Are the days of WFH over?

[MerryMarigold]

Dh been working from home since Covid. Been 1 FtF meeting a week/ fortnight for past year.

Work have said everyone needs to be in work in central London for 3 days per week after Easter.

Not too bad for us, we live in the same place we lived before. Still a 1.5hr commute each way (plus associated costs). Not so good for others who live in the middle of nowhere.

Is this a trend or just his global company?

@Eaglesqueak - I tired to PM you but it won't work on the app! I work for a global company and can wfh full time due to a health problem! I'm not paid enough though. Could you pm the name of the company please?! I've been on the lookout for fully remote companies.

You should definitely complain to the company about this when it happens

Exactly, there's more to it. Wfh full time only suits total introverts and/or people wanting to have more life balance than work. The majority of people don't work better at home, although I'm sure that some do. It really only suits roles that don't require much input or collaboration with other people. I think the impact of wfh will be seen in a few years time, all the 'other' stuff counts for alot. I feel sorry for younger people starting out in the workforce being in this environment, it's a skill to develop interacting with people.who might not choose to interact with or wouldn't otherwise meet, loads if benefits to working in an office. Personally I think a hybrid model works best.

Instagramearworms. I think it’s a fabulous idea and will help retain staff who, like my DD, gets itchy feet if she stuck anywhere for too long! She has to be in a similar time zone because the whole 24 hours have to be covered, so she hands over to the team in London (we’re not in the UK) and they hand over to the US. At least that’s the way round I think it happens!
Young people are so adept at living in this technologically advanced age, it makes sense for them to use the skills they’ve developed over the last few years. It’s not a strange concept to them at all.

Most people that don't need to be in office still WFH most of the time at my work. I'm sadly not someone whose job is v WFH friendly. When people are in they spend most of the time chatting and making endless coffees at the free coffee machine.

I WFH almost every day and go into the office around 2 days a month. Tech worker with a small team and anything that requires collaborative effort is easily done over MS Teams or Slack.

Last year our team manager stated that everyone absolutely had to be in the London office 3 days week. I made it clear I wouldn’t be able to do this as it doesn’t fit with my work/life balance and said I fully understood if that meant they had to reassess my position. I was kind of looking for a way out as I don’t particularly enjoy my job and had a naive hope they’d offer me a lump sum to just leave😭

That was 9 months ago and my manager hasn’t mentioned returning to the office again since. It turns out she bought a house somewhere in the Cotswolds a few months ago and is barely in the office herself these days…

That's me!

If they forced us all back in the office a lot would leave.

I need peace and quiet to concentrate- not office gossip and harsh lighting.

Good staff with good managers make good teams in my job. Changing the set (ie office vs home) makes no difference.

Individualist, it can make a huge difference to well being.

Same here, public sector. Seems to work well for everyone

Hybrid working here, but our guidance is to tailor attendance to the type of work we need to do . The difference is that “in office” days are deliberately focused on collaborating with colleagues, face to face interactions and “chatting” is encouraged. The point about needing to be around to support younger / earlier career staff has been made and is true.. The positive impact for mental health is seen and there are often fun things and events to encourage people to come in.

ironically, I now put my “out of office” alert on only when I am actually on site to tell people I am not instantly available on teams and will be delay in email responses as I am focusing on in person interactions.

I think it’s a good balance.

Mmm, she could, but I do wonder what people think is going to happen in situations like these.

What we have at the moment is a smaller workforce than we did a few years back. Call centre/phone type work has always been hard to recruit for and retain staff anyway, and obviously that's exacerbated when workers have more choices. The modest wage that companies usually pay for this type of role just doesn't buy the quality and quantity of employees that it did.

To the extent that while a company can of course say staff in these roles can't work from home, what they can't necessarily do is obtain sufficient staff who'll work in an office for those wages. There are probably individual instances and organisations where it can be enforced, but it's not obvious where the numbers are going to come from for them to all pull it off. The phenomenon of household noise in the background isn't likely to be going anywhere.

Hybrid here which I really enjoy. I like my office days.

I am another one with no office to go back to.

My work has said that WFH full time is still a choice. However, if you’re eligible for the London weighting (I’m not), you have to be in the office at least 2 days a week otherwise it’s being removed which I think is fair enough. I think the London lot have had a good run of it throughout the pandemic with less transport costs, time for their pay to be aligned.

In 2001, just as I went on ML, technology was becoming available that made wfh possible and my employer at the time was starting to encourage homeworking to save office space and costs.

Staff were keen, lots would tell you how much better it was, saved costs and time, but it was not a success. Even those who would tell you it was brilliant started suffering with their MH and weren't connected with their colleagues so became out of touch and isolated. They maybhave got the "work" done but they didn't benefit from shared best practice or contacts etc. Within 3 years the "experiment" was all over. People still occasionally wfh for their own convenience (childcare crisis or washing machine repair man) and being able to offer that is a big advantage, but regular home working was a thing of the past.

The same organisation is doing the same now and again I see ex colleagues who think they love it (all the saved time and money) becoming a shadow of their former selves.

Most people in my department have done at least two days from home for at least a decade. I’ve only been in on a Friday about three times since I had DD twelve years ago. We’re supposed to be in three days now, but my team spans three work locations, including another country. Our stakeholders are anywhere from Belgium to Brazil. I very rarely need to meet someone face to face, but I go in one day a week as I’m a good girl and don’t like to entirely break the rules. I get far less work done on that day.

My friend is saying the same. They’re embarrassed to ring people they don’t know, often for a ‘stupid question’. They also aren’t getting emotional support when there are abusive clients. She only works p/t and doesn’t want to go in for another reason, but realises she’s part of the problem. So they aren’t staying.

I hated DH WFH. He did it for 2 years, he wouldn’t take breaks, he wouldn’t get off in the evening. He then annoyed me because he’d had no company all day. It’s so much better now he’s back in.

I think people who insist on office-based work (where WFH is possible) are either those who have no life outside of work or those terrible managers who love to micro-manage people. I cannot imagine any sane person with a life wanting to commute several hours per day only to spend it with strangers in the office. The only times I loved going into work was when I was having an affair with a colleague 😂 Other than that, it's mental to want to work in an office instead of at home. I work to live, not the other way around.

No, my career is hospital based, not possible to do from home, but trying to get staff who work from home to actually do what they are supposed to do is a nightmare!

@XelaM you can't imagine a situation where people don't have adequate space at home for an office they can close the door on, and don't want the mental health implications of the place they sleep or socialise also being their workplace? Or perhaps that they actually enjoy the company of colleagues (none of mine are strangers?).

Mine implemented 3 days mandatory as soon as the restrictions ended. The people who moved during lockdowns had to resign. It's a global company with 30 locally.

Most companies in our industry are the same with a few outliers still offering full flexibility. None are mandating full time in the office.

To be honest I get it, I'd prefer to wfh more than once a week as I'm PT 0.8 but they pay a lot for our office space and generally things are easier in person.

Getting people to adhere to the policy is different. I'd say most do 2 days max in the office.

Yep I don't want to sit next to sniffy Sally who insists on bringing every germ known to man into a communal area after being stuck sitting in motorway traffic for longer than necessary. Oh and let's not forget the incessant distraction of small talk from people I haven't seen in ages.

Mine tried to insist and had a heap of resignations so backtracked. I am permanently wfh due to disability which is good as otherwise I couldn't work.

Even before my condition worsened I struggled with office work. I cannot cope with open plan offices, I find them overwhelming and can't concentrate. I cannot stand hearing fragments of lots of different conversations at once.

We don't even have enough space for hybrid. During the pandemic office space was repurchased and not given back so now only 4 people can be in at once anyway.

*repurposed

@Instagramearworms

Quite obviously I am not talking about this demographic who are quite rightly protected by law.

I’m talking about the ones who take the piss with childcare/household chores/ never turn their camera on.

They want it all their way and still want to keep their job. Generally, people have become entitled and only think of themselves. This is damaging the economy, with less social interactions there are more mental health problems and it’s bad for team building.