Working from home.

[Sunriseinwonderland]

Its not a criticism but why are so many people still working from home. I genuinely don't know.
Im not in a job that can be done from home so I've had to go in throughout.

I wfh when ifs convenient for me, e.g. delivery of some repair being done. Otherwise I go to the office as I find being around people I work with means those little ad hoc conversations take place which don't virtually.

I go out in London alot so I dont really save money on not travelling to work so for me that isnt a factor for wfh. Infact because its cheaper to buy an annual pass for me, I go to the office more because it cuts down on my hearing and electricity. So i end up better off.

To get back to the OP, ultimately, this is a landscape change and a permanent one. However, there were millions of people wfh pre March 2020 too. What lockdown did is changed the status quo, but the move was already happening.

This is from March 2020 by the ONS

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/coronavirusandhomeworkingintheuklabourmarket/2019

Pre pandemic, of 32 million employed people in the UK, 4 million (12%) had wfh in the last week and 5% were mainly home based. Just under 30% of employed people had wfh at some point. Bearing in mind there are many jobs that can't be done remotely at all, basically whole sectors that couldn't be included, that's actually quite a lot.

My dh's company sold their office buildings to save money.
Sadly he has no choice other than to wfh 100% of the time.

Reduced absenteeism and sickness I'm in two minds about. Certainly there's less spreading of germs if staff are at home compared to the office but there's also a lot of people who have a quieter/slacking off day when they're ill and less visible working from home rather than putting in a proper sick day. But then again there's loads of slacking off that happens in offices so maybe it all balances out!

Doesn't the employer benefit if people who are ill but can manage a slack day at home do that instead of having a proper sick day? Better some work than no work?

I was in charge of this decision in my last workplace.

Our office cost us 30 grand in direct costs a year. Not to mention other stealth costs of things people would buy and use mindlessly because they were there. It was in a dingy, depressing location that had all the charm of bin juice.

We replaced it with a much smaller office with just enough space for us all to squeeze in, plus collaboration spaces and meeting rooms. It's right next to companies they work with all the time. Everyone has been given an annual WFH allowance to improve their home working, use collaboration spaces close to home, and they go into the office fortnightly.

Productivity and employee satisfaction has skyrocketed.

And for 20% of the cost of the old misery factory that was the previous office.

because that is the way forward for many many companies and it could have been done years ago but it took a pandemic for people to realise this I get far more done at home then when I go into the office 2 days a week and there is no positive for me personally working in the office

Yes, I kind of dislike the idea that ability to work is all or nothing. It goes hand in hand with general ableism.

We've surely all had that sort of day where you can't handle new info, but you can sit there doing your filing and tidying up your admin and send a few non critical emails?

I work from home 3 days per week. My life is nicer and kids are better for it. the teachers in my life are bitter as fuck about it though. “It’s just ridiculous…people should get back to the office…”

I work in local government. Lots work home. I don’t and certainly don’t want to.The rest in the office don’t want to neither.

i get it many do. But i dont want to see your dog on teams nor you feeding it treats. Im not interested.

nor do I want to hear nor see your screaming kid on teams. No need. You applied for a job in the office. You managed childcare before this covid lark, its not professional.

I get waaaay more done wfh than when I’m in the office - I wouldn’t go in if I didn’t have to have some face to face meetings with ppl.

as it had 3 days a week, I waste 3 hours a day travelling when I could be getting on with my actual job

Don’t know what you’re missing 😬

life is too short for getting your knickers in a twist about whether a dog on teams is “professional”. Work to live. Don’t live to work.

i get it many do. But i dont want to see your dog on teams nor you feeding it treats. Im not interested.

I never enjoyed hearing loud staff conversations or not being able to hear yourself on a phone call in the office long before covid.

I WFH and I absolutely love it! It's changed my life. Employer is a mostly remote worker force - education development.

Me and DH were discussing how much more quiet rush hour is. I would like to know if fewer commuters means there's been a minute positive impact on air pollution.

DH and his colleagues do. They had to choose between rent for the office or saving jobs.

The team opted to wfh and save jobs.

Some employers have really looked at what they need from their workforce. Many of us are in roles that can not only be done from home but flexibility from home. I don't have to tell abykne i'm going on the school run for example. I work for a listed company and our profits have increased since the adoption of flexible and agile working practises.

I suspect most people are talking about little ones, who need occupying.

Most 7 - 11 yr olds can occupy themselves for an hour or so after school whilst their parent is in the house but getting on with their work.

People will debate if this is from 7, 8 or 9, and it will both be child dependent, and also job dependent. Some of my work I need to really concentrate on, other parts can take up chunks of each week, but don't actually need so much concentration as other parts, so (if I had KS2 dc) I could make sure I was doing some of the stuff I need to concentrate on less at that time.

Because my anxiety levels are far lower and my health is better. My productivity is far higher at home.

offices are an environment that triggers a constant state of fight or flight for many people. The designs are absolutely awful. They work for a very particular type of neurotypical extrovert.

Very true, and even as an NT extrovert, due to structural factors office working suited me much less than wfh. Office attendance as the norm in what we think of as office jobs was always a model that didn't work well for large chunks of the population, for varying reasons.

This argument confuses me when it's used as a reason to not wfh. My job can be done from home whether I decide to do that or not. My employer isn't going to forget that fact if I decide to suddenly go into the office every day. They aren't stupid. I don't see what difference my current working location has to whether or not my employer will outsource my job abroad.

Same.

Even for people who hadn't wfh a day in their lives before March 2020, it's been 3 years now. If a job can be viable when fully remote, even the dimmest of employers is going to have long since realised that. A worker voluntarily coming into the office more often isn't going to erase that knowledge.

Because I was promoted to global role and no longer have an office.

Most people seem to have got over the children and cats on teams thing fairly early on in the pandemic.
I wfh, absolutely professional and I think that sometimes people making these sorts of remarks are just a wee bit.. jealous?

I agree, that stuff is out of date. Some people think that because they would be tempted to take the piss if they wfh, everyone does

This statement is usually used by people who don't understand working from home properly or who have jobs that don't require much focus I find..... I work from home 50% of the time and my little boy is in nursery ALL of the time I'm working (office or home based) I pay 60% of my take home salary for him to be in nursery as there is no way I could do my job effectively AND look after a 2 year old at the same time. What exactly do you think people do when they work from home? I usually have back to back meetings (that cannot be interrupted by a noisy toddler or I'd likely be under disciplinary action) and the rest of the time I'm doing head down concentrated reporting work that I need complete silence for.

I get way more done at home. And clearly so do the rest of the team a productivity has gone up since we all started working from home.

I like it that I can be there when DD gets in from school. It's a great work life balance.

I do have to go into office 1 day a week as does everyone else. Don't know why your son can't move out of expensive area if he only needs to go in one day a week. We have people travelling from all over... some a 3 hour drive away. Living in a cheaper better place and only going into office 1 day a week is doable.