Why are (some) people so against WFH?

[thistimenextyearwellbemillionaires]

I see so many threads on here about why people shouldn't be able to WFH and I don't really understand why people would be against it

For most people it seems make sense with their home life & financially as saving on commuting costs. When my children were young I was 5 days in the office and had to rush back from town to collect them and it was so stressful, it must be great for people not to have to do that now.

I know some people might take the piss a bit, but this happened when people were in the office full time too, there would always be someone always in late, leaving early etc.

I am lucky that my company is hybrid and no plans to change that. I've been offered another role recently which was a big pay rise but 5 days in the office and have decided to stay where I am. Where I work, whether you're in the office or at home you're expected to produce the same work and results and if you don't you'd be out so they're no slouch in terms of expectations of their employees.

Interested to know people's honest opinions.

It 100% depends on whether your team all works in the same office. I loved working in an office when this was the case but now when I go into my local office I sit on my own on teams calls all day as my team and the people I interact with are spread around the country. I enjoy going into head office as more of my team are based there but that’s a 4 hour round trip so I only do it for certain meetings and wfh most of the rest of the time.
I do think people in site based roles often don’t understand how the modern workplace works and not everyone lives 20 mins from their office where all their colleagues work.
To the person who made the point about DWP during Covid - that’s not really a fair comparison- they had to start working from home overnight and systems weren’t set up for it. I don’t think you can use that as a reason for saying wfh doesn’t work 4 years later.

I'm an employer. The industry we are in isn't suitable for WFH thank goodness, but from years of experience of employing hundreds of people I know with absolute certainty that the majority of employees would do the barest minimum they could if not directly supervised.
You see it online all the time - people boasting about "working from home" whilst watching films and having some kind of device move their mouse, or flying off on holiday and lying about why they can't do a zoom call etc etc. People working from home whilst also caring for young children.

Laziness and entitlement is already a MASSIVE issue in management/employment, without adding additional barriers to supervision and accountability.

I mean I actually understand the feeling envious of it to an extent, I would do too.

i’m not against working from home - works better for some roles / industries than others.

I can see why is extremely attractive as an employee - but some reasons I don’t like it as a default are

• junior employees aren’t learning from watching more senior employees - things like : - managing communication with difficult clients, team communication in external meetings, learning how to brief senior staff appropriately in advance of meetings etc

• lack of soft communication between teams - walking between offices, popping in with a cup of tea, catching someone in the corridor

• opportunities to think + work collaboratively without planning in advance

• Oversight of some staff members - many / most do work effectively at home but it’s really hard to manage people who aren’t pulling their weight.

• management of sensitive data

Tell us you're a micromanaging nightmare of a boss without...etc etc

For me it's the crap customer service.

When I've waited an hour on hold and finally get to speak to someone, far too many times either the connection is poor, or there's a barking dog or screaming kid in the background, or the doorbell rings, or sometimes they just say their internet has crashed and they can't help. It just makes it so much harder to get your message across when someone clearly isn't concentrating or it's a poor phone signal.

Then even if everything goes well, they sometimes struggle with what you're asking, and they've no-one there to help them, so they can't just lean over to someone else to ask. You're basically just to ring back tomorrow or ring back and hope to get someone else who can deal with it.

It's all so crap, crap, crap.

I'm not talking about professionals who don't need to talk to humans all day, as they can indeed go about their work quietly and efficiently I presume. But customer service staff whose job it is to talk to customers really need to either be in the office or make their home suitable, i.e. top quality phone and internet connectivity, no background noise or other distractions, etc.

For those who do prefer being in the office would you now actively seek out a role that specifically asked for you to be back in office full time? I’ve seen this on jobs ads recently.

-Blurring of home and work, so work
infects your personal space
-People no longer using any childcare so distracted by kids after school
-Kids no longer in after school clubs so parked in front of screens instead of socialising.
-Lack of organised childcare in place making parents less free to do things. My colleague can’t come to an on site team day due to no childcare as he and wife always wfh.
-Staring at a screen 100% of working day. I remember having a desk phone so phone call was a phone call. Now I’m looking at a screen during a phone call (have to remind myself to look away!) and almost no in person meetings as team hybrid ( screens again)
-Not wearing proper clothes and shoes and having somewhere to go depresses me
-No chance encounters or impromptu chats
-Feeling isolated from the rest of the world
-Hugely increased traffic all day long ( WFH people nipping to shops/ gym in breaks)
-General increased feelings of alienation
-Increased phobias of Other People
-No more after work drinks

Im not jealous in the slightest. I can wfh if I want to, but I think it’s generally bad for us. I was a working lone parent and would have loved a bit more flex to wfh one day a week or when I had a sick child, but it’s gone too far the other way now.
Id love a job where everyone goes to the same place and you build those relationships. I still have friends from previous jobs. I don’t think I’ll make any real friends in my current job ( most people wfh most of time) and am desperate to do something else.

So the inevitable question following from this is, how much more are you willing to pay in order to get this?

She shouldn’t have to pay more to not have screaming kids or barking dogs in the background!

from my experience this simply isn’t true, sure there are some piss takers but these are probably the same people who’d find ways to do this in the office too. Companies just couldn’t operate if the majority of staff acted like this.

Working from home isn't new. My Dad used to work from home in the 90s, he used to go into the office maybe one day a month. It's only since covid though that it's been the lower paid employees being able to work from home. Usually those poor sods had to do 5 days whilst those on higher salaries were allowed to work from home.

And I think it is down to jealousy that people are against it. They're jealous that the administrator can now work from home, that contact centres are now home based. Why should someone not earning a lot be allowed to work from home. They can't be trusted etc. They hide it all behind collaboration and training concerns but really you can do all of that at home.

All that said, my brother in law and some of my neighbours all work from home, and all work in technology. I wonder if a lot of the variation is around the personality and type of person who has to home, office or hybrid work?

It's a mix of role and personality I think. Some sorts of 'technology' are inherently computer based. Even when I was in an office, much of our communication was via online systems and emails. It's factual, data based communication - we typically don't use video in meetings because the screen is needed for information not the look on someone's face.
And in my field we've all got PhDs - i.e. people capable of doing independent research, doing creative problem solving a lot of the time.

'Should' evidently doesn't get people who are willing and able to work in person for the current wages. We live in a capitalist society, the laws of supply and demand apply.

That’s really sad your industry is like that. Where I am and in all my jobs, whether WFH or not, the vast majority of people have worked really hard. There’s been one or two who did not but they were so easy to spot because their lack of output was extremely noticeable compared to everyone else.

Maybe your industry is the problem, or the management of people in it. Perhaps people in your industry are unhappy or dislike their jobs? Maybe they are not paid well or have poor working conditions?

You have to be quite a self-driven person to thrive working from home, so I wonder if that’s why some people don’t like it. They like
having those office dynamics - a manager looking over at you to see if you’re typing, or an intern to lord over, etc.

I don’t think the only thing that keeps people working is someone standing over them. If you’re not very self motivated having other people working alongside you can really provide motivation. Not having the distraction of the various household tasks can help keep you focussed.

am self motivated and in my job it would become very obvious that I wasn’t pulling my weight. I have a colleague who goes into the office more because she needs work to be work and home to be home. She’s no more supervised than I am because most of the team including our senior management works from home. She just finds an office environment helps her stay focussed.

Most of the crap service is from councils, HMRC and other government/public sector organisations. I've found businesses to be pretty good really. Why would it take more money to get staff back to where they were working four years ago before covid. Most of the public sector and quango offices are still there, most havn't closed/moved.

That is exactly how I feel and pretty much mirrors what I do! My elderly parents have no grasp of how wfh works and have a strong opinion that anyone wfh is a work shy layabout. I think it's mainly because they have been out of the workforce for a long time now and my mum did a customer facing role for her whole career so could never have wfh

I do far more at home. I used to get nothing done on my office days because of colleagues taking all the time. I went in for team bonding reasons only.

@Schleep I actually feel really sorry for you, I've had to work as a manager in a set up like this (retail) where people dislike their jobs so much they try and get out of it in any way they can and it's soul sucking - I got out as soon as I could and never looked back!

We desperately need to change the ways companies run as a whole so employees are happy and engaged in their roles - in office or WFH. Productivity increases in spades. Sure you'll get the odd person messing around but with effective management they won't be in the role long.

I think you have more of a manager problem than a WFH problem. A good manager will not leave you hanging and will ensure you are integrated and supported whatever your location. I have seen this working well for years now and I myself started my job during the pandemic and have felt fully integrated and supported. I also manage a team where people are based in different countries as well as in my office. The last problem we have is where people are based and where they work from.

I manage 2 women who both have young children (I am in my 50s and childless by choice).

I would much rather that they worked from home instead of spending hours commuting to and from work and have to endure the stress and cost of wrap around care etc.

They are not going to do their best job if they are stressed. I want them to have as stress free life as possible.

I really do not understand employers who cannot see that.

If they took advantage by not working when they should be then I would make them come in to the office. They know this and so work hard.

Yes, I agree with this.

But it's not paying more per se.

It's companies trying to boost profits and undercut competitors in any way they can. They'd need to pay more to get everyone back in office (and pay enough that people wouldn't leave!) and that cost would inevitably raise the price of products. Then people vote with their feet, the company looks at ways to cut costs to become more competitive again, and the circle continues.

People are against WFH because as this thread has shown, they don't understand a lot of how it works.

I, like many others, work a hybrid week. 3 days in the office and 2 at home. With my partner working opposite to this, there is always someone at home so the dog isn't on his own and there's someone in when the kids come home from school.

When there was school runs to do, hybrid working saved huge changes in jobs and special working working arrangements. a 9-5 job Start early - 30 minute school run - back to work - shorter lunch - 30 minute school pick up - later finish.

During Covid my H.E. student support department realised a better work life balance and a happier, more positive and productive workforce could be had by allowing people to work Hybrid. If people want to be fully office based because they live within easy walking distance and have no other commitments then they can.

There are far too many generalisations about WFH when nearly every situation is different.