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?

I'm amazed how many people thought this pisstaking field day would last forever. Every single person says, 'I'm so much more productive at home' but customer service is in the toilet. It was stupid to have moved. So find another job then. There are lots of people in need of work just now, there's no one who isn't replaceable.

Their job is to run a business to maximum efficiency, not indulge your personal lives.

I think your attitude sucks. You decided to move house, did you not consider that you might get asked to go back to the workplace full time?!

I think there’s going to be a lot of shuffling over the next few months. Some people want a hybrid WFH/office. Some want 100% office and some want 100% WFH. Different organisations are taking different routes and I think it’s just going to be another factor in your decision process as to whether a job is a good fit or not.

I’m quite happy working from home in this role. In a previous role, I was offered permanent WFH and it was one of the reasons I left for my current role. One of the big differences between that role and this one is my living situation. Then I lived in a flat with no space. Now I live in a house and have space for my own desk. So I think some companies need to offer 100% office based to cater for those people who do not want to WFH for whatever reason. Our work have initially said hybrid (but not yet confirmed) and that’ll work well for me. If they say we’re back in the office full time, then I will look for another job when I return from maternity leave and just suck it up until then.

Why is it that all of a sudden people's jobs are too difficult to get to and it's impossible for them to work from anywhere but home? What did they all do pre-pandemic?

You do realise everyone is replaceable and there far more applicants than there are vacancies at the moment for jobs.

I recently found a new job and I will be completely home based, five days a week.

There’s no way to know, @Lizzie523. Employers might try being more flexible, or they might throw the idea out like yours has. There’s no guarantees from anyone.

The FT predicted back in July that more companies would temporarily be more flexible, but long term it’d go back to being closer to normal, and I think they’re probably right.

Overall, nobody will know for probably a year or so. Then we’ll be able to assess how many companies are sticking to being totally flexible, how many still have some flexibility and some are basically back where they were. Before then it’s a live situation, so there’s just no way to know.

It will come to bite them in the future. Flexible working is the future.

I have sympathy with the OP but I’ve felt for a while that once things get going again more people than not will be back in the office full time. I also think that many of the businesses that made long term decisions to close offices and have staff WFH may actually come to regret it.

Your organisation don't owe you home working either... If you don't like it, then you need to do something about it. As pp said.. Everyone is replaceable.

@Mrgrinch

Why is it that all of a sudden people's jobs are too difficult to get to and it's impossible for them to work from anywhere but home? What did they all do pre-pandemic?

You do realise everyone is replaceable and there far more applicants than there are vacancies at the moment for jobs.

Nope! Vacancies are at their highest for 17 years.

I think a lot of people are now realizing how much or a waste of time commuting actually is.

They’ve closed my office and if you want to go in, you have to hot desk somewhere a 3hr drive away from me (and many other people, not just me living in a daft place) in a much cheaper location, office space-wise. I worked from home a lot before all this anyway, but I’ll miss the option of going in occasionally and seeing people. A group of us are talking about meeting up near our old location anyway and renting something/booking a conference room out once in a while, but my employer certainly doesn’t expect us to. I think they’re just thinking ooooooo one less building, that’s a cost saving....

There's a lot of odd negativity to flexible working models on this thread - surely out of all the hard and difficult stuff that came out of a year of lockdown, one of the most positive was that it showed that WFH and flexible working models can actually work well for many industries and jobs (of course not all).

Flexible working, and more options for jobs which are not location dependent has all sorts of benefit for workers and employers. It might mean some difficult transitions for companies to deal with, and it's probably not going to be immediate - which might not help the OP - but we all have an opportunity to radically change the way we interpret 'the working week' for all our benefit.

Do we want things to simply go back to how it was before?

I (and others) have the opposite issue. I'm desperate to get back into the office as my job is much harder to do from home, but my employer has saved so much during lockdown, it's keen to prolong home working - perhaps indefinitely.

So there may well be as many people leaving companies where they are forced to work from home as those forced to return to offices.

That’s rubbish OP. Most of my friends and family who have worked at home til now are being able to continue to do so if they want. Time to look for something else maybe.

The current government guidance is to work from home if you can, which is planned to possible change on 21 June. You might be best trying to get at least an extension of the current wfh until then.

My opinion is that poor service being blamed on wfh is an excuse, just as beyond the first two or three months blaming Covid 19. It is noticeable that many of those whose customer service has got much worse seemed almost to be those who had to be dragged into providing adequate customer service. Banks seem an example.

As a manager, on the whole people are not more productive at home. I’ve not had a single person bring me extra work they’ve done! What most people mean is that their lives are more productive because they have more time. Not something I begrudge, but it’s different from their organisation benefitting!

Yes, many of us have been travelling to workplaces throughout. If you're not happy, leave (I believe that's what many public sector workers were advised). Silly of you to move somewhere that makes your commute awkward.

Seems very short-sighted of your employer to ignore staff feedback. They can of course do what they like but it's disappointing that they've opted for this.

I really hope that most employers see that a balance of home and office work works best for most people.

You'll need to decide how much it bothers you, and look elsewhere if it's a major issue for you x

I don’t know why you’re getting such a hard time. My company (nationwide employer) has gone to a hybrid system and has shut down several offices. Employees will either work fulltime in the office (only when absolutely necessary), work in the office up to two days a week or WFH fulltime. It follows research which found 89% of our staff want to continue WFH. There are clearly many people who feel the way you do.

As for it being an excuse to pisstake, certainly in my company you just wouldn’t get away with that for very long!

I work for a bank, and we also have had consultations about who wants to return to work or not after wfh for a year. Surprisingly half the staff wanted to return to the office - mostly the younger ones, as I guess the young people miss the social aspect. But I’m the other side of 40 and can live quite happily without the office politics I’ve lived with for 20 years, so ive been given the opportunity to wfh full time. The split def appears to be that the older ones prefer to continue to wfh.

I'd start looking at jobs with the rival.

You say there have been a lot of new staff - I wonder if they've found it's hard to train newcomers while wfh?

Or it may be that in the past few months productivity has declined or there have been some management issues.

@emilyfrost

No good reason given for this change as I said. All very strange.

It’s not strange at all No business makes decisions for no good reason

I don't understand this comment. Your use of emojis seem like you're disagreeing with the OP but what you're saying actually supports her because your two sentences contradict each other. If no business makes decisions for no good reason then it is strange that they don't communicate that decision to staff.

If the management had done research and found that staff were less productive, or that customers had complained about background noise and bad connections, or they had welfare concerns then it would make sense to tell their staff this was why they were changing their planned ways of working. Ideally they would have told staff before they implemented the change, and tried to find ways around it to try and keep everyone happy, but even if they didn't do that it's the bare minimum to explain to staff why an unpopular change is being made unless you want to foster a bad, us-and-them, working relationship between staff and senior management.

OP I don't think there's much you can actually do (are you in a union or similar?), other than keep your eyes open for other jobs, and whenever you have an appraisal or discussion with your manager, keep mentioning how much more productive you were at home, how the commute now means you're essentially losing x hours a week, which even if you weren't spending those hours working meant you were less tired and had a better work-life balance etc. If everyone does the same and/or leaves, or productivity drops, they might rethink.

@osbertthesyrianhamster

I'm amazed how many people thought this pisstaking field day would last forever. Every single person says, 'I'm so much more productive at home' but customer service is in the toilet. It was stupid to have moved. So find another job then. There are lots of people in need of work just now, there's no one who isn't replaceable.

Their job is to run a business to maximum efficiency, not indulge your personal lives.

You sound horribly jealous.

@problembottom

I don’t know why you’re getting such a hard time. My company (nationwide employer) has gone to a hybrid system and has shut down several offices. Employees will either work fulltime in the office (only when absolutely necessary), work in the office up to two days a week or WFH fulltime. It follows research which found 89% of our staff want to continue WFH. There are clearly many people who feel the way you do.

As for it being an excuse to pisstake, certainly in my company you just wouldn’t get away with that for very long!

Absolutely this. My role went back 1 day a week and I quit in favour of a job that was full time WFH (recently moved to WFH model). They won't recruit or retain the best talent if they insist on treating them like this. Start your job hunt now - there are SO many WFH opportunities out there.

Find another job before you give up this one.

Good luck.