder how much of that will translate to wages and/or a reduction for customers.

It's not jealousy; I wouldn't want to work from home and it wouldn't suit my personality at all. Plus it is absolutely not possibly in my role, and I like my job. I guess perhaps it's frustration borne out of the fact that I've worked, face to face, throughout, with no option even back when we knew very little about covid and found some of the hysteria back then rather irritating and entitled and perhaps I've translated that into frustration about the wfh drama, a bit unfairly.

A rather strident person requested that as they were wfh dh’s firm had to provide an ergonomic work station, chair, assessment of need etc etc. Dh said you are quite free to come into the expensively kitted-out office where all those things are in place.

I don’t know what the situation is if someone is required to wfh as opposed being permitted to wfh.

This is one of the problems when you are working for someone else. Basically you get no saying in a lot of things the business decides to do. This makes me wonder, what's the difference then between employee and a slave??

@JustBeKind111
What a moronic comment.
Do you know anything about slavery?
I'm sure you were "joking" and "not serious" but honestly... choose your topics.

Do you have a union?
On MN employers are able to get employees to do whatever they want and the employees are supposed to just be tuglocking grateful plebs.

Wfh is terrible for junior staff and trainees. So many skills for many jobs are learnt though osmosis... you learn the best way to deal with clients and problems that crop up by observing and helping senior staff.

@IrmaFayLear

A rather strident person requested that as they were wfh dh’s firm had to provide an ergonomic work station, chair, assessment of need etc etc. Dh said you are quite free to come into the expensively kitted-out office where all those things are in place.

I don’t know what the situation is if someone is required to wfh as opposed being permitted to wfh.

The employee is right that you are still responsible for health and safety and need to do a risk assessment. I am always slightly appalled on MN how little so many employers appear to know about their very basic legal responsibilities.

The girlfriend will be using flexible working, 2 days in the office and the rest WFH. Because we're moving her commute will go from 30 mins per day to 2/3 hrs.
So she's going to monitor her stress levels and impact on family life then make a decision on the viability of her employment for that company.

The company doesn't own you, if you're not happy make a plan to leave.

@1Hazel1 some posters on MN have a particular agenda and seem to post from organisations with those agendas as well.

Funnily all that posters claims have been refuted many times.

@castemary - so if someone elects to wfh, and, say, fall off their kitchen stool whilst working, the employer is liable?

I think early on staff were able to persuade employers that everything was going swimmingly and even that they were more efficient at home. Business liked the idea of not needing so much expensive office space. However, since then, customer experience has shown that staff from home weren't more efficient at all and customer service really suffered as a result. I'm not at all surprised and expect it will happen in most large businesses in time.

@NewMatress I think it depends on the person. I get more done at home because my manager is not constantly interrupting me to chat. I suspect my manager gets less done.

I've worked from home for years and love it, if I moved jobs that's a deal breaker for me. However your contract will state you work from a certain place, and your employer doesn't have to enable you to continue to work from home. There will be a reason behind it, you're just not privy to it. They also can't take into consideration you moved during the pandemic, that ones on you.

If you have a health problem that means you can't work some days, then they will have to accommodate that. I'm afraid any counter argument will be most with what's in your contract.

You have two choices, accept it or leave I'm afraid

From my own experience I am less likely to need time off sick if I'm WFH. I suffer from IBS and if I'm having an attack I don't feel under the weather as such, but I have to keep dashing to the loo and I'm also flatulent. This is awkward to manage in the office, to say the least, but fine at home where I can fart at my desk whenever I need to and a private bathroom is seconds away.

So what would be a 2 minute conversation in the office (and I would pick my moment so as not to disturb them) can now take an hour or more in repeated chasing and trying to get time with them

I agree this is a bit of an issue - I had something the other day where I thought things would have been much easier if we had all been in the office. But that was the first time since March 2020, so hardly a common problem.

I actually think if people now respect other peoples' time more now, and don't just interrupt them willy nilly, that's a good thing. Phoning people is inefficient unless you've agreed a time, you'll be playing phone tag all day.

now, more than a year on, to still be experiencing massive delays in customer service, to pop into my bank and find no one there but the poor sod on the front desk, to not be able to hand deliver time critical documents because there is no one in the solicitor's office, it can't continue

that is nothing to do with WFH and everything to do with poor management and work culture. The banks want to close their branches so they're making it as difficult as possible for people to use them, and then they can point to lower usage and close them. Same as libraries, reduce opening hours, then say footfall has reduced, and close them. As for the solicitors, most of the ones I know have a skeleton staff in the office so they should be able to accept letters.

Wfh will be a distant memory soon in my opinion. Businesses want staff back where they can see them. Wfh productivity has been mixed according to my ds who works for a big international insurance company ( only one opinion I know) as people have taken the piss with not being supervised at all times.
As a customer I am fed up of Covid being a reason I can't get through to anyone on the phone lines. Some Banks aren't open full time yet either which is a pita.
But then I work in the Nhs and have been working full time throughout so my view is probably influenced by that.

[quote IrmaFayLear]**@castemary* - so if someone elects* to wfh, and, say, fall off their kitchen stool whilst working, the employer is liable? [/quote]
Absolutely. It’s a legal minefield.

@NewMatress totally agree on the customer service point. The number of companies you’d ring and you get a message that wait time etc would be longer because staff were working at home etc...

I rang our payroll company and the call was answered and then the responder just put the phone down as she had to “finish an email”. When I emailed to complain after I was informed that they only had limited people answering phones because of wfh and many people being unable to do this because of inappropriate home environments.

Most people were prepared to put up for it, but now people are fed up of COVID being used as an excuse for shoddy customer service.

I find it strange that this has come as such a shock to people. Just because individual employees were enjoying wfh, doesn't mean it was good for the business as a whole.

In some ways, better to bite the bullet now. While most companies are going to be trialing a hybrid approach, this is going to be very difficult to manage in reality and I can see it falling apart pretty quickly for a lot of companies. This article starts to scratch the surface of the issues coming up.

www.ft.com/content/da683644-5de3-4ef6-852c-1f714ffdb2b7

Same scenario here. We were told initially let's keep the best of both options. Now they seem to have got cold feet and want everyone back in all the time. Really not looking forwards to it.

@Arbadacarba

From my own experience I am less likely to need time off sick if I'm WFH. I suffer from IBS and if I'm having an attack I don't feel under the weather as such, but I have to keep dashing to the loo and I'm also flatulent. This is awkward to manage in the office, to say the least, but fine at home where I can fart at my desk whenever I need to and a private bathroom is seconds away.

Yes, permitting more WFH is very helpful for people with disabilities or just conditions that can be awkward out of home, such as heavy periods. I am certainly very grateful to be a few seconds away from a toilet when I have my heaviest period days and not worrying about being on a train or in a meeting when a leak happens. In my case I wouldn't need to be at home all month, but 2-3 days a month would make a big difference and I am sure there are many women who would relate to that, but can't say so, because offices and office hours are set up for men.

I would also guess that the reason call centre staff aren't working isn't because they are working from home but because they are still on furlough. Employers taking the mick by taking furlough money when their staff could be working, and then allowing customers to think it's because staff are at home.

On the flip side, I wonder how many people will start to experience sensory processing issues coming back in to the office. My office at home is pretty much silent, apart from usual low level house noise, birds etc. Going on a busy train, in to a packed office where everyone is talking all the time - that’s going to send me loopy. I will find it really hard to concentrate. Not to mention all the discomfort of the office - too hot, no fresh air etc. I wonder how much the physical and mental discomfort of being back in is going to affect productivity.

My current work is now hybrid model and very flexible if you prefer to work in the office more or less days. Most people in 2-3 days and home other days.
I’m about to start a new job also public sector again flexi working and only expected in office 2-3 days a week. Which is a complete shift over the last year.
Most places are going for this hybrid approach.