To wonder why some companies/managers have such a problem with flexi working?

[MotherOfDragons90]

My team, and the department it sits within are super flexible. Working from home is encouraged, we use Skype a lot for meetings, core hours are 10-2 but people’s hours vary immensely depending on workload/personal life etc. I think this is great, as it means I can finish a project late into the evening without having to worry about getting OT approved, or leave early on a Friday if I’ve got a weekend away booked or something.

DHs company used to be similar but they’ve recently revoked pretty much all forms of flexi working. He now has set hours of 8-4, and even that he only got because he’s been there a long time, new starters must do 9-5. No working from home except in unusual circumstances.

I get that in certain industries it isn’t possible, but I’m talking office type environments. It’s made things very awkward for my DH and I because he commute together and in the past have tried to align our flexi working and wfh days to save travel costs (AND the planet!). Traffic is hell at 4pm too!

AIBU to think this is absolutely bonkers and not conducive to a positive working environment at all? Please could I ask what your jobs policies are towards flexi working and any good reasons for banning all together?

I totally agree. I used to work for a company (not remotely tech related) and all employees had laptops connected to the servers and the culture was one where WFH was completely fine, either on a regular or an ad hoc basis. It was the company culture, but also my manager had previously worked from home pretty much exclusively for 8 years in another job so he had a really positive view of it.
I now work at a more tech-related company doing similar work that can easily be done remotely and the very idea that you might work from home is treated as though you’ve just asked for a six month fully paid holiday, as is any request for shifting hours slightly. It has an atmosphere of not trusting employees to work at all if you can’t see them at their desk. I’ve been there less than a year but a woman in my department has been there 20 years and asked to work from home for one morning as a one off several weeks in advance and was met with total suspicion, questions about why it was necessary, what she’d be doing, and in the end was told it wouldn’t work. Obviously I’m not this woman’s manager but she’s never off sick, always in on time etc and if I’d been working somewhere for 20 years and they acted like I wanted to work from home one morning just so I could skive off, I’d be pretty annoyed.

How rubbish for that poor woman. I’d be kind of gutted to think my employers didn’t trust me to work unless I was being watched like a hawk. Surely output speaks for itself anyway!

The company I work for has flexible working though with specific rules ie we can't just come in at 11 or leave at 3. Any time worked over contracted hours is "banked" so we can use those hours toward a half day or full day additional leave up to a maximum of 12 days a year. Core hours 10 - 12 and 2 - 4. Staff can work from 8 - 6 (well, they can work earlier or later but it won't count towards their contract hours and can't be banked). Unfortunately they don't yet offer the option to work from home but we're trying to convince them !

Flexible hours used to be pretty standard across my industry but some companies have moved to fixed hours over the years. I think it's a backward step tbh and to me it indicates a vary old fashioned, conservative approach - presenteeism over productivity, a belief that staff can't be trusted to manage their work responsibly and proactively.

I always think it's a very "middle aged man" way of thinking, the idea that 9 - 5 is how it should be but of course that only works if you don't have responsibility for children. It definitely disadvantages women.

The flexibility I currently have is why I've stayed with this employer since having dc. I've been offered jobs by former managers/colleagues that would come with a pay increase but I wouldn't trade my flexi for 20k tbh.

Sadly I have been wondering this too. My last company (which you’d expect would be way more traditional due to industry) was so flexible, I worked from home when I liked and never felt I was being watched when occasionally coming in later or leaving earlier (worked long hours generally so just took time back when I could!)

New company I’ve been in for a year is way more ‘modern’ (tech firm too) allegedly but still so so so backwards on flexible working and working from home. I work from home very occasionally but feel like I have to have a very good ‘reason’ to. It’s frowned upon if you leave before 5pm unless you have a formal flexible working arrangement. The (male) boss makes comments that suggest one only works from home when one has nothing to do - whereas I see it as the opposite!!

It’s very sad I think and it’s something I think could vastly improve employee morale and motivation if people could just be treated like adults..!

Because some people take the piss

I think as it becomes more usual some people have taken liberties and are spoiling it for hard working staff.
We have home working set up as the norm and are very flexible overall.

Just recently I had a member of staff running their own business in work time - 15/20 hours of appointments during the working week. I’ve had to try really hard to not let that colour my view of other staff who aren’t completing their diaries or who have time blocked for private appointments.

I think Iamthechosenone is sadly right. I WFH permanently and as I work with a global team I do funny hours (and travel - we have no official way of getting any time back), so it really is down to me to get my work done as and when.
But I know for sure that one friend (not in my company) who takes the absolute pee when WFH - goes to the gym, long lunches, out doing stuff and never working outside core hours to make up for this

I accept that people do sometimes take the piss but I manage a team of people and it’s quite obvious if someone is not getting very much done whilst working from home as that’s the point of having performance objectives and reviews! I don’t think a blanket distrustful approach is right.

Also why are some companies so much better at it than others? Is it just that some ‘bosses’ have experienced more piss takers so don’t trust anyone??

I work in retail so being totally flexible isn't always possible. We have a small team of 9 staff including two managers and a supervisor.

We try and be as flexible as possible, but obviously it isn't always possible. Everyone works the same hours (open until close, 8hrs a day) although working school hours would be possible if we got the right candidate, or if an existing member of staff put in a request for it.

We try and accommodate people's preferences for days off, but it's not always possible to please everyone. For example, we have to have male and female staff in each day, then we have to look at people's strengths - I need a mixture of strong sellers, management and people who are good with stockroom things as well.

If people ask for certain days off/time off in advance it's normally do-able but last-minute requests for flexibility aren't always granted. So, I guess we do try and be as flexible as possible and it's certainly one of the better retail organisations I've worked for in terms of flexibility, but sometimes the needs of the business (eg. sale periods) have to take priority.

Obviously as it's a shop we can't let people WFH! :)

I work for an organization that has flexible working. Unfortunately, in my experience managers attitude towards it isn't even standard across the board in the same company.

Thankfully the department I am in now is really flexible. I am able to come in after dropping off the kids at school and work until I need to depending on my workload that day.

I had an old boss who complained when I worked 11-7 (core hours are 11-3). Then when I started doing 8-4, she complained about me leaving at 4! She just expected me to work 8-6 every day like she did.

In aother department, they held meetings at 8am so everyone had to be in by then. They would complain if someone dared to miss the meeting (wasn't essential) and come in late. They also complained if anyone left before 5pm.

I have just started a new job which is roughly half the time working form home. I was never told about having to take my lunch hour at a set time when at home so assumed it could be flexible but subsequently got into trouble for taking it early to take my teenage son to an appointment.

CMOT it’s just so frustrating for the rest of us to be tarnished with the same brush as people like that

Baby that’s so ridiculous and surely people staggering lunch breaks is better in some ways so everyone just doesn’t disappear out the office/offline at 12pm??

Because some people take the piss

And then come on to gloat about it on mumsnet. There was a thread earlier this week where people shred how little they had done on a WFH day.

we're in the process of moving from flexible working to VERY flexible working - employees think it's great, senior management think it's great, but for some reason there are a lot of middle management who hate the idea and are trying to subtly interfere with it, so causing a lot of resentment and issues.

Can only assume it's based on their attitude - i.e. they know they would doss around if not under direct supervision and therefore assume everyone else is the same and can't be trusted, whereas most people, including me, get a lot more done working from home.

There are so many benefits to flexible working it seems stupid that companies are now going backwards. Even the less individual ones, like less traffic on the road, better for the environment, smaller office space and fewer resources needed if all staff aren't there at the same time, wider availability....

Lack of trust I guess. Which is annoying for the majority of people who would not take the piss.

I manage a team in an office. Flexible working is very hard to manage. Who does your work when you’re not there? What about when something important or urgent comes in? What about when the team needs to work together to achieve something and people are missing? Who picks up the slack?

Me and my team could easily work from home but for the dinosaur I report to. Like another poster she seems to think everyone should work 8-6 minimum. Other sections have way more flexibility and it is so annoying as I often have to work on things that require a bit of thought and drafting and when I'm in the office it's noisy and can be hard to get going on something.

My ex-Manager had very flexible working arrangements herself so she could pick her son up from school everyday and never needed childcare.

She begrudgingly allowed me some flexible working which I had before she became my manager but eventually used it to bully and harass me.

I need flexible working because two of my children are disabled. Ultimately I made some changes to my financial situation and was able to stop working all together.

We can't work from home unless we have work laptops as they need to have access to our server via certain software. They are too cheap to buy us all laptops so unless you are at a certain level you have to try and get the one pool laptop.

In my experience, more people would take the piss than not.

People generally view it as a doss day, the hours slowly diminish into PT, once primary work is done there's no initiative to fill the rest of the hours.

I think flexible working is great for most people. Some managers are a bit obsessed with 'bums on seats' and dont see that my bum is still on my seat just a different one!

@passthecherrycoke I have a laptop and my work phone is diverted to my work mobile so if something urgent or important comes in I'll do it just as I would in the office.

I do appreciate that if people take the piss though this can be hard to manage, I know some companies have technology to check what time people log on and off and activity done so that they can compare days at home with days in the office. I think this will become more commonplace. I also think that any small drops in productivity are probably ok compared to the saving in costs of running a large office

And if she's reading this, I would like her to know that I am very much enjoying going to the gym, drinking lattes and spending time with my kids.

The 10 years I spent working and being a carer were gruelling. I'm glad I don't have to engage with all that corporate nonsense anymore.

blackcurrant do you have a link for that thread? Not because I don't believe you , I'm just interested!

I'm sure some people do take the piss, however there was also a thread the other day (think was on AMA) with lots of people who had nothing to do in their jobs, had repeatedly asked for more work and not been given it, so just had to sit in the office twiddling their thumbs every day, all day for months/years. So just being physically in work doesn't equal hardworking. I've worked with enough people who have managed to stretch out tea making and chat for a good half hour per round x 5 per day, to know that!

Point being that it should be fairly easy in this day and age for almost any job to work out what realistic targets/workloads are and then monitor it.

Passthecherrycoke - not really sure what you mean? I do my work, so nobody else needs to do it when I'm not there, unless I'm on AL. Say 'my work' is 5 reports a week, I still do them, doesn't matter if they are written 1 per day between 9-5, or between 8-6 Mon-Thurs. There's rarely anything so 'urgent' that can't wait more than an hour/two if I start late and we have one or two members of staff 'on-call' per day who do work the set hours just in case there is. If we need to meet at a particular time we make sure we are working by that time on that day - can skype/phone in if necessary rather than physically coming in to the office.
There is no slack, the same amount of work gets done (actually more) and within the same timescale (actually quicker), just at different times.

I have a laptop and my work phone is diverted to my work mobile so if something urgent or important comes in I'll do it just as I would in the office.

So does everyone that WFH. But flexible working also means flexible hours, so you may not be working when you’re needed. WFH 9-5 is different wise and does minimise disruption, although if you do it often means you miss out on a lot of team stuff