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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

‘Work from home if at all possible’ yet managers are already planning to get us back in.

155 replies

Beenjuice · 30/04/2020 22:28

Our team provides an email and phone service to customers who buy our products. We cleared out the office the day that boris announced lockdown, took all our gear home and apart from the little loss of service the day of the swap over have worked hard to keep the email responses dealt with and incoming phone calls answered.
We all thought we were doing as best a job as we possibly can - we know there’s been a small dip in the number of enquiries answered per day than usual but that’s due to the extra communication issues that working apart from one another brings.
Today we were given the heads up that it’s looking likely we’ll be back in the office from May 11th albeit spread apart. Apparently the dip in numbers of enquiries being sent has been noted by the powers that be above.
So what was the point of the last 4 weeks at home? A group of about 15 of us having to use the same office kitchen, loos, door handles, stair rails and other places.
So what’s changed? Why does the rule ‘work from home if you can’ no longer apply to us? And how can it be justified if we’ve just spent the past 4 weeks working from home! Our customers haven’t seen a drop in service just the number game from the people above.
AIBU?

OP posts:
Echobelly · 01/05/2020 21:08

Doesn't sound like there's any reason for you to be back in the office to me. I might get it if you were in a position for some reason where you just couldn't do your work and the whole thing would go under/people needing the service would face serious issues/business failure, but doesn't sound like that's a risk to me.

Carolduckingbaskin · 02/05/2020 09:55

@Bluntness100 I think in addition to performance management a lot of company’s will also he able to justify cuts purely based on income.
Dh is sadly having a meeting next week about how they are going to go forward with staff and tbh it sounds like a few will have hours cut and there may well be redundancies as well.

There seems to be a naivety that if a business is either still open, or is getting paid to furlough it’s staff that it means everything is fine and dandy- it’s not.

thedancingbear · 02/05/2020 10:46

Doesn't sound like there's any reason for you to be back in the office to me. I might get it if you were in a position for some reason where you just couldn't do your work and the whole thing would go under/people needing the service would face serious issues/business failure, but doesn't sound like that's a risk to me.

If people are doing 15% less work from home then they would be in the office, and the business' profit margin is 10%, then letting everyone WFH indefinitely will ultimately send the company under. Then the OP won't be working at all.

Of course we don't know whether this is the case, or whether her employer wants everyone back in the office because they are arseholes. I think there are few managers at the moment who will call everyone back into the office - risking everyone's health, including their own - for shits and giggles.

okiedokieme · 02/05/2020 10:59

Because perhaps working from home isn't as productive for everyone, some have issues with kids disrupting, and not everything can be done at home. I'm going in monthly to run payroll for instance. By the middle of May I'm expecting to be at least partially back at work, we think we'll reopen at the beginning of June in our sector.

wafflyversatile · 03/05/2020 15:31

Sick people are a lot less productive than wfh people.

Anyway. Interesting reading.

www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/dont-buy-the-lockdown-lie-this-is-a-government-of-business-as-usual/

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