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

Some people can wfh more effectively and some can't. It depends on the person and the job.

Interaction levels between people reduce as a result of wfh. Formal scheduled interaction may be at the same level (meetings) but informal interaction can have a significant impact on company behaviour.

not in my experience! Maybe it's sector dependent. Charities and universities seem very accommodating in my experience.

I work in a senior comms and engagement role so I’ve been looking at this in the financial services company I work with. A few things to note and obviously don’t apply to all people:

-more risk events when people WFH
-people wfh with young children in their care (say preschoolers)
-very hard to fit in meetings because calendars are blocked out 9-930 and 2.45-4 for school runs. ITtracking shows us people aren’t logging in later to make up the hours.
-trainees,apprentices and junior staff aren’t being trained as well as they used to be and past their professional qualifications at a
slower rate
-teams don’t communicate well with one another, let alone with colleagues in different teams. Siloed working has increased
-lots of meetings in the diary as we schedule time to ask a question rather than just walking over to someone’s desk and asking

These don’t apply to everyone, but they apply to enough people we’ve had to start reviewing office attendance. We ask for 2 days a week in the office and I have data on where colleagues live- 95% live within an hour’s commute of our office so not huge distances. The other 5% HR are discussing home working contracts.

Our competitors ask for 3-4 days a week in the office and mandate which days so we are more flexible. We pay well and have great benefits but you are expected to come into the office and it’s made clear at interview and offer stage.

@Twilightstarbright

very hard to fit in meetings because calendars are blocked out 9-930 and 2.45-4 for school runs.

My son works in a big financial services firm and tells us they have two daily "teams" meetings for ALL staff in their department. First at 9.15 and second at 3.00! No excuses. It seems a brilliant way to stop the shirkers as it catches people who start late or take kids for the school run and a mid afternoon "meeting" catches those having a kip, or picking kids up from school. I think it's a good way of managing people and stopping them from taking the piss. It's only 5/10 minutes so doesn't take up much time in the working day, but also keeps all the staff "in the loop" with the projects they're working on, opportunity to flag up any problems, etc. They have to log into the Teams meetings even if they're in the office - DS found it funny at first to talk to people sitting on the desk next to him via Teams, but it's good that everyone else in the dept also hears that discussion, even if just twice a day!

And a big yes to your comment about training new staff. It's terrible for the young new starters, new graduates, etc. Especially those who've never worked in a similar environment before. No opportunity for "osmosis" of just being around other workers, listening to their discussions and phone calls, just getting general "chit chat" about the firm, the work, unable to watch someone else do something, unable to ask quick/stupid questions when the other person isn't doing anything - you can see they're "free" if you're with them but may be put off disturbing them by online chat or phone as you don't know they're not busy, etc. We're going to see BIG problems in the future with trainees taking longer to get up to speed, not having the same breadth of knowledge/experience, etc. Even if they do go into the office 5 days per week, not much help if their direct colleagues aren't in the office - it's no better than being at home if you still have to communicate by phone, email, online chat, etc.

@taxguru absolutely!

We have seen less internal applications for roles because people don’t know their wider colleagues and what their team does, which they pick up from casual chats/ attending L&D in person, social events etc.

Because managers often won't deal situ individuals that take the piss and everyone gets penalised. Micro managers. Also them wanting office space used.

It is awful as being a disabled person this is the only way I can work. If this was withdrawn I would end up on benefits.

Also, I did used to work in an office and was amazed how little people did. Frequent smoke breaks, hour long chats about tv progs a few times a day.

We use slack and teams, have frequent meetings and I speak to people more than I did in office. I cannot work in open plan offices without headphones and everything is open plan now. I don't want to chit chat with colleagues either and avoid all social events. As an introvert wfh just works better even without the disability.

Poor management that don’t have the skills to manage remote teams (which is hardly a new thing) or organise their in-office meetings effectively. It’s lazy management which in turn creates a child-like attitude to working for some.

I have a fairly new business and offer full time
wfh employment, flexible for school pick up etc but we're now on our 3rd person due to the absolute piss taking. 4 hours work max a day instead of full time hours (I went for an older person with no kids this time). Hopefully the latest person works out or next time the hire will be office based which will mean me office based too.

@MrsPerfect12 that is frustrating.

I hugely value flexible working and as someone with a long term illness/disability I wouldn’t be able to work without it but I don’t take the piss. Today for example I have a rheumatologist appointment so I’m WFH and taking a long lunch but I logged in at 8am rather than 9am to compensate. If I wasn’t allowed to do this I’d probably have to call in sick or take it as unpaid leave which is far from ideal.

After the Black Death, there was a massive shortage of labour, so the peasants wanted more money. The aristocrats weren't remotely happy about the plebs getting ideas above their station, and did their best to put them back in their boxes with low pay. However, they largely did get more pay.

It's similar now - some employers are desperately trying to get their employees back in their boxes after covid. it's all about control and protectionism.

Whether they'll succeed, I don't know. There are probably enough employers taking a more flexible approach. But see post-WW2 Britain (and maybe other countries as well) where women had done all the jobs in the war but then got sacked to make way for the men and it's taken a long time to claw back employment opportunities for women.

It's interesting about the efforts to obstruct people doing school runs.

The more progressive organisations do the opposite and make sure they are family friendly by not timing meetings around school runs.

There's a lot to be said for the loyalty you get from staff if you treat them well. There are also employment law implications of not accommodating reasonable requests to work flexibly around children

Many parents would also choose a family friendly job over one with higher pay.

It's because the notion engrained into work and particularly bureaucratic office work is that the ideal worker is unencumbered and available with no childcare concerns or household mental loads to worry about, can turn up any time and work late (i.e. male)

Well women have massively benefitted from more flexible working. The older men in positions of power who love coming into the office, working late to avoid family life, and believe those who work long hours work harder don’t like it.

We wouldn’t want women to be given an opportunity to be able to work full time, progress through the ranks, and get into a position of power would we?

This.

I always laugh so hard when people pretend that everyone, or even most, were soooo productive in the office. You had hour long chats in the hallway about holidays or the latest football match, smoke breaks, impromptu coffee meetings about nothing, two coworkers chatting about their latest house renovation sitting at desks next to each other.

I go to the office once a week and always come armed with headphones, because focused work is simply impossible with all the chatter going on sometimes. I worked in one office (before covid) that was completely open plan and headphones were banned by management, yet their had their own individual offices to work in that were soundproofed from the rest of the office. I saw one coworker after another burn out. So much for "piss-taking".

In years before corona I also saw people working less well in teams and communicating a lot less, but that is only because the team-sizes decreased over time till there was only one person per project left. There was often no one to mentor you, because the turn over was high and there simply weren't any people with the knowledge available or with the time if they did.

Every proplem we see with working from home already existed before corona. There were fewer opportunities for young employees to learn and people were already overworked and overloaded.

Some companies also use it as a quiet firing tactic. Some people can't return to the office or never worked there in the first place (or don't even live in the same country). These people will lose their jobs because they can't comply with the new policies. It's a great way for a company to downsize without making investors nervous.

Ditto for all the fake job-openings out there.

I think it massively depends on the industry and the job, so you can't generalise.

In my industry, a day or two at home for more senior people who have big projects can work - but they also need to be in the office.

Junior people generally need to be in the office, both for their own learning and in order to be useful.

Quite!

Yes I am pretty convinced that this is a way of sorting job cuts without having to announce you are making any.

Plus I saw our old chief exec snogging a member of staff back in the "everyone in the office all the time" days. I am pretty sure that wasn't exactly a "productive" use of his time . I expect letchy senior men prefer women people back in the office where they can keep their hands eyes on them

But see post-WW2 Britain (and maybe other countries as well) where women had done all the jobs in the war but then got sacked to make way for the men

The men of course had been sitting around on their backsides doing nothing, not away in the forces fighting (and dying) for their country, and perhaps hoping they'd have a job to come back to if they survived.

And many of the jobs women were doing were in war-related industries, and wouldn't exist once the war was over.

Because, from the academic side at least, university work is essentially piece work. Missed deadlines will make it pretty obvious if you are underperforming.

I’ve been wfh since 2016. They can monitor my work and more than happy with it.

nit sure who the piss takers are but when I’m in the office my work suffers as there are so many distractions.

Good companies/employers don’t. My husband and son in law both wfh (husband full time, public sector, SIL hybrid, 3 days at home, private), both employers fully on board.

If it's a big company it's because they can't be bothered to train the managers to understand how to get the best out of people. Those managers are usually the ones who don't do their jobs correctly, and are the shirkers, but believe that everyone else can't do their job and will shirk.
If it's a small company, it's usually because the boss has the notion (and perogative) that they should just be in the office because he is.

I had an office contract pre pandemic. I then got very ill and was allowed to WFH. They sort of left me to fester. I got on with it but there was no face to face one to ones. HR eventually asked if I was still temporarily WFH. They were also reviewing salaries at the time and I still had Inner City Weighting. I told them to remove it and make my contract permanent WFH. That was in case a new manager came in and said I should come in.

Then when the pandemic came in, everyone kept their Inner City Weighting but was WFH, but in a hybrid way.

I have to say I never took the piss but it was more that it had a negative impact on my mental wellbeing.

It's actually senior managers that are the hardest to get hold of now. They are all backed up in their diaries.

Speaking from my own experience when I have worked from home, I worked many more hours because I worked my travelling time. I started work when I would normally leave for my commute and work later.

There is a double benefit. As you correctly point out, you get more done through being less distracted.

In my company people work longer hours because we are allowed to work flexibly from home. People that were resistant to WFH pre COVID are amongst the biggest supporters.