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

More fool you if you are working more hours than contracted to ..working for free essentially. If you get more work done wfh there should be zero reasons to do more than you are contracted to do.

The fact remains that they were expected to make way for the men and give up their freedoms and jobs. Yes some of the jobs no longer existed but new ones did.

And the women were in daily danger in many jobs, too.

My point was that there are cultural and societal changes, but employers try to hang on to the old ways like grim death to retain control.

I found it depends a lot on the corporate culture and the senior manager.

Our branch manager has two pre-teens, he drops them off at school and comes in around 10am. Due to his position he often has evening social appointments but his PA is also known for brually blocking time in his diary for parent evenings and school plays.
He takes school holidays off like any other parent.

He has lots of symphaty for parents and our HR reflects his attitude as well. Nevertheless, he expects people to work and not do childcare when wfh.

His predecessor - children in boarding school, very much a be visible in the office person and anything you needed time off for had to be part of your annual leave.

When DD was small and DH still working in-office, it was he who would run home if the nursery called or stay at home if I had meetings I couldn't change. He had the pleasure of dealing with chicken pox while I was abroad for project work.
Again, his company was flexible and happy to accomodate things. It obvious helped that he had no core hours and with half of his client in the US, he sometimes worked a bit late when DD was in bed.

It’s the absolute opposite for me. About 75% of my time is spent on conference calls. When I have a project team all working different hours it’s impossible to arrange anything and you end up having the same conversation four times. But if everyone who needs to be is in those conversations at the same time when they’re needed, it doesn’t matter where they are. Even if 9 out of 10 were in the same office, we’d still have to do everything on a call to accommodate the one person in a different office. And the last 3 companies I’ve worked for over a 15 year period have all been like that.

I'm surprised that the benefits of talking and social interaction are not more widely acknowledged. It seems to be productivity vs big brother Very simplistic.

Some people definitively take advantage of the situation and work very little or while doing other things.
Then, there are the ones that actually work more or more efficiently. But these ones will suffer due to the piss takers.
I think, with medium to big teams that share tasks, it is a time demanding task to assess who did what with some softwares. If tasks are clearly allocated and individual engagement can be clearly assess, then this should not happen.
Unfortunately, many managers do not bother to look properly on how the team and individuals are working at least there is an issue of some sort. And even so, they fix the issue and walk away.
Have a look at some of the threads here for high wage individuals. A few have said they are iddle quite a bit of the time..... then they use their expertise to sort critical issues......

Other reason, though, could be that much is achieved by colleagues having a chat at break time. Just sharing a bit of info on issues, how to sort problems, how to use this application or other in the software....
If the managers do not have some catch up meetings, or a pal/ mentor scheme, this is lost.

Totally agree. Natural and unplanned conversation can be very fruitful

There are some people taking the piss for sure. But a lot of people think workers are fundamentally untrustworthy and that unless you can see them, they wont be working hard. Seems to go along with being right wing.

IME there is piss taking both WFH and in the office. However, I have noticed that it tends to be different people.

The office based pisstaking would be disguised as work. Coffee catchups which were just gossip, offsite meetings which were an excuse for a free long lunch, meetings which were gossip plus free coffee and biscuits.

Managers would be particularly guilty of all of this. The most guilty were very keen to get their teams back in after covid so that the fun could start again.

WFH pisstaking is more often clear to see. People being present but unresponsive. Work not being delivered on time or in full.

Something I haven't seen/heard mentioned much is the impact WFH has had on sick days. How many people who would call in sick if office based but would be more likely to at least get some work done if WFH?

The people who take the piss wfh take the piss wfo. People don’t suddenly change fundamentally their attitude to work because of their location. Looking at you colleague who does sweet fa 😁

The team that reports to me works in a hybrid fashion, I have experienced of people who work really hard when wfh, and the exact opposite.

I always start from a position of trust with a clear and measurable workload, look for the good and expect people to simply do what they are meant to do. It is easy to see if someone is slacking within a really short timescale because either their output isn't sufficient or the quality of their work isn't what it should be.

Leading a remote workforce is a well researched challenge that most have yet to solve. I accept that is really difficult to replicate both communication and connection in completely remote teams.

I'm not a huge fan of wfh without designated core hours. I was reminded of that recently when a colleague came to me with a concern because her immediate line manager and their line manager were unavailble because policies allow wfh from 7am-7pm. Fifteen minutes later their problems and concerns had evaporated because my job includes mentoring/supporting.

So I think there's a balance to be had.

Something I haven't seen/heard mentioned much is the impact WFH has had on sick days. How many people who would call in sick if office based but would be more likely to at least get some work done if WFH

I get quite a few headaches so it certainly helps me to be able to take an hour to lie down while the painkillers work. If I had an in-person job like teaching it would be very difficult (in fact I would have probably changed careers by now). My aunt used to suffer with terrible migraines and was sacked a couple of times. Being able to WFH and flex hours makes a massive difference to me.

Otherwise, if I feel a bit off colour I can still work. I've been in my current job nearly five years and have had two days actually off sick in that time when I had a stomach bug and just wanted to stay in bed. But if I had to go into the office every day, I would have taken more days off (and would probably have caught more bugs, too. To my knowledge I've only had covid once, for example).

Virtually all of those things were a problem for me. One key person in particular was virtually never available during office hours. When I did get through, she'd answer her phone and I'd realise she was driving. Or mucking out her horse. Or looking after her kids and get kids friends. She said that she worked at night and early in the morning. But that meant that the rest of the staff and I were expected to wait for an answer to our questions or issues until then. And the staff that she was responsible for felt entirely disconnected and unsupported . There was no mentoring or learning happening, no natural and timely discussions. They all left within six months of having to put up with this, and having to make excuses when outside clients phoned wanting to talk to her.

Oh, and she was one of those who'd say that she was every bit as productive as she would be in the office. No, no you weren't, K.

This was what I was getting at.

If I wake up feeling a bit off colour and only have to get as far as my WFH setting then I will give it a go. I might put on warm socks, an extra top and dose myself with lemsip but I will be at work. I'm also not infecting anyone else. In between calls I might sniff disgustingly or make repeated runs to the toilet but that is done in private.

If I have a long commute then I am much more likely to think I won't risk it. I'm not going to struggle into the office. Get there, then think, 'no, I really am not well' and turn round and go home again. Feels far too dramatic!

Funnily it was one of the good things about lockdown for me. I knew where all my colleagues were and could easily track them down. An awful lot less 'being busy somewhere else' which was a constant problem when office based.

I think younger generations lose out. I can't imagine learning what I know about what I do, without having been in offices around people, hearing and observing more senior people doing their jobs.

All for flexibility and hybrid working, but I do get a bit grumpy when it is considered a "right" to not have to pay for any childcare

It's not just to do with people taking the piss WFH. It's also because you miss out on soft interactions with team mates which are key to building up team spirit and motivation.

Companies are going to have to figure out strategies to address this in the future though because WFH is not going to go away, and they will end up being less desirable as an employer and/or with a disgruntled workforce if they force everyone in everyday.

I know one company near me who monitors attendance to make sure everyone is in at least 3 days per week, but it is at least then reflected in their performance review/bonus. In contrast, the company I work for doesn't do bonuses and markets themselves as supporting flexible working etc, so although we are supposed to be hybrid in practice it's difficult to enforce. I find that the people who tend to come in less are the ones who preCOVID used to keep weird hours and never really interacted with the rest of the team/had lower productivity anyway.

Knowledge sharing by osmosis within teams, overhearing work related chat

Yes, this is the key benefit of being in the office - serendipitous overhearings!

But I don't really understand that idea that we all listen to each other's calls and therefore learn. That might have been the case when you shared an office with a supervisor, but now that everyone's in an open plan environment and often use headphones, I can't see that anyone is really learning anything. A trainee or junior member of staff can attend an online meeting from home just as easily as from the office and there aren't that many face to face meetings these days.

Exactly this.

Ive also worked in dispersed teams and am well aware of the tactics used by people in offices in order to look busy. I certainly wouldn’t have my team using wfh as childcare, but with our offices based on less than 100% occupancy it’s productivity that matters, not location. If your staff can’t be trusted to wfh, or in a remote location on their own then you have bigger issues than wfh.

My DS (25) got a bit of a wake up call! He could pretty much WFH, he codes; but the company had to make a redundancy recently. Because he does go in to the office a reasonable amount, he's got to know his manager/s quite well and they've bonded over a hobby.

A person just like him got the redundancy; DS says he discovered this person (he thought, from seeing their work) who worked just like him -was actually let go because they went in so seldom no one knew who they were so it was easier for them to let someone they'd formed no relationship with, go.

He's attended a bit more, since!

This seems entirely probable, but managers and HR need to address it.
If WFH is going to impact your standing in the workplace, then they need to make it clear to employees. It's not on to shrug and say "well, we didn't see you in the office".

Agreed. It ought to be transparent at recruitment and in any redundancy process

But the reality is that people make decisions with unconscious bias all the time. And the hard cold fact is that being in the office less than others will inevitably affect promotion prospects etc. And I say that as someone who cannot work full time in the office and accepts that this will curtail my career.

We went to wfh during covid and went back to the office 2 days a week afterwards.

I'm very good at my job, and there would be some days I was full on balls to the walls working all day and others where it would be much quieter and I'd have little on. Wfh meant I was able to get on when busy, but also have rhe opportunity to relax when quiet and not be working slowly just to stretch work out in the office. As long as the work is done, which it was for me, mgmt were happy.

I have been promoted twice since then so clearly did well. I now manage a team spread across the whole of the country so need to trust they will work when meant to as not all have offices in their regions to go into. I tend to go in to mine whenever I can, as I like the environment and now being management it's never quiet hahaha!

However, productivity across the rest of the business is down and as a result staff are being asked to come in 3 days a week now and people are PISSED! I've seen comments on our intranet about how their mental health will now be affected as they cannot take long lunches to walk their dog, one said she now can't breastfeed her baby, another that her childcare costs will now increase. I mean, none of that should have been happening anyway! It's people like that who have ruined it.