Forced return to office - anyone else?

[Flexipecs]

My work has announced we’re all being forced back into the office two days a week. I’m a sole parent of primary school aged children (no help from ex). If I’m forced to go into the office I’ll have to reduce my working hours and I’ll be financially worse off.

I’m going to contact my union but has anyone else had this problem and did you successfully challenge it?

There’s zero benefit to me being in the office. My stats and performance are high. I actually think I’m more productive at home because I’m not being distracted so often. I’ve worked for the company for a very long time and I’m really disappointed at this decision (to put it mildly).

Depends on their ages. 5 years old, yes. 10 years old can be fine watching TV in another room for a couple of hours.

No. I've always worked in teams with people who had kids, alternative working patterns and always respected when they needed to leave early, block out their calendars for childcare or work from home when needed.

Flexible work should 100% be encouraged. We work flexibly in our house- term time I work school hours and my husband works longer than 9-5 hours to earn flexi. During the school holidays he takes the flexi back and does the majority of the childcare. This works for us.

Parents shouldn't be splitting their time working and caring for children. It doesn't work, you can't give both your all.

Yep...it's more convenient working from home. Nobody is disputing that.

Dh was trying to sort out a work issue the other day around 3pm and partway through the call the woman the other end said sorry she had to go as she was outside her kids' school and needed to move her car as it was blocking another parent. Hardly professional or an effective way of working, as it impacts on others' ability to work efficiently. Wfh is all very well, and I know I personally could have benefitted had it been available when my dc were young, but it is all too easy to miss the bigger picture and relax boundaries.

What part please I did two posts lol I can’t guess what context you’re talking about.

If it’s the office, it’s because it was open plan with other teams working in the same one with hot desking and the team was split across London and Manchester.

Agree. But when I finish work at 5pm and I am presented with a 4 minute journey from home to get them from after school care or an hour+ commute from the office plus a headache about who takes them for that hour and then a rush to make dinner, homework, bedtime routines etc which seems like the most family friendly/mother friendly approach? Which seems more likely to keep mothers in work and working more hours (contributing to the economy)? Which is more productive use of time for an employer - having employees work until 5pm or have them cut their hours to accommodate a commute?

So what's the issue? Screw your convenience for the sake of "being present"?

@mokebox we understand that currently your child is in nursery so you're not WFH and doing childcare. Others are though. That's what people are talking about.

Many mothers work close to home, it's not a given that people have lengthy commutes

I think people notice when an interruption to a business call is domestic.

What tends to be overlooked/excused/allowed for is when you get interruptions which are office based:

• fire alarms going off
• people getting evicted from meeting rooms
• background office noise because no meeting rooms available

I have experienced far, far more office based meeting or call interruptions than domestic ones.

I don't see the point of discussing this on a forum, as other people's opinions won't mean a jot to your Company.
Added to this, there are so many people who have not been able to WFH as they have to be present to do their jobs. So what other people think or do is utterly irrelevant in this case.
Your Company is not there to facilitate your childcare, so I would not use that as my argument. Once you have read your contract, and you know your actual position, the request to do shorter hours on your in office days and longer on your WFH would be reasonable. IE if you do 37 hrs, then 3 x 9 hrs WHF and 2 x 5 hrs (9.30-2.30) in the office.
But unless your contract states it, they don't have to agree.

You really can't run an organisation by taking into account every role / preference. (Some latitude can be permitted eg some of our staff have to work on-site). You need some clear, fair points in principle for the hybrid model to work.
Otherwise there'll be endless challenges of the system being unfair, favouritism.

Excellent post.

Oh please ignore this 'advice'. There's so much wrong with this post!

Not least the suggestion that conditions of employment are being breached. They're not.

Whats the issue, is it that you:
a) work sch hours but would now need to pay for some wraparound to cover transport time
b) work longer hours and will be hit financially by needing to pay for longer wraparound (or it may not even be available late enough ime)
c) were working 9-5 but not paying for wraparound care and doing school runs etc.

If its a) alas this is life, most working people do have to pay some wraparound, it usually still works out better than not working the hours at all
b) I'm sympathetic its shit having to try and find and fund very long hours care because you've got a commute either end of a full day
c) I'm less sympathetic, as you should have childcare in place for all the hours you're working from home unless kids are I'd say 10 or older.

Apologies if this has already been asked, but some things I'd be considering:

Have other employees already gone back to work in the office, ie. is this a staged return for everyone at some point? If not, or if there are only a few of you who are being asked to return to office working, have you actually asked the question as to why they require you to physically be in the office rather than WAH? Of course, employers are under no obligation to defend their decision to ask someone to return to a physical place of work, but presumably they have a valid justification for wanting you there and you are quite entitled to ask what this is.

If it's being done plus a mum gets time to pick up her kids at 3pm when normally she'd be chained to a desk, who loses?

I agree. Everyone on my team who has DC can do so on their WFH days, provided they are free.

They can't, however, plan it or assume they can do it. They are working & if we need to have a meeting or there's a business requirement, they have to do that first.

The problem is some people in some workplaces see it as a guaranteed entitlement that they can do each WFH day & don't realise they have to plan an alternative.

It’s about quality as well as quantity though.
I agree with you that a lot of people (Mums mostly) work very efficiently and can pack more into a shorter time it is easier from a Management perspective to have a blanket policy than try to identity and manage the ones who are less productive

I agree with you that a lot of people (Mums mostly) work very efficiently and can pack more into a shorter time
I call complete bullshit on the idea that mothers wotk more efficiently. In my 40 years of working life i have never seen that to be the case.

And based on my many years of working life and personal experience I would disagree, but more politely

OP, I hope you reach a way of working that works for you and your employer or find a different role that works for you and your family. We have recently started to do at least one day a week in office and I hate it so much more than time in office before the pandemic. I’m finding the noise levels in our office distressing. It’s either so quiet everyone can hear every word of a phone call or so noisy it’s overwhelming and distracting. Only one day a week in office and it’s a struggle to keep on top of my mental health every minute I have to spend there. Realised I don’t mind working in an office sometimes though - I do work with some lovely people, I just don’t like my job or my particular office! Working hours fits round the childcare we have so feeling totally stuck until kids are older.

They entertain themselves after they finish school and before I finish work so I’m not caring for them at the same time as working.

At age 9 & 10 this is really borderline. School won't release children that age to go home to empty houses for a reason. They do need an adult there. Are you needing to go and collect them too?

@EarringsandLipstick depends on the organisation. I work for a university and it works fine for us. You don't only take into account employee needs and preferences, you also consider business needs and the nature of the role itself.

But where a job has been done successfully from home for three years it makes no sense to bring in a random 'right two days a week in the office everyone' rule unless there's some compelling (and very unlikely) justification along the lines of 'from now on, everyone has to do two days a week on the shop floor'. If you're still doing the same job as you always were, you're going to be increasing your carbon footprint and negatively impacting your work/life balance for no good reason.

Same with me, I only go in once a week but the night before I feel so much dread.

Especially as most of my team are fully remote (they did a blanket rule that anyone employed before COVID had to go back into the offices) so I sit on my own.

Can you negotiate it down to one day a week in the office and work longer days on the others?

So you work say 8-6 4 days a week and 9.30-2 in the office one day a week?