To think 9-5 attendance at work is becoming a bit unnecessary?

[user1485342611]

With modern technology an awful lot of jobs could now be done remotely cutting out long commutes etc and also giving people a bit of flexibility around the hours they work.

Yet the default position in general seems to be that everyone should be in the office, between x hour and y hour, 5 days a week.

AIBU to think that this is becoming less necessary and far more workers could work from home at least part of the time, using remote access and being contactable by phone when needed?

There are still plenty of jobs where staff need to be physically present in the workplace, of course (retail, catering, nursing, care work, delivering mail or other goods, min-cabbing.) But cubicle-mouse kinds of work could and should be done from home and the staff paid per task, not per hour. That means you can go to the gym, do the school run, meet a friend for coffee and still get the work done by the deadline.

Agreed!

We have a wfh policy, pretty much anyone can get it agreed (it’s pretty informal) apart from those who need to be physically present (eg receptionist)

I tend to wfh once per week - that seems enough. We work in teams so I want to make sure I am “avaiable” enough not just for work but also if someone needs a broader chat that works better f2f

We have had people that have gone off the rails or not contributed when wfh - dealt with as individuals not reflecting back on all- it becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly if someone doesn’t get stuff done

Absolutely agree. I worked remotely for about six years before heading back into a more traditional office-based role. I miss the flexibility and wish I could get some element of that back, I'd be much happier!

I'm trying to build the tools my team needs to work remotely -- it's slow going but so far no one has abused my trust.

Completely agree. Luckily, I can work my hours exactly as I please - whether from home or in the office.

Having come from a toxic 9-5.30 workplace, the relief is unimaginable and I work so much better and give so much more.

It wouldn't work in our company because we sell actual products.

We all work in offices attached to the warehouse, where we deal with order processing etc. That's just not possible from home.

Aspects of my role could be done from home, which has been offered to me when I'm on Maternity, but it still involves popping into the office to collect the work I would do at home.

I think the concept of 9-5 is a bit dated though. I would rather work longer hours but do a shorter week.

Timely thread... There was a slot on the radio today about Lonely People. 40% of nominally office workers, have no friends at work, consider themselves lonely. Many of them work at home at least PT which exacerbates their loneliness.

WRT arranging a social life, childcare, collaboration, coinciding hours are useful.

I hate trying to work at home; too many distractions, I can't achieve more than a tiny amount.

I work flexitime & all for it, but mostly I keep to 9-5 type hrs. My main boss is only in the office 1 week/month & we only get his full attention & decisions made when he is physically with us; tele-collaboration does not work with this guy. We need to know when he's around without having to ask him to tell us & juggle our own diaries to coincide.

My 2nd boss works 100 miles away & only somewhat engages on telecons; we don't collaborate otherwise. 3rd boss went AWOL for months but is back on scene; nothing will happen on that project until we meet in person. I find I need shared office hours to get stuff done.

Be careful what you wish for. My job was not 9-5, it was 24+7+365 it was out sourced to a non European country, where wages were far cheaper

I agree OP, my job can easily be done at home, fortunately I do work from home a couple of days a week which saves me time, money and stress. But quite honestly I could do it from home full time.

Managers should judge results and work productivity not office presenteeism.

But given some of the responses on the other thread about working hours (where someone claimed (s)he locked their workers in and made sure they didn't wash their coffee cup early) I suspect there will be lots of responses saying how lazy people are and how everyone who works from home is a time-waster. Ultimately if you get the job done and your clients/colleagues are happy, it should not matter where you are doing the job from.

lijkk. yes, I agree some people could just shut themselves away hermit like if working from home. I always try and meet someone for lunch or for a walk on those days to make sure I'm not just sitting on my own all day.

Hello, is that the 1990s ?

I agree that a more flexible working environment, where possible, should be the aim. However, I currently work in such an environment (I work from home three days a week and commute to London the rest) and it does raise logistical challenges and pressure points. Furthermore, a remotely based team of individuals in disparate locations needs quite a lot of communications management as you miss out on a lot of the across-the-desk and corridor conversations. It's much harder to facilitate a team environment in which everyone feels well informed. Also, some things require face to face meetings at a central point and if you have some kind of office base, welcoming visitors and office admin does tend to fall disproportionately on those who are primarily office based out of necessity. Not everything can be solved by technology, but it is an enabler.

I know what you mean Lighthouse. There's a hugely creative element to my job and I know exactly how to work to get the best out of myself in that regard. Sometimes I know I've done my best work by 3 in the afternoon and anything else I do will be sub standard and best left until the next day, while still bringing the job in on deadline.

It is absolutely pointless sitting around the office until 5 for appearance's sake, and a huge waste of my time.

It might ease pressure on roads and rail if a decent proportion of people had different working hours/more flexibility to work from home.

I disagree as it's clear to see from the number of people on here who suggest it as a way of solving childcare issues.
Businesses would fold and as no work would be done

Managing remote staff makes things a lot harder - yes it's do-able, but it needs systems to be introduced/changed, and a different working mindset, so it can take time to introduce. Then you have things like GDPR which means that the employer has to check GDPR compliance at the employee's home and whilst travelling which a lot more difficult than when they're using office based systems & equipment (i.e. physical security of files, phones, laptops, disk drives, etc.).

I also think that relationships with customers/suppliers/colleagues can suffer. I know it's easier than ever to communicate by phone, skype, email, text, etc., but nothing beats "face to face" - it's very easy to get "bad vibes" when you're not talking in person, so it can harm relationships. I've certainly had many email exchanges verging on the rude/abrupt which have clouded my judgement of a person, yet when I've met the person face to face, it's apparent it's just their manner and good long term relationships have been created.

For this latter point, I found it when working in offices. My workplaces tended to be older buildings with numerous small offices rather than modern open plan. I always had good relations with those working in the same office or where I regularly went into other offices, but there was a "distance" between me and other workers in offices I rarely went into - we still "worked together" in terms of exchanging emails/files etc between us, so probably a similar level of communication to remote working, but the "feeling" just wasn't there which could lead to misunderstandings etc.

I'm in my 50s, and have been waiting for this since I studied for my degree in the 80s. If anything, the past 10-15 years have seen a reversal of the idea of flexible working.

Certainly it's still expected that the chosen candidate won't be the best, just the best that can do 9-5.

It only works for some businesses, many need people in the office, and therefore at certain time.

Any client facing environment for a start.

There are too many posters who also show why some employers take the easy option to decline the option for everybody - so they can't be accused of being unfair. Too many posters who think working from home means you can have the kids, or too many posters who think their partner working from home could use their working hours for childcare, house chores and shopping.

I do work from home a lot, and I love it, but some people hate it and feel inefficient. If your boss is one of those, s/he will think that everybody is watching day-time tv!

The other advantage to companies when allowing WFH is it greatly increases the talent pool available for open positions -- DH, for example, would consider working much further afield if he only had to be in the office once or twice each week, and I imagine plenty of people feel the same way.

Working from home is a god send for me. I wouldn't want to do it all the time, I like the office environment, but I work full time so getting 1 day a week gives me a bit of head space. I spend all day people nagging me for things/opinions etc then come home to children doing the same. Getting 1 day on my own is good for my mental health and I get so much more done! I had a loose arrangement but ended up formally going through the flexible working process to guarantee me 1 day a week at home. It also enables me to be paid if the kids are ill. I feel I have a good work life balance which I never thought I'd have when I had to go full time.

It's very standard in the local authorities near me, in fact laptops are issued as standard and people have to work 1 day a week at home due to hot desking. I've had to prove it's worth to my employer a bit though.

it might ease pressure on roads and rail if a decent proportion of people had different working hours/more flexibility to work from home.

Yes I couldn't agree more. In my experience company's don't give a toss about this though - it's not their issue.
If there could be an incentive to make it worth their while, it could maybe drive a change in attitude?

Be careful what you wish for. My job was not 9-5, it was 24+7+365 it was out sourced to a non European country, where wages were far cheaper

I think there's a trend back to better quality "back office" services these days. A lot of employers have discovered that the superficial advantage of a lower wage bill doesn't cover the lost customer goodwill, lost business, etc. suffered by those who used the cheapest/poorest quality foreign back office functions.

I know that there are top quality overseas "back office" function providers who do the job to the same/higher standard of a UK based one, but then you get yourself into higher costs which narrows the gap compared to a UK operation.

There's definitely a trend back to the UK, i.e. banks & utility call centres, NHS etc.

I know of a firm of accountants who used an Indian subcontracting firm to do book-keeping, accounts preparation and tax returns for their clients - the kind of thing that lends itself to offshoring due to far lower costs, and despite the Indian firm using properly qualified accountants, the standard of work was abysmal, even for the most basic book-keeping, so after just 3 months they abandoned it.

I think flexible hours are good but I'm not entirely convinced by WFH. It maybe forced on us where I work and I think there are lots of downsides such as loss of team spirit, harder to build relationships with colleagues, loss of impromptu brainstorming or sharing information (for instance overhearing someone talking about something which impacts you/a client etc. And that's on top of the problem of people working from home not actually doing any work.

I would also feel very lonely - much prefer to come to an office

couple of other notes

I work in a very large organisation - some sections allow occasional homeworking for jobs like mine, others don't. It depends on the boss, although HR will start bringing this in.

There have been complaints from those who use the office for socialisation but I have to say - I don't see how that is relevant to the workplace. It is not the job of workplace to provide socialisation. These people are mostly being spared their commute (we are in central London so basically no one lives nearby) - they could use that time to find social groups. Workplaces have a lot of responsibilities, but socialisation isn't one of them.

Also, mine is a typical example of an organisation where systems already in place but certain senior senior managers refuse to use them. We have a system where we can see each other logged in and out, plus I have deadlines to meet and a quality of work standard to meet.

There is a problem with egotistical bosses refusing to accept that people can work without the beady eye of their boss in person, problems with people who want to escape their home etc.

but where home working is sensible, it should be granted. Often it's more desirable as well. There are times when I have to be in, sure, I'm not disputing that. but the fact is, the tech is here and many people are ignoring it. I'm hoping that for central London, the costs of offices etc will mean more home working eventually happens, but we were told this home working revolution would occur ages ago, and it hasn't.

It will continue to be the case, though, unless business leaders look at the modern workforce properly and realise that the days of one earner per household are pretty much gone. How many of us juggle school dropoffs, childminders, late pickups, emergency leave and all the rest of it because they're required in the office until 5 and schools finish at 3, nurseries close at 6/6.30. Flexible/home working makes absolute sense, would help ease traffic congestion, contribute to better work/life balances for so many people... but no, the big bosses won't countenance it because why should they? They're well paid, the wife stays at home and brings up the kids - but they're in the minority.

@JoeElliotsMullet - love the username

"They're well paid, the wife stays at home and brings up the kids - but they're in the minority."

I'm surprised that, in London, TFL aren't campaigning for it. These big bosses must have chauffeurs. I don't work a 9-5 any more thank goodness.