WFH - availability at all times , yes or no.

[hattie43]

One of our team members works from home two days out of five and his normal hours are 9am - 5pm.

Would you expect him to be at his desk and available at all times or do you think WFH allows some flexibility. He has decided to take his young son swimming and the lesson is at 10am for an hour but travel to and fro means he is away from his desk about an hour and forty mins . He is not in a customer service role and doesn't have to be available to the public . He doesn't miss deadlines for anything. He makes the time up after 5pm so isn't reducing his work hours just amending the times .

A couple of people in the office are grumbling but I think it's perfectly reasonable and that the whole idea of WFH is to afford a work life balance .
How do other WFHomers deal with their working day . Do you literally not move from your desk or do you regig your hours a bit even to do a laundry load .

It really depends. I don’t mind my teams doing these sorts of things. Hours worked isn’t a huge indicator for us. Work load is.

My MD doesn’t mind me going off and doing things, again, my job is about deadlines. Not how many hours I work but he would expect me to be able to answer a call. So swimming is a no no.

But this morning I took ds to school and then went and got my nails done. So was logged on at 7am while ds got ready for school. Logged off at 8.30am, then logged in again at 10.15 and answered 2 calls while I was out.

It depends on the workplace but it’s definitely the sort of thing to clear with the line manager to avoid this sort of confusion.

Hmm I’ve noticed this sort of thing happening increasingly often in my work too. Work have been selling us “flexible
working” but I’m not sure it’s ever specified that this means you can bugger off in the middle of the working day to collect kids. There’s constantly people bailing out of meetings early cos they’re going to do the school run and whilst I don’t mind if they’re making the time up later, it does have a knock on effect if people need their help or input because by the time they get back it’s the end of our day. I also suspect it would kick off if I said I was going to the 9:30am spin class tomorrow morning but if it’s for the kids it seems to be ok.

It depends on the policies and work environment. Our place allows for general flexibility to allow school runs, and other life commitments. For the company it means that they get a lot of loyalty and retain staff along with it being a really good place to work if you have caring commitments or some health issues. For a regular Tuesday type thing we would expect a conversation with your line manager but it would generally be fine.

As a pp says, wfh is not the same as having completely flexible hours, so unless someone has that I’d expect an arrangement like this to be agreed with the line manager. I’d also expect that manager to approve it unless it was genuinely disruptive for other people. Give and take goes a long way at work.

If it did affect colleagues, I’d definitely have sympathy. A few years ago I was working on a project with someone who started working at 6 or earlier every day. Just because it suited them, no caring responsibilities or anything. It made arranging meetings extremely difficult because everyone involved was busy and then two-plus hours were knocked off the available time. They often ended up joining meetings at 4 or so anyway, but making pointed, martyred comments about how they’d been at work since 5:45am. Ridiculous!

I’m hybrid so wfh a few days a week and in the office a few days a week, best of both worlds.
Our hours are not really flexi but there are 12 of us that do the same job and they’re okay with people taking kids to school etc and things like that so long as there’s at least 1 person available to answer the phone if it rings.
when I WFH I will put a washing load on or unload the dishwasher etc but I don’t really take a lunch break because I’m quite happy sitting at my desk doing my work. I will also vape at my desk at home whereas when I’m in the office i pop out a couple of times a day and also take a lunch break.
we all have teams open at all times and you can quickly see who is and isn’t active, I’d hate someone to think I wasn’t actually working when I was being paid to work at home! I don’t give a shit what anyone else does, one lady comes in on her office day at 10:30 always apologising, I tell her I don’t care, I’m going home at 4pm or whatever and we carry on with our day.
so yes I’m generally always available and wouldn’t be taking a child for a swimming lesson in the middle of the day but it’s been the employee and the employer really.

I could do that if I wanted too. I have a 75% desk based job and am trusted to do my work. I can go for a swim at 11 and make my hours back in the evening - or not make my hours back as long as my deadlines were met. However, the downside to that is when I'm busy I'm really busy and I have to work over my hours.

He's getting the work done and making up the time so I can't see the issue. Sounds like sour grapes from the grumblers.

Tonnes of flexibility here, and it works both ways. I'm expected to be present for 5am zoom calls (thankfully only every couple of months) and meetings that go into the evening.
In turn, as long as I drop an email to my manager to let him know I'm away from my desk I can do sport, go to appointments, skip off early if I need to do something with DS2.
We all have the same work ethic - one of trust and respect.
Mostly we all work regular office hours and don't take the piss.

It would be a breach of core hours in my workplace. An official flexible work request could be put in though, altering the hours for that day to reflect when they are available, i.e. some hours worked in the evening. It would then be transparent and agreed all around.
There is a fair amount of resentment around about arrangements that shirk the need for childcare. Flexible working arrangements have been around for years with clear guidelines on requesting it and business reasons for (accepting or) rejecting. Newer parents seem to be ignoring the need to officially agree arrangements and are just doing what they want. Hybrid contracts are wfh contracts, not work when you like contracts.

If it is a time that means he misses a regular longstanding meeting or misses a normal deadline, unreasonable. If it is agreed and he is making up time and getting work done, and agreed with manager, then probably reasonable.

Depends on the workplace
I WFH but my job means that yes, I don't move from my desk from 8-5! Heavily monitored
Other jobs it's fine to be more flexible

It depends what has been agreed with his role, and also what the policy is. If he's expected to fit in meetings on other days, then yes. If he does two days only, then no, or he's hardly working. It also depends on how crucial his role is, and how scarce his skills.

No problem with this at all. I just block out time in the diary to do things I want to do at home, and I'll make up the time after I've put the kids to bed. My manager is okay with with this and it fits in with the culture of my organisation.

It really depends how much collaboration there needs to be. Even the informal things where you might ring a colleague for a chat about something, or even for advice or support. It isn't just formal Team meetings, or for customer facing roles that people need to 'be available'.
That said, if it is for 2 hours once a week, then I wouldn't see that as an issue - you'd just know to avoid that time for him. If he never worked mornings, or have a 3 hours break for lunch every day, then I think it could become an issue.

However, it does depend wholly on the role. What works in one job doesn't work in another. Including the way you 'measure' is someone is doing their hours / pulling their weight / performing up to standard.

It depends on the policy at your workplace. My workplace would be fine with this. I have the flexibility to do my hours any time from 6am to 9pm. As long as I'm there for meetings etc, it's fine. If my workplace didn't officially allow this, I wouldn't do it though.

As everyone says, it sounds okay but only if he’s got permission to do it.

Does him buggering off at that time mean others are put under pressure to work extra hard and pick up the slack in his absence? Meanwhile he comes back and puts the extra time in at 6pm when it’s no longer busy?

Why are his colleagues grumbling? Is it impacting their work? This wouldn't be allowed in my workplace.

Sounds like his son is not at school yet if he's going swimming at 10am on a weekday. If that's the case does it mean your colleague is looking after him all day whilst wfh or does he go to nursery/childminder?

The swimming by itself sounds ok bathe needs childcare for the rest of the time.

But her not bathe

As others have said it depends on his work. If he's projects based, attends all meetings he's meant to be in, work is all completed and on time then surely he can work whatever hours he wants? We need to get away from this whole you must be chained to the desk for 37.5 hours a week with minimal toilet breaks and statutory 30min lunch breaks. Work to the work not to the clock.

If he can disappear off for an hour or two and make up the time later then those in the office should be able to as well.

wfh does not necessarily mean flexible hours.

i mostly wfh and in our company it is totally normal to disappear for school runs etc but none of us would regularly disappear in the middle of the day for a kids swimming lesson. That said our boss has made it clear she doesn’t care when we do our work as long as it gets done. The vast majority will be in normal office hours but some won’t be.

Not acceptable. Total piss take. Does he not need to be available when others are working? Not in the evening.

Totally depends on what’s normal in your workplace. Would not be an issue at all with my employer as we don’t work strict 9-5 and it’s very normal to work flexibly.

But it seems a bit odd. I mean I do the same for parents evenings or school assemblies, but a standing commitment every week seems a bit different. If he has a child home part or all of the day even with the other parent, I’d be worried he wasn’t focusing. I know I would find that hard.