Why do companies seem to hate wfh and flexible working?

[numenor]

I really don't understand it so many companies bringing in stringent return to the office policies and curtailing flexible working.

I'm a single working mum and really couldn't work without these things and I don't think I'm alone in that.

What is it about these things companies don't like 🤷‍♀️.

Surely it's a good thing to encourage work and to be able to hire the best candidate

Or taking naps or doing other activities.

The nature of my job means I can't do any of those. It isn't about presenteeism, but about getting the work done. I don't take the piss, neither does anyone else in my team, but I realise that in many cases that a lot of people do.

I find seeing and being with my workmates does make for a better team spirit as well.

It is because a few spoil it for the many.

Flexible working was introduced in another dept in a place I worked in about 30 years ago, it was very rare back then, very big employer. About 20% of the workforce caused big issues and were massive piss takers. I was a union rep so got involved with all the shenanigans. Management asked for a check in and check out clock. They wouldn’t have it. This was a flexible start and finish time, no WFH. But still very useful. If it had worked we could have used it a case for other departments to have flexibility. So in the end they lost the arrangement and spoilt it for potentially thousands of workers.

A couple of my neighbours WFH as does DH sometimes. Established people, neighbours both have small kids. Live set up. I think for young adults establishing themselves it’s very isolating. I know my friends DS hates it.

I work almost entirely from home, as do all of my colleagues. We can go in but hardly anyone does, which means that even those who would like to go in don’t bother as no one is there.

i started with this employer during lockdown.

In all honesty, it’s crap for the employer. All this ‘you can work just as well or better at home’ is nonsense. I have no relationships built up with people at work, no social capital, no helping each other out or doing people a favor, learning curve on the job is slow to non-existent, everything takes longer as you can’t quickly catch people at their desk and sort things out, i can’t create new projects as I used to as I am not in the office having conversations, building networks, finding out what’s going on and using that to be creative and problem solve. Simple things like working g out how to use software takes ages as you can’t just turn to a colleague and say ‘how do I do this?’. I also feel completely disconnected from my work due to all this. I just don’t care about it, why would I when it’s like this? It feels like quite an abstract thing I do now.

I don’t think it’s due to people taking the piss - people can’t skive at home if they have enough work to do. If people aren’t working at home that’s because managers aren’t managing staff well and occupying their time with enough work.

The fact is the social, in person interaction at work is a core part of most jobs. It wasn’t just a chit-chatty nicety. And most workplaces cannot function as well without it.

WFH has benefits for me, but it’s all losses, and significant ones, for my employer.

I used to be a big fan of it. But now I don’t trust it. To many people have alleged doctors appointments/dentist/car mechanic/traffic delays post school run etc.

And, if I am honest, I find to many people juggle childcare around their work. Sorry, but pre-Covid we just cracked on. If you have a child under 10 in your house whilst you are working, I can guarantee you are not working your core hours and likely finding things are slipping. It’s not fair on the rest of her to pick up extra work because someone is using WFH to avoid finding appropriate childcare, which seems to be increasingly common.

Yes, it's the few pisstakers ruining things for others.

In our team we have some excellent workers who are doing great from home.

But we have 2 or 3 that seem to be offline a lot, and doing far less work than others.

Sadly management have decided to enforce more days back in the office and strict online times due to this.

I used to be a big fan of it. But now I don’t trust it.

I think you should say "now I don't trust my colleagues".

Totally agree with this. As an exhausted menopausal woman hybrid working has been a godsend for me. I know I also get more done at home without the constant interruptions when in office. I do agree people should spend some time in office to mix with your team. I do think lots of people with children are taking the piss now. I've noticed more children in the background on calls these holidays. Sick of delays while people are "dropping the kids off". These people say they make the time up but it's the disruption to the business. No way are people doing a proper job if they have children yapping in the background. I think we've gone too far with flexibility nowadays.

I can WFH if i want to but choose to go into the office most days.
I’m more productive in the office and have a better desk set up( giant screens)
I had to work from home last week as my son started school and wraparound care didn’t start until this week.
That hour and a half of him being home wasn’t as productive as it could have been and I felt guilty that he was sitting watching tv. I don’t know how people can have little ones and wfh all day!

Saying that there are some days when the office is practically empty. It will soon be a matter of use it or lose it and WFH will be the standard- the company can save on rent then.

I could earn triple my salary if I wanted to work in a job that didn't allow me to work around school runs etc. My employer knows that too.

I actually don't know why they don't like and I'm on the management board. We discuss it a lot. We give a lot of flexibility, hybrid policy but it's not really enforced and we can pretty much come and go as we like (depending on job function but everyone has some degree of flex). People work hard, we have a high-functioning high-achieving team on the whole and it's easy to see who isn't. However there are still a couple of people on the board who want people in the office more. And as far as I can see there is no more rationale for it than they Want. People. In. The. Office. More.

These people would not be working more in the office though. They would just be sitting at their desk, being bored and trying to look busy. This is a management failure. If a manager has a member of staff who has 10 to 15 ( or more) free hours a werk, then that manager has failed. Of course once they are at home the under occupied staff will fill their time more constructively with their personal pursuits. The problem is the managers who don’t allocate sufficient work to staff.

Unfortunately, it is people taking the piss.

Last week, on Facebook, saw someone I know post (not his real name) "Freddie's friends didn't have childcare today so playdate time while I WFH" - caption for a photo of 3 5 year olds.. Same guy looks after his 2 year old once a week while "WFH", his 5 year old every day after school and regularly posts photos in soft plays etc literally captioned "WFH is great"

Many people WFH properly but many do not.

As someone with a large team, it is a lot easier to manage workloads, resolve problems and see who is taking the piss in the office.

When you're managing someone proactive and keen, it's fine to manage remotely but it breaks down when there are performance issues.

I understand that people can be more productive, able to concentrate better at home
I know I can (as well as occassionally being distracted) because there is no one popping in to give you another piece of work or dropping off something they want fir next week. I don't have to answer the door or the phone. I can maybe do a similar amount of work in 5 or 6 hours at home v 8 at work....but I know some people do over estimate how efficient they are.
I worked with someone years ago (in a physical workplace) who claimed when she left her previous workplace, her work had to be split between 3 FT people, and we wouldn't believe how quick and efficient she was. She did do some things quickly, and made lots of mistakes, but otherwise there was nothing at all noteworthy about her work ethic or productivity. In fact she was probably the least efficient out of a team of 6.

People took the piss when fully office based.

I regularly saw whole days disappear arranging off-site meetings, going for a coffee catch up with colleagues, meetings taking over an hour when an email would have been overkill.

Sometimes it couldn't have been badged up as even 'kind of work' if the manager was bored and wanted to talk about holidays or something.

I have been fully WFH since the very early days of covid, including moving to a different company. I far prefer it. Prior to this I had worked for many years with colleagues being scattered around different countries so creating relationships online was normal for me.

Anyway, clock is ticking so I had better get on....

I’m going to second what other posters have said.
Straight off the top off my head I can’t think of 2 instances where the person wfh was taking the pee.

1. I needed urgent technical support. The specialist I was speaking to spent the entire time dealing with children who were listening in on the supposedly private conversation we were having. Baring in mind that I have to be have an enhanced DBS check to access the information I was dealing with and her children were mimicking all the security answers I was giving, this could be construed as gross misconduct on her part. I did actually consider reporting her, as she was falling to adhere to the securing standards imposed on us.
2. An occasion where I needed urgent advice whilst dealing face to face with a client. The senior manager ‘working from home,’ whilst insisted we can’t work from home. Anyway 20 mins later she had not replied to my urgent message. Clearly she wasn’t even say next to her laptop never mind working. She did get back to me eventually and I told her I had had to deal with the situation without her support as best I could. I have a friend who admits that wfh often means her laptop is switched on whilst she gets on with housework. Once it gets to the last hour of her working day, she is not working but doing other things such as cooking dinner.

This is it.

My work also can't work out if they're flexible or not. You can work any hours 7-9, but must spend 40% of the time in the office.

Which means the vast majority of teams spend about one or two hours in the office at the same time, not collaborating, and usually on Teams meetings to colleagues who've chosen not to b in that day.

I mandated Tuesday and Wednesday a fortnight in the office for my old team. We'd stack all our planning meetings on those two days, then people could come whenever in-between.

Because the were all together the same two days, they often planned these little get togethers then.

I know mumsnet is keen on this idea that it's all the fault of managers when people take the piss but I don't think that's fair.

I have had big teams both before and after COVID and while there have always been piss takers, there is no doubt that WFH has facilitated piss taking to an extraordinary extent.

People are literally swapping tips on mouse jigglers and special software to appear busy on another thread. I can spend lots of time monitoring outputs and trying to performance manage or I can get everyone back to the office.. Plus piss takers are drawn to WFH jobs because it's so much easier to take the piss so it weeds out a few just by doing it

Anyway, my train to the office just pulled in so..

The same people who like uniform on kids at school. Control.

100% this.

I don't think this entirely true

Whilst lots of people can and do work productively and efficiently at home, there are some examples where being together in an workplaces can be advantageous (eg training new recruits or juniors, explaining something that needs physical demo, collaborative projects etc)

I've yet to see anyone make a decent argument why a tie or partcular colour of sock, is helpful to learning....

If your staff have enough to do they don't need mouse jigglers....

I had the "pleasure" of sitting through a full day of online training recently. I nearly fell asleep by the lack of interaction compared to an in-person training.

Yes, the slides and system presentation would have been the same but there is so much more you do in a physical training compared to just stitting and watching it.

We are currently lobbying for a round table meeting in-person as several people find it does make things more productive than endless teams call.

I think a lot of managers just don't know how to manage people properly. They are promoted without leadership training and left to figure it out by themselves. This leads to micro management where they have to look over your shoulder every second of the day. I work for someone like this who was promoted above her ability level and ultimately can't cope with the responsibility. She dictates emails for us to write instead of handing over the task, she just can't let go of control and delegate at all. She can't do this if we WFH, so she blocks every one off request.

You are still entitled to a lunch break when working from home.