Do you think that now a lot of jobs are working from home, it’s a good thing or bad ?

[LovelyYellowLabrador]

I know it’s like most thjngs has it’s pros and cons
but Us humans are fundamentally social animals
so can’t help wondering what the long term impact of this will be ….

just wondering about your thoughts on the subject

No, you put forward a theory. You haven’t given any proof whatsoever.

Yes, I want to work from home forever 🙄 I’m a stay at home mum, so I “work from home” by the nature of it! So no, I’m not biased

My husband does! He also does the school runs.

I coped well with lockdown, no problem. I’m an extrovert introvert so I enjoyed having my own space and my own decisions on when on the day I completed job tasks.

I didn’t feel lonely because I have an active social life so I spent the evenings reconnecting with old friends over the phone.

BUT, and this is a big but now this has extended for 2 years and without the social interaction, friendships and banter of the office I have realised how boring and pointless my actual job is to the point I am hating it with such passion I have started wondering if I am massively wasting my life at it.

Oh, so now you have moved from demanding evidence - which you got - to demanding PROOF, because you couldn’t dismiss the evidence?

What proof would satisfy you? A signed and witnessed statement from all of the people in Britain who WFH and take the piss (and once more for the people at the back, no, no everyone who works from home takes the piss, but some do) saying, “yes, I take the mick when I’m working from home and don’t work as hard as I would if I were in the office”? You might be waiting a while for that, I’m afraid.

Face it. You cannot defend your position that everyone WFH works just as hard, or harder, than they would if they were in the office.

Nor can you argue convincingly that the people working from home are the best judges of whether they should ever come into the office again. I was entertained to note upthread that anyone suggesting that the employer might be the best judge of that, not being motivated by “but what about the £200 I’m saving on train fares”, was described by you as a “bootlicker”. When you start resorting to insults, you’ve lost the argument.

No, sorry, you coming up with what you think is the reason for poor service from the DVLA, is not evidence that people working from home work less hard. Even if you probed a correlation, which you haven’t, you’d still need to prove causation.

You sound very angry, maybe working from home would be less stressful for you!

On the contrary. You’re the one lashing out with insults. Interesting that you were poised like a coiled spring waiting to have another go within two minutes of my last post, isn’t it?

Let’s hear your alternative theory for (1) why service levels at DVLA and the passport office dropped since they started working from home, and (2) why those organisations are trying to get their staff back into the office.

This is the third time I have asked. You keep avoiding the question. I wonder why?

Burden of proof rests with you, the one making the claim. “Yeah well prove that it’s not!” is a logical fallacy.

I've always thought a hybrid version works best for jobs that can be done from home. I worked a day a week at home 20 odd years ago and could easily have done 3 without issue but it wasn't the done thing then. I do think people need interaction on a human basis some of the time for their own wellbeing and to develop the role.

My big worry is that it's basically creating a new class system, those that can work from home and the rest.
The homeworkers get all the perks, freedom to live anywhere, no fuel costs etc whilst those servicing the country, who are often already relatively low paid, like nurses, teachers, shop workers etc continue to have to physically attend a particular place of work to allow the country to function yet reap no reward for this.

Posted too soon.
This will ultimately make these jobs and professions harder to recruit for, especially without substantial pay increases, and cause greater issues for the country as a whole.

I applied for a job where I would be working away from home (accommodation onsite) and got it, in March of 2020. I have never been into the office, and I love it. I get four days work at a time, and can do it at whatever time I want during those days. I have ADHD, so this is perfect for me, as my concentration span is limited, but I want to give the work my best attention. I hope it doesn’t go back to being office based.

@Thehonestybox
I think you've missed Forest Fae's point. When you're working in an office, you are provided with the proper tools to work with, including a proper desk and chair. If these aren't provided you can refuse to work until they are and get OH to do a workstation assessment if it's giving you back ache etc. Very different at home when you don't have this luxury and have to use a dining chair and a fold out table. And even if you have a good employer who funds and provides this for you, not everyone has the space. I certainly don't have space for a proper desk.

My dp would

I still think this would be a great opportunity to create work hubs in different parts of town.

So your employer would pay a rate to have a desk in the closest hub to you. With good access to internet/telephone....

Less commuting 😉 but still plenty of development around these hubs

My big worry is that it's basically creating a new class system, those that can work from home and the rest.
The homeworkers get all the perks, freedom to live anywhere, no fuel costs etc whilst those servicing the country, who are often already relatively low paid, like nurses, teachers, shop workers etc continue to have to physically attend a particular place of work to allow the country to function yet reap no reward for this

This isn't really an argument for against WFH/hybrid working. It is more about leveling up society. Just because certain roles can't be done from home, doesn't mean none should. We really need to look at improving society and life for all. WFH/hybrid working for those that can is an easy win. We should also look at ways to make other roles where you need to be in a location more appealing. Or, we could all just carry on the way we were 2 years ago, with everyone being unhappy, and no one pushing forwards to change the way things are done because everyone is in the mindset of 'that's the way we do things and have done for decades.'

Hubs are a great idea.

The homeworkers get all the perks, freedom to live anywhere, no fuel costs etc

This is a generalisation though. When I used to WOTH, I didn't need to heat the house during the 10 hours a day no-one was in it, and I only worked 3 miles from home so my fuel cots were hardly astronomical. DH cycled to work. Since dh and I wfh for most of the week now, we used a lot more heating and this is costing a lot more than any savings on fuel.

Plus not all people who have to WOTH are the poorly paid - I don't think a dentist or a surgeon or a hospital consultant would categorise themselves as poorly paid. It is a lot more complex than these generalisations.

I think you've missed Forest Fae's point. When you're working in an office, you are provided with the proper tools to work with, including a proper desk and chair. If these aren't provided you can refuse to work until they are and get OH to do a workstation assessment if it's giving you back ache etc. Very different at home when you don't have this luxury and have to use a dining chair and a fold out table. And even if you have a good employer who funds and provides this for you, not everyone has the space. I certainly don't have space for a proper desk.

Again, it isn't that clear cut.
I haven't had "proper tools to work with" in our office for years. It has been all 'hot-desking' and nowhere to store your stuff and not enough desks to go round for many years. Whereas at home, I have a desk, a large monitor, a chair that is set up to be comfortable for me that no-one else sits on. I have everything I need within reach and it has been MUCH more comfy for me to work at home for years.
I realise that isn't the case for everyone. dh and I said many, many times during 2020 how we probably wouldn't have survived in our last house, with our dc being small, and took our hats off to anyone who was trying to cope in that wfh / look after dc / no dedicated workspace scenario. But don't think we all have the luxury of our own space in the office.

Yes. When I was in the office pre covid, it was hot desking. You had to be in before 8 to get a desk or parking space nearby. No screens other than your laptop. Carry around everything you need for that day including laptops, mouse, keyboards, stationary etc.

They get around the DSE assessment by training you via an app, on how to adjust your chair and desk. Any major concerns meant additional training. If you needed a specialist chair, they were located in an area, where you have to fetch it, if you manage to get a desk space. If you needed specific arm rests, you had to carry them with you.

Yeah my husband is expected to hot desk - he’d rather work at home in our room! Not every office gives everyone adequate personal space.

I do think social isolation is going to be huge - how will people meet their partners, make friends etc. Hopefully by having more time for hobbies, but I do think there'll be a lot of lonely people holed up in their bedroom.

A drop in the quality of service and processing times does not mean that workers are shirking duties. It can just as easily mean that employers have not provided adequate infrastructure to handle the shift in work patterns.

my company increased our VPN capacity dramatically in the weeks prior to the first lockdown. They suspected what was coming and got ahead of it. Almost all employees already had laptops that would facilitate wfh and did so on occasion already. We also tended to have high speed internet as it was an expectation, though not technically a requirement. People were sent home with monitors and keyboards so they would have good setups instead of working on small screens. The phones were already internet based so there was no lag or switching, calls just continued to route to people as they always had.

I doubt the passport office or other government agencies were given the funding to put the kind of investment into IT that was required to make an effective switch to wfh. If people are working on inadequate machines on an inadequate network, it doesn’t matter how hard they work, efficiency will be compromised.

So get them back in the office where they can do their jobs properly.

Why can’t the employer just facilitate the necessities for home working?