Is this work arrangement usual? Never come across this before..

[Cherrypusscat]

I’ve recently joined a new team in a new company.

We all work from the office - contract says office based. In interview there was mention of a tiny amount of flexibility in when you are fully trained if the situation arose you could work the very occasional day from home as long as you had decent internet access and wouldn’t ‘take the mickey’.

Since ive started I’ve seen my supervisor only on average twice a week as the rest of the week she WFH. The two managers above her up the chain I’ve never met as they are almost permanent WFH. Apparently this is something that’s continued for them since lockdown

Speaking to my overworked colleagues (they have their own work to do plus now train me) that the message from the very top is that everyone should have returned to the office full time. This middle group of managers seem to largely ignore this but the bottom rung staff need to be in to show ‘bums on seats’.

Due to supervisor and managers almost always out of the department the place feels strange compared to where I’ve worked before. There’s one or two in the team that are clearly slacking causing resentment among the rest.

I find the whole set up odd - there’s no leadership as there’s hardly anyone who leads that’s in! The supervisor even when WFH is rarely available and on ‘busy’ most of the time.

Is this usual? Or the minority? Not sure I want to stay due to it. It’s like nowhere I’ve worked before.

My last job was like that when I started and for quite a while afterwards. Then the supervisors were expected to be in but none of their teams. It was strange.

Dysfunctional and it won't get better until something changes.

Post pandemic though there will be all kinds of new working practices that have never happened before. Of course you'll come across things that you didn't before covid

We have to get used to things possibly being totally different to workplaces pre 2020

It's not surprising that we might all have to make decisions about whether we want to work in the new ways and not every situation will suit everyone

The up side is that there seem to be job vacancies in lots of fields so probably easier to move job than in the past

I started my job after the first 'lockdown. The job description said you could WFH after training, but had to work a day in the office every six weeks and when requested by team leader. I went in for a couple of weeks, but since then most of us have been WFH with just a few people going in for their own convenience. We have now moved to new premises, and it's obvious that WFH is the norm. There is much less workspace, and in theory, you have to 'book' a desk.

I imagine it's the way in a lot of places now - covid has changed the game. For me, it's better - I have more desk space, it's quieter and I can put a load of washing out at lunchtime, take in parcels etc. I miss the social aspect of work, but there are informal and formal text/video conversations, and because I started in a near empty office, I don't have any real work friendships for this place.

With Teams you don't have to be in the same building to work effectively or effectively supervise someone. People must have targets, KPIs or work volumes/quality to meet.

Even training can often be done without detriment remotely, but that depends on what your work involves.

Sounds like the management of this team is ineffective, but that's not necessarily related to the WFH aspect.