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).

These companies will lose good employees

Well they are paying for office space that now unused.

People need to be part of the team.

Employees generally over-estimate their effectiveness WFH as they only consider the output rate and under-estimate the benefits of a network, training and promotion opportunities, relationships, brain-storming, agile working..

If there’s truly a job that can be done better from home than working with colleagues, I suspect it will be automated in time or could go offshore.

I see women in particular miss out as they don’t want to attend the office or feel they can’t for whatever reasons. I am sympathetic but I would move heaven and earth to attend especially if it’s just 2 days.

Exactly this. @Flexipecs It was NEVER going to be a permanent thing working from home. And how can you possibly do your job adequately when you are allegedly looking after your kids?

Going back 2 days a week is absolutely fine. You need to suck it up. As pps have said, you need to be part of the team.

Can you negotiate 3 days in the office instead but in school hours and you'll make up the time once you're at home?

If there’s truly a job that can be done better from home than working with colleagues, I suspect it will be automated in time or could go offshore.

Agreed. And /or your employer will be much less concerned about losing you because they can replace you from a potentially worldwide (or at least nationwide) pool of candidates

Igree. It’s hard being a single working parent.
WFH is a lifeline.
It allows us working single parents to work
more hours than is otherwise possible.
You can work more out of hours in the evening etc around childcare. Longer hours without being completely destroyed by life and having your kids permanently in childcare.
Not all kids are suited to extended childcare arrangements around work.
Sure it’s not the same in terms of team building etc but life is complex.
I guess it depends as someone
else said If you have a skill /
training that is in short supply.

I’d rather good remote employees that do their jobs well (I don’t care if they are looking after their kids at the same time, as long as the work gets done) than have them forced to leave because of their circumstances…regardless if I am paying for office space (which I was paying for anyway before covid!).

I’d be making plans to rent a smaller office for those that want to use an office space.

Things have changed. Remote work/flexibility is great for single parents (especially women!), those who have disabilities etc.

Thanks for all the replies. I’ve been given everything said a lot of thought. My kids are 9 and 10 so they can walk across the street to/from the school by themselves. 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.

I do agree that I’m going to have to come to a compromise with my boss. She’s a reasonable boss so I’m going to suggest making up the extra hours later in the evening.

I think being in the office is more important for colleagues who want to network so they can progress throughout the company, and it’s easier for newer colleagues to learn in an office environment but I also think my productivity will decrease while I’m in the office. That’s the company’s choice though.

Is it possible to work less hours the two days you go into the office?

Huuby has been told this is a government push to get people back at work in towns/cities so they spend more in shops/cafes propping up fat cat business owners. Just take your own tea/coffee/lunch! Oh, and work to rule.

I read some of the thread & all OP's posts so apologies if all this has been said!

You are missing the point wildly OP.

If you previously worked in the office, as it appears, then WFH has been an anomaly, albeit one that surprisingly extended for a long time. (Most workplaces moved to hybrid at least 2 years ago).

You are still benefitting from 3 days wfh, and flexibly at that as it seems it enables some collection of your DC, and presumably organising a snack & supervising them. Great if that works for you & employer.

Going in 2 days a week is not about career progression or at least not mainly. It's about commenting as a workplace community, allowing natural & on the spot conversations which are less easy online / phone & in general creating a cohesive workplace. Hybrid / blended can work - the on-site elements are almost always important for efficiency.

I'm sorry your ex is paying insufficient maintenance. I'm a single parent, I get it. But it's so unreasonable of you to assume that's a problem for your employer. Childcare is a condition of work.

If I were your manager I would not agree to you making up hours from home. This is primarily for your well-being. You need proper down time, with your DC & resting / personal time / sleep. It's also because any workplace needs at least some agreed boundaries - what if someone decides working 12 am - 7 am is actually what suits you?

I think asking to work fewer hours is reasonable & I'd accommodate that. But you say that causes issues of affordability.

It's time to face up to ex not paying sufficient maintenance & take it from there.

Oh seriously!!!

'Fat cat' business owners, nonsense!

Five pages in and the low productivity of the UK is explained.
People paid to be attached to laptops but very little meaningful way to measure individual contributions and reward people for it.
If businesses, supposedly with a profit motive aren't incentivising the things that generate profit, it can't be surprising that an increasing number of people are going to take the pee.
Meanwhile, untility companies, supermarkets and banks are all allowed to behave badly in pursuit of excess profits but individuals profiting from selling their own human labour poses an existential threat to the economy - according to a man on £600k per year, a ten-year contract and a track record of solid failure.

It's not a pandemic anymore.. everyone is having to go back into the office and two days a week isn't bad

Who wants to be a work poodle.

Who really believes in some
of the stuff mentioned such as the value of spontaneous conversation, brainstorming and agile working. Do me a favour and please save it for the young and impressionable.

Lots of management type people on here convinced of their people management skills And superior perspective.

Anyway we don’t really know what the OP actually does. I suspect wfh versus in a office depends on what your actual job is.

I work from home one day a week, in work 3 days and one day I don't work. I only started work during the pandemic and if I hadn't been in the office I would have struggled to get a grasp of what was required, the culture, expectations etc. I couldn't do the whole job from home but I can do the writing up , research , reading stuff in a day. I work very differently at home, make cups of coffee, feed the cats, hang washing out, sit in the garden with my lap-top. It's not anywhere near as demanding as being in the office or in a school meeting people. I do record what I do and, if they wanted to they could check my work phone records, logins, reading so they knew what I was doing. They definitely get more out of me in the building though because I am on hand for whatever they call me into or ask me to deal with so they get more bang for their buck so to speak. INSET us much better delivered face to face with active tasks so you can tell how people are responding to it, grasping it, interacting with others. We do a lot of inset for our staff and schools. It is deadly done online. I also think people just pretend to attend meetings online and take no part- so ours are held in the building. That could just be the nature of what I do.
Working at home is much easier I think. In September I am going back to full-time when DS2 starts Reception. I will still work at home one day. It will be harder because we'll have 3 to drop off at school and pick-up but, between DH and I, it is doable. We both work within 20 minutes of home- although in different directions. MIL has offered to pick them up and give them tea one day.

I believe in the value of spontaneous conversation where you are with people and thinking and creating together, testing thinking, challenging ideas, planning, working through things to reach shared conclusions. I think it's a really creative way for a team to work and can often produce great outcomes which really are a group creation. It enhances things like trust, sharing, feeling valued. Work would be deadly if it was something you never got a chance to contribute anything of value to, that brings about change for the better and it was all just 'doing' - it would be for me anyway.

Well for me it is a big issue to be fair! Not everyone has a luxury of grandparents picking kids up from school and cost of childcare/ wraparound is huge. Far more than before pandemic. It is not only the fact that you need to be in the office 9-5 (for argument sake), you need to get there etc. For a child child of the age of 4-5 is a long day, they are exhausted and everyone struggles at the end of the day.
I think the op wrote the post for a support not for a cheeky comment like that.

People who are against WFH, do they have the same resistance to those who have flexible working patterns e.g. working only 3 or 4 days when the rest of the team works 5? from experience this is more disruptive to the team's output if you have to wait 1 or 2 days for someone to come back to work every week, than if they WFH and could be contacted at any time, start early/finish late etc

I'm sure the answer is no, because most would agree that where possible, people should be able to arrange their working hours in a way that best suits their needs and mental/physical health.

So why can't the same flexibility be extended to those who need to WFH?

@Flexipecs ask your employers how your productivity stacks up once you’ve gone back to the office 2 days per week. Your assertion that you’re more productive at home might be true but equally you could be proven wrong. If true you can push to WFH full time again.

Your second sweeping generalisation “You can bet the people who make these decisions don’t have any carer responsibilities that they can’t afford to pay someone else to cover.” is not fair. You don’t know what issues people have to deal with but they do have a responsibility to run the company effectively so you all keep your jobs.

Someone who needs to keep their job.

You can believe what you like, but I am certainly not "young and impressionable" and I firmly believe in the value of spontaneous conversation, brainstorming, and agile working.

I can't believe how many entitled people there are in the UK (or maybe just on MN) where people seem to think work is all about them and they can dictate the terms!! Mind boggling. For what it's worth, I'm not in the UK and I don't know a single person who works from home (obviously there are lots, but where I live most people have been back in their workplaces since lockdowns ended). I've yet to hear a complaint.

Aah, you are in the opinion that other's opinions are not serious if they don't match yours.
You know this is a forum...
I do NOT WFH. I worked all through the pandemic. As did hubby. He also had flexible work options to WFH priir to pandemic. The company gas cancelled ALL pre pandemic FWO, too. Hubby has no team members locally so will not be having these benefits you speak of. He will spend 1hr travelling to sit in an office speaking to the same people he currently does who are not based in the same city. He currently spends that hour working. He is looking forward to trying to hot desk in a building without a team. This is not going to improve his productivity. He has mentioned the people who skive at home were same people who disappeared in the office. There are no productivity examples home vs work and at board level, the message is Govt driven. Believe what you like but there are lots of CEOs needing people to spend cash daily.

Talk about sweeping assumptions!

It's absolutely the case that meaningful work often requires f2f opportunities, including the chance for spontaneous discussions, and not at all management speak.

Your sneery post says a lot.

We don't know what OP does. We do know her employer, reasonably, would like to have employees work in a blended / hybrid model. This is their prerogative as the employer, you know the body paying the wages.

OP may not like this but it is not some fault of the employer that it adversely affects her finances. There are of course fully wfh jobs & OP is free to apply for & work at one of those.

Well, you can't be very productive at the times when you are doing the school run and looking after the DC after school.