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).

The "what did you do before COVID" arguments are tone deaf and likely to come from people who have already been forced back to work and are bitter/never had the option to work remotely/don't have circumstances at home that make it a faff to commute to work. Three years is a long time. People's lives have changed in that time. New children born, working patterns adapted to reflect change to commuting hours. Many people will have started new jobs. The shift back to working in the office is much harder than shifting to remote working was in the first place.

I'm particularly averse to policies like this where they demand two days a week in the office across the board. It's just arbitrary. Much better to have policies that take into account individuals' circumstances, the requirements of the business and the requirements of the actual role itself.

This is 100% it. Everyone who is against returning to the office is massively more productive at home and have children who will sit in another room for two hours (or 7.5 in the holidays) and be silent, not need anything and be happily ignored.

In reality the parents who do after school childcare in my workplace have kids in the background and are distracted.

Well said I agree ☝️ x

People who provide a service to the public should not be wfh with DC and pets in the background, if you work for a private company and have no public contact then it doesn't impact people that don't work for the company so you can do what you want

It will depend what it says on your contract. If your job is not described as home based or remote working then the union won't be able to help you. Your employer has the right to ask you to return to the office but maybe you could negotiate hybrid working.

You have the right to find a new job that is 100% remote working, if you can find one.

Sorry I can't edit but just read the OP again and only being asked to return 2 days a week anyway. That is reasonable as long as contract doesn't state that the job is home based/remote working.

Talk to your boss. As a single and lone parent, you're in a different situation to someone with no kids or a supportive co parent. Whatever we did before Covid is irrelevant. There's no point in making life harder than it needs to be, just because it used to be like that.

Its absolutely key for working mothers as far I can see, why put blockers in place to continue to make things harder for mums when they are literally unnecessary.

I still think WFH is worse for working mums. Working mums are expected to care for their children while they're working.

It'd be interesting if research was done about how many wfh mums are doing childcare vs dads.

Within my social circle it's mainly the mums that do it and the dads only in an emergency.

When in the office people would use childcare but it's now another thing for the mum to do. This is why even though I do wfh about 50% of the time I refuse to do childcare as well. My husband works out of home but my work time is just as important as him so we share the childcare (luckily he's not a dick so agrees).

It's astonishingly naive of anyone to assume that 100% wfh would continue. Making long term personal decisions based on that was always a risk.

As time has gone on, companies have realised the downsides to their business of noir having people in the office, and hybrid is becoming the norm.

@Flexipecs you recognise the need for new starters to have face to face interaction and learning. There's no point in them being in the office if the people like you that they need to learn from, aren't there.

I totally get that as a single parent, wfh had been a lifeline and I do sympathise. But however well you're working, your company is losing something by not having you in the office. They're not being unreasonable to try to bring back the face to face community. Basically it's not just about you.

Personally I think wfh, or at least hybrid working, should become the norm for all jobs where it is possible. For my job it isn't possible, but I feel that the benefits to all far outweigh the negatives.

Nerr "I still think WFH is worse for working mums. Working mums are expected to care for their children while they're working. "

expected by whom?

I'm old so I remember the days that having a child audible on the work phone was completely unacceptable.

This is pretty normal now. 2 days in is actually good, we are only allowed 1 day at home now.

Yes I’m noticing a real plummet in service quality. Noisy backgrounds when dealing with quite personal details , phones not being answered,messages not being answered promptly if at all.

Unless there is a serious shortage of clinicians I don’t think any part of the NHS should be working from home and if it needs to be to get through patients only on a temporary basis. Ditto anything that involves finance or personal data. I strongly suspect at some point there is going to be a massive data breech highlighting how vulnerable WFH makes our personal data.

You can't possibly know that.

In my case for instance there's no benefit to the business of me going back in. All our new starters are not UK based, so me going in the office has no effect on them. What I find is that certain people use being in the office to chat and complain, so being physically present is actually detrimental because everyone gets less done than they would have done at home.

I say this as someone who doesn't mind going in two days a week - but the down sides very clearly outweigh the upsides from the business perspective!

They are asking for 2 days not 5. Completely reasonable. You can’t be doing child care and working properly. Everyone has convinced themselves that they can, but it really isn’t the case. You could ask for split hours, and work in the evening but that’s a nightmare for communication with your colleagues not to mention supervision.

Your data is vulnerable anyway all it takes is a motivated hacker and they can have the system.

Well aware but frankly having it spread round various houses that nobody ever checks with parents doing childcare at the same time puts it under even more unnecessary vulnerability and hackerbility.

It's takes all sorts of people to do all sorts of different jobs

Anyone who assumes productivity is always higher in the office hasn't actually looked at the evidence

In my experience People leaders are one type of persons - typically arse wiping self serving get ahead types who like to been seen and can't understand that other people are different ( and are generally keeping the business afloat )

I don't particularly mind going into the office - like the OP I am a 'hybrid' worker expected to spend a certain amount of time in the office - but I'm the only person in my team based in my location, so it's a lonely experience as I'm sitting amongst people I don't know at all and who aren't in the same department so we have no work in common.

It's a hot-desk system so it's not even as if I'm sitting near the same people every time I go in, and could get to know folk that way.

I was in on Monday and whoever the team were that I found myself sitting with, had brought cakes for a birthday or something - sitting with my headphones on while they were all having cake and ignoring me was not a very inspiring experience.

Of course, at home I'm on my own too, but it feels far less lonely to be alone in my home office than it does to be sitting amongst 100 strangers.

In the experience of the people I know it's expected by their husbands to save money. It's becoming the norm, people saying 'I don't need to use after school club because I'm now working from home'.

Lots of employers are happy to continue to support wfh.

Fully wfh? Are they? I don't know anyone who still does 5 days a week at home with no expectation to go into office.

You will find another job. There's a recruitment crisis in many sectors and it's a job seekers market.

There is in care, hospitality etc but in other sectors it's very hard to secure a job currently.

OP I'm not sure what the union would do, you could formally apply for full time wfh under flexible working but if they want people back it seems unlikely.

That's sad if women can't say "no" to their husbands.

I couldn't believe some of that stuff!
I've come to the conclusion that some jobs are very low imput - mind you, the wages could be low.

The back to the office is driven by middle managers who don't actually do a job that needs to be done(and without presenteeism this is frighteningly obvious) and people with big real estate investments (that's why the daily mail hates wfh). It's sad how many people are being forced to live more expensive and stressful lives because of this.

"It, like, really helps you collaborate and teamify!" is such weaksauce. You can use tech to be present.

Options - if you're in a unionised workforce, refuse if it's genuinely not necessary and you've got a good track record. Either overtly or by simply not coming into the office.

If you think they'll genuinely sack you for that (some would, some wouldn't), consider if you've got a case for ft wfh as an equality act adjustment.

If all else fails, get another job. Plenty of people are 100% wfh and that's only going to increase.

It's a real shame there can't be more live and let live. Humans are so into forced conformity for its own sake.

25% ?

The highest UK rate was 17% in Nov 79