Annoyed at colleague re flexible working

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

I’m a parent who has returned to work from maternity leave and I’ve had a flexible working request approved (1 day working from home). I know my boss doesn’t really like it but he’s accepted it. My bosses boss has recently decided to let everyone wfh a few days a week as staff morale is low and a few people have asked for flexible working. A colleague who is a good friend was recently aggressively attacking the idea to a group of us (including our boss) and I felt a bit upset as she knows I do it and would really appreciate more flexibility if it became available. Another colleague who I’m also friends with joined her and starting saying how ‘ridiculous’ people who want to work flexibly are. AIBU to think it’s a bit insensitive?

Another colleague who I’m also friends with joined her and starting saying how ‘ridiculous’ people who want to work flexibly are.

Yes, absolutely ridiculous that people have families and live outside work, don’t you know you should live to work not work to live 🙄

Sounds like our place. They brought in working from home for all staff, and everyone was issued with a laptop. I do not take this offer up because it does not work for me.
Much as it is genuinely very good offering people this flexibility if they want it, it has been a bit of a nightmare for those of us in the office. People working from home are expected to log into a system so they can answer their phones from home(our job role is testily involved taking calls from the public) This does not happen and so those of us in the office spend the whole day answering everyone's phones and not getting our own work done. They are now trying to clamp down on this saying people MUST be logged in to take calls. The other issue is trying to assist a colleague I may be training with a file over the instant messaging system or email does not work (especially when it is an urgent request and you have no idea what is happening their end!). They have said again the colleagues, that if they are training they must be in the office.
I totally get that flexible working is important. I take advantage of it myself eg arcing flexi time and hours at work, but I would probably be one of the people complain that working from home is not working.
This totally would not be against you OP, but the situation. Maybe your colleagues are in a similar position and to sly not aiming their comments at you, but frustrated at the system?
Sorry for the long post!

1. Yep, I worked for a company that took that approach. I'm not saying the MD was a control freak or anything, but.....We were given 30 minutes for lunch. NO FLEXIBILITY whatsoever (except when it suited them and they wanted people to work late into the evening to meet deadlines and were "extensively rewarded" with a Chinese takeaway and a cheap bottle of plonk). And then he wondered why at 5pm on the dot every day there was a mass exodus and at 5.01pm the place looked like the Marie Celeste.

Where we were located was 15 minutes' walk minimum from the nearest sandwich bar/convenience store. That's without actually being served. There was a microwave and a kettle in the break room/lunch room but it was in the middle of the building so clients walked through it all the time. Very professional. Not.

Strangely enough staff turnover was VERY HIGH INDEED. On average most of us got to 4 months before we realised the senior management were nuts and we needed to look for another job. They got away with it as it was the north east of England and jobs were not exactly plentiful. Also most of the ordinary colleagues were lovely.

1. Coronavirus. People might finally start realising that many people who work from home do still get the job done and flexible working is NOT A BAD THING. Often more effectively and productively than people who have to go and sit in an office or other workplace all day listening to Molly or Mordred Jones wittering on about God knows what for hours. I worked in one office (not the same one in point 1.) where I think we must have lost, on average, 90 minutes a day in between tea rounds, water cooler conversations about last night's telly, and soothing fragile egos every 5 minutes. And this was with so-called professionals.

Generally, the reason why wfh doesn’t work is bad management. At the end of the day, if the employees are doing their work or not it will be obvious. I don’t believe in presenteeism. I have a colleague who refuses to work from home, but spends the majority of her time socialising in the office. She thinks being loud and ‘seen’ means people think she works more. Anyone with half a brain knows this isn’t true. Employers should be results driven, IMO.

You don't need to have children to make a flexible working request of course. It shouldn't matter to your employer why you are requesting it only that you can do it without the business suffering.
These people are entitled to their opinion but they are clearly very rude - I would question how much of a "good friend" she is OP if she did that in front of you.
Saying someone is "ridiculous" is not an argument.

I bet it’s the thought of change they don’t like, rather than the flexible working. We started FW at my place and a group of managers didn’t like it, but it worked, staff were happier and they came round to the idea

Some people just have that mindset - only a bum in a seat right in front of them means that people are 'working'. It BS of course - giving colleagues flexibility makes them more productive, happier and benefits the company. Study after study after study has shown this.
And no-one, and I mean NO-ONE, focuses all day long sat in an office. They wander around, make drinks, go on the internet etc. etc.

People working from home are expected to log into a system so they can answer their phones from home ... This does not happen and so those of us in the office spend the whole day answering everyone's phones and not getting our own work done

Just out of interest, have management been able to discover why they're not logging in?

I would feel hurt too OP, if work colleagues I was close to publicly argued against something they knew was very valuable to me.

It's not just people with kids who want more flexible working. People also have other family they want to spend time with or older parents they need to help with.
And people have hobbies, want to exercise, wait in for the groceries, walk the dog or whatever. So long as the work is done, does it really matter if it's done at home and someone's lunch hour is spent running around the park with the dog?
When I WFH I start at 6.30am ( start time at office is 9am) cos there's no commute and I don't need to dress for the office, just a jeans and jumper. Stop for a bit around 8am to eat brekkie with kids and see them out the door, then back on laptop before 9am. Then work without distractions for til school kicks out usually. Sometimes take a run at lunchtime. Kids come home, nice to see them, then back to work for calls as the US office has woken up.
Much more productive, and my team know where I am. On the phone and email most of the day. But the breaks I have tend to be getting up to stick another wash on, prep dinner or house stuff meaning that by evening we can all just relax together.
It's fantastic so long as you don't mind the blurring between work and homelife. There's no walking out of the office and leaving it all behind.

Generally, the reason why wfh doesn’t work is bad management

Agreed. If colleagues working from home aren’t working, management need to work on that.

I find those who work diligently do so whether they are in the office or not. People who are workshy will avoid doing work in the office too. The answer is to employ better staff.

What reasons did they actually give for being opposed to the idea? Did they have any valid points?

I used to work on a team where somebody worked almost entirely from home. Fair play to her she did a good job and I have no doubt she worked the hours required. However, it did mean that when work was being allocated she always got the "neat", easily defined jobs which would require minimal contact with people in the office. Anything which required a lot of faffing about or chasing people for information was given to staff in the office. Also emergencies and "drop everything now and do this" requests naturally went to people in the office. There was just this feeling she got the easier gig.

I have numerous staff who WFH some from different countries. As manager it’s easier having them here but it helps us retain good staff so I organise it well and it works.

What's them not having children got to do with it?
I'm childless and would be furious if my work offered flexible working only to parents

None of us can know if the OP's colleagues were being unreasonable, because we don't know her workplace. In some jobs having someone working flexibly has genuine downsides. It can be really hard to organise face to face meetings when you don't know when someone's going to be in, for instance. But there are plenty of other potential problems, depending entirely on the industry and the company concerned.

So it's silly for anyone her to sneer at them for having concerns. And it's important that things like this are aired openly, rather than people just moaning behind the boss and their colleague's back.

anyone HERE. Not her.

In some settings working from home is great for individual morale but not great for team morale so I can see why some managers aren't always keen on it.

There's only 3 people in my team, we all do an equally stressful and difficult professional job and all have similar levels of experience. We are all capable individually of working from home successfully but the other two really feel the loss of the 3rd person to bounce ideas off, scrawl notes to during phone calls, wave a new piece of legislation frantically at them etc when it happens.

I don't begrudge anyone working from home and do it myself occasionally, but team dynamics aren't always as straightforward as it just being about bums on seats.

It is possible because we have a team in another location who do the same work as us and work flexibly all the time. They get the job done. My team feel that they don’t have the same bonding that we do. Also my team think junior team members need face to face support and that it can’t be done over email/IM.

Flexible working isn't just about WFH - it can also be about flexible hours, reduced hours, compressed hours, or about working in other locations.

I agree problems around flexible working is usually about unclear guidelines and lack of management. If people aren't logging on to phones, they should be pulled up on that. If they don't start doing so, then the option of working from home gets removed for that staff member. If there are technical issues, they need investigating and if possible, resolving.

Basically what @RoomR0613 said, which I understand so that’s why I wouldn’t expect to wfh 5 days a week but I think 1-2 days isn’t unreasonable.

Flexible working isn't just about it being convenient for parents - it's also because with increased methods and ability in communications, it's just not necessary for people to be in the same building in order to work together any more. So many companies that are office based have either implemented flexible working, Agile or dissolved their office completely, I really feel businesses have to move with the times on this one. Of course there are pros and cons to it, but the pros far outweigh the cons for the vast majority of situations. And yes, your colleagues are BU.

Flexible working can be great for team morale if managed well. There are employees who take the piss with it though, and this can often be where resentments from other colleagues can come in.

Also WFH works for some workplaces, but not others. I physically can't do my job from home (I need to be in a hospital). But even some office-based workplaces don't suit WFH easily if it relies on a lot of team discussions etc whereby not being in the office means you get quite segregated out of the team / daily developments.

puzzled I. Guess they are because there was a flurry of colleagues logging calks with IT on Monday to sort it as when they tried that day they could not log into the phone system. It has only taken since november so guess that means they must have been spoken to a bit more firmly

My team feel that they don’t have the same bonding that we do. Also my team think junior team members need face to face support and that it can’t be done over email/IM.

They seem perfectly reasonable points. I think you're unreasonable to take their comments personally.

I'm not sure what people are actually voting about. I'm surprised that the majority seem to think that colleagues shouldn't be honest about a business decision, because someone in the room might feel sensitive about it.

I felt a bit upset as she knows I do it... AIBU to think it’s a bit insensitive?