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).

There’s a new trend of “overemployment”, where people are doing two sometimes three full time jobs and get away with it because they wfh! I just can’t see how anyone can put 100% in to both.

They can't, but it might be a sign of how many bullshit jobs there are.

Everything is more expensive for everyone - including those who've never had the opportunity to WFH, even during covid! Those who could WFH temporarily should be sodding grateful they saved travel and childcare costs when they could - lots couldn't!!

If the work gets done that what does it matter wfh the office or sat on the moon? Isn’t that what we get paid to for? To do the work?

current role as a manager and out office Wednesdays have turned into a zoo people wandering round looking for a chat cakes everywhere 100000 cups of tea breaks you come home drained not to mention zero work completed

We have to go back into the office two days a month now, so hybrid working. I hate the hassle of getting into the office, but when I get there I love it. I love seeing everyone and the atmosphere. We were always full time in the office before the pandemic, so can’t really complain at two days a month. Not sure if want to do two days a week though, it depends what your contract says

I think it's more to do with propping up all the private pension schemes.

SIPPS mainly consist of commercial buildings of which far too many are now unused due to wfh.

The government need the workers to keep this system going.

It's almost impossible for young people to learn how to do the job if they are sat in top of their bed with the occasional teams call.
No point in them being in the office either if all the experience is at home.

It's also hard on people who live alone or just with children to have such limited contact with other adults. Again no point in them being in if the office is empty.

Team building too, easier to get to know people in the office rather than the odd teams call

Sugar that's exactly why I see training a new member of staff as one of the reasons I need to go into the office.
It should be about the task and not about set days in the office & days at home.

If I need to be in the office for a task, including settling in a new member of staff then I go in. If I don't then I just stay at home & get my head down.

But training doesn’t happen on set days, does it. I mean, yes, you might have a training schedule but by only working in the office those days that person is missing out on just being around more experienced employees. Hearing conversations, being able to ask the odd question.

Home working should only be tasked based ie if there is a piece of work that requires you to have complete quiet but the rest of the time, everyone should be back in their place of work.

@Thosesummernights that's an extremely simplistic way of looking at it and not at all reflective of most people I know who do work from home, either full time or hybrid. There are many positives for people who work from home and the companies, believe it or not.

The costs that my company have now freed up by not having to rent out huge office spaces for starters, not having to heat said buildings in the winter etc.

Also, if people don't have to drive because it's not necessary should we really be encouraging extra car use? for the sake of presentism?

As for training - many of our colleagues are overseas as it is an international company - no chance of in person meetings. Teams has worked just fine for training - they simply share their computer screens so we can see exactly what is going on and the sessions are recorded so we can refer back to them when we are doing the work ourselves if we are unsure.

I appreciate working from home isn't for everyone and some people crave that interaction.

Hybrid is the best of both worlds but it isn't a blanket rule that suits everyone and every company.

Generalisations like this are as pointless as they are arrogant.

@Thosesummernights

I started a new job four months ago, I'm wfh. I could go into the office if I want but I don't have to. Barring the first two days where I went in to collect IT stuff, meet my line manager and be shown around the office, I haven't been in again. I'm being trained to use, maintain and amend a fairly complicated data management system and it has been exclusively via calls on Teams with someone else in a similar role. I can call any member of staff within my team and they will explain something or screen share and discuss things.

If you want to make training work remotely and it's viable due to the nature of the job, you can. It just takes some pragmatic thinking.

The view that wfh is only for a specific quiet piece of work etc is incredibly outdated.

@Thosesummernights I agree it's the informal training that young people are missing out on. And that's not comparable to someone who's been in the job 10 years and moved to similar role in a different company.

Some of the departments in my work have decided to have set days at home and set days in the office. That makes a lot of sense from a training and team building aspect.

For young people possibly still living at home the idea of them trying to be professional while using their school homework desk or even worse their bed is nuts.

That's what teams chat is for, we have our open even when at work. It's saves getting up to ask a question and you can also keyword search the history in future if you forget.

Keyword search is extremely useful!

A lot of companies have an auto delete for Teams messages over a couple of weeks old - so not that useful really.

Evidently not the ones people have just spoken about though 🙄

My company does, Teams messages don't last a week, 3 maybe 4 days then disappear.

Who wants to pay for storage or tons of drivel that getting written on teams - stuff like do you know who that guy is in the corner - are you available for a chat - where is x

You can always screenshot particularly useful ones. Much easier than making detailed notes from verbal instructions on how to do some complicated thing.

Yes we have a 30 day autodelete but you can easily save messages if you think they will be useful later.

Not really a reason to make people spend hours and ££££ going into the office while polluting the atmosphere.

Also I don't know why people still think it's the pandemic and all these youngsters are balancing their laptops on their knees in bed. If they don't have a decent home set up they'll go into the office. Or find a local co-working hub.

You cam think of it 2 ways

1. someone higher up is into passing off people and for no benefit is forcing people into work

Or

2. someone higher up can see the bigger picture and while some individuals work as well at home (or better)the company /team overall is not working as well. It works better when everyone is in.

It all depends on how much you trust your management. This will be very industry/ company/role specific which is why there is so much variation.

Definitely industry specific @OhBeAFineGuyKissMe , and also they is a noticeable difference between SMEs and larger companies, public sector etc. The role of course had the biggest impact on whether any aspect of it can be done from home or has to be done in the place of work.