If you can do your job from home then it can be done from India...

[Bewareoftheblob]

This is what my brother has been told by his employers. He works in a small office in a city centre and can work remotely. He admits that their efficiency, especially in terms of the quality of customer service, has been compromised by the team working from home.

They've all been told to go back to the office from mid September, which he is reluctant to do, mainly because he dislikes the commute and has enjoyed being at home with his wife and toddler.

When he (and, I think, some other team members) requested an extension to working from home, they were told in no uncertain terms to get back in to the office, and that they should be wary because 'if you can do your job from home, it can probably be done from India', which my brother has taken as a threat of redundancy.

They were also asked if they didn't feel guilty about the impact they were having on the economy and other people's livelihood - I assume they meant transport/Costa/Pret etc. They were asked to have more of a community spirit. It's a pretty informal place, not very 'corporate' which is why I assume it's been worded in this way!

What do you think? I'm torn to be honest, I totally understand why my brother wants to work from home, but whilst I don't think his company expressed themselves very well, I can see their point too.

So I suppose it's more are they being unreasonable rather than am I being unreasonable!

He admits productivity and service levels are down but doesn't want to go back to the office? hahaha, I think his job being outsourced to India is the least of his worries.

I completely understand why people don't want to go back to the office.But that doesn't mean you can just use COVID as an excuse. For many people who wanted to WFH part time before but whose request was denied, Covid has been a wonderful opportunity to prove that it can work without impacting productivity. However, for people who need constant micro managing to ensure they actually do the work... Covid is a disaster as it just shows them up.

Think it depends on the job

I've seen both sides of this. My former firm outsourced a significant amount of its back office work, to an offshore centre. Within four years, 90% of the work had been brought back. Speaking English isn't enough - there were nuances and cultural differences that meant the service did not work as well as it should. They lost a number of customers and saw a big rise in complaints until they reversed it. Afterwards they also acknowledged that it hadn't actually saved that much money, because of the amount of extra work and support that was required from the UK offices.

I also WFH under normal circumstances anyway. My job cannot be offshored because it requires a huge amount of technical experience which takes years to learn, and which is specific to the UK market. Will that change in the future? Possibly, but I'm also expected to travel to meet people, and that's a non-starter for someone overseas.

Some jobs are suitable for offshoring but to say that any job that can be done from home is suitable, is simply not true.

@Bewareoftheblob

This is what my brother has been told by his employers. He works in a small office in a city centre and can work remotely. He admits that their efficiency, especially in terms of the quality of customer service, has been compromised by the team working from home.

They've all been told to go back to the office from mid September, which he is reluctant to do, mainly because he dislikes the commute and has enjoyed being at home with his wife and toddler.

When he (and, I think, some other team members) requested an extension to working from home, they were told in no uncertain terms to get back in to the office, and that they should be wary because 'if you can do your job from home, it can probably be done from India', which my brother has taken as a threat of redundancy.

They were also asked if they didn't feel guilty about the impact they were having on the economy and other people's livelihood - I assume they meant transport/Costa/Pret etc. They were asked to have more of a community spirit. It's a pretty informal place, not very 'corporate' which is why I assume it's been worded in this way!

What do you think? I'm torn to be honest, I totally understand why my brother wants to work from home, but whilst I don't think his company expressed themselves very well, I can see their point too.

So I suppose it's more are they being unreasonable rather than am I being unreasonable!

So the bosses say think about the community spirit and safeguard local jobs and in the same breath they talk about exporting the jobs to India?

It is all banter of course, but there is no leadership there is there?

@Bewareoftheblob

I do think the main thing is the fact that they are not doing their jobs as well from home. Brother thinks they are unreasonable and not sympathetic regarding Covid concerns, as well as threatening them with unemployment...

How do you know that? If your brother admits this, then he knows he should go back really. I do sympathise though as commuting is not much fun for most people

It sounds like your brother and his colleagues are not up to scratch WFH. If their company is getting complaints then I can see why they want them in the office. WFH can be fine, DH is and does not take the piss but some people, that WFH do. I know one of the friends I game with is sat playing his game when he should be working, his job is a specialist IT support role so he writes stuff up but when on actual call he plays his game and just mutes his mic if someone rings in.

Plenty of workers in say mining & manufacturing thought they were immune to globalisation and the forces of social & technological change and very much weren't
I work in manufacturing. In the last 10-15 years weve lost loads of work to far eastern imports. They are not the same quality and as soon as something breaks or goes wrong, our clients (who dont buy the original items from us), cant wait 6+ weeks to send it back to where they got it from, so want our company to sort out the problem. It's pretty galling, but I guess it's still work....

Well they are right, some jobs can be offshore. Some can't however, they tend to be government contracts.

He's going to have to get over it though and go back in. The staff haven't been productive enough to warrant it, their loss and stupidity really. If they could have done the job at home, they should have shown that. We could, we've shown that, we've shown we are more productive at home and less people have been off sick, so we get to keep our privileges.

If they just simply can't do the job from home for whatever reason, then that's why they are back in the office. Being lazy isn't a reason though to stay at home if they aren't doing their job either.

If they're not working as effectively then it's not surprising that the company wants them back in

My DP is of the belief that a lot of companies will now use COVID as a reason to outsource a lot of their roles to other countries where the pay rates etc are less than here in the UK.

They’ve proven that people can work away from the office, now all they need to do is to say they’re moving those departments elsewhere.

It’s largely what happened in the call centre industry, when you consider that call centres were a huge part of the British economy in the late 90’s/0’s and then they disappeared to India overnight.

Some companies did bring back their call centres but not all.

Now if other jobs can be done remotely it stands to reason that employers may take the same view. IT for instance is a job which can be done remotely. My eXH works for a company whose head office is in New York so he has to go over there several times a year. But with COVID he hasn’t been able to, and the work has still been done.

To add when factories in china locked down, some colleagues in the same industry were inundated with work that would normally be done in china.

This is a current right wing Twitter trope. Just part of the government propaganda bullshit. I doubt many jobs would truly end up 'in India'. I'd be really happy to be told that I can do my job anywhere - I'd be off to rural France in a heartbeat.

To all of the posters talking about entitlement regarding his commute/family life, I do agree!

These are the only reasons he doesn't want to go back; he and his family enjoy good health, and regardless of what he says he is not that bothered about Covid as they've been socialising in bars/restaurants/friends and family's houses, and they've been to the coast on holiday for a week in July.

I also agree with the productivity issues. I've had some dreadful customer service from banks/utilities etc recently.

@Sanjii

I think it boils down to productivity. If you cannot do your job 100% WFH, then this is not a long term option and I get why the employer would want them to be back.

This Our workplace has supported the transition to permanent wfh and recently is doing a u-turn. I think employers are under pressure from gov to prop up city centres. I can do my role as well and better wfh, productivity is up (and so is wellbeing) however my employer wants us back and I don't want to lose my job so I'll comply. However it irks that I'm losing so many personal and role related positives just to prop up Leon and Eat. If the new normal requires a shift in the economy which doesn't include sandwich shops in their thousands in town centres then let's just make the change...?

[quote Bewareoftheblob]@Newjeansrippedjeans I think it's more that customer service is not up to standard. They're getting complaints about responses to customers not being as timely/efficient as they used to be.[/quote]
The complaint is specifically about your brother? This is what needs to be narrowed down, it is him or others or him and others.

Could he make a case for himself? Could he do so many days in the office and then so many from home? I think he has to show willing, but he also needs to be able to prove he can do his job from home effectively.

The Costa/Pret argument is ridiculous. Those companies milked commuters for all they are worth: maybe they need to review their business model? I wish commuting would die the death, but if efficiency is seriously impacted then I can see why employers would want people back in the office.

Most customers hate using call centres based overseas. The staff can rarely cope with the variety of regional accents here in the uK .

I think some of us have really enjoyed being home.

I have. It was interesting teaching from home but so good to be with the DDs and do things a bit differently and not so rushed. Have been back at work now for a week preparing classrooms , timetables, IT etc and it is hard work getting up earlier, rushing around at work and then getting home to do all the house stuff. Who actually likes their commute??

@manolin That is the kind of environment - banter-esque. The comments re community are out of character, as far as I can gather.

@bumblingbovine49 Brother has admitted this. I don't know anything about the company, only what he has told me.

Surely it's as simple as: productivity, efficiency and customer service is less when they work at home so they have to work in the office.why should his employers take that hit because he doesn't like the commute and likes spending time with his family during working hours.
Maybe if he'd focused on work and not taken the opportunity to have more down time during working hours then his employers wouldn't be bringing them back to the office.

@BluePaintSample I don't think it was just about him, I got the impression that the complaints were in general.

They are in discussing it with the company, but they seem pretty unwilling to compromise.

Why are they not doing an efficient job WFH? Those I know who have been WFH have found themselves busier than ever, because they’re not wasting time getting to meetings, chatting with colleagues, being interrupted while trying to get a piece of work done by a hundred questions about something else etc

If your DB is less productive without having to commute and without the distractions of office life, he’s doing it wrong, so yes, he should go back to the office as he clearly works better in a supervised environment. Or at least the majority of his colleagues do.

Customer service across the board has plummeted due to covid. Short term, it's excusable when we're in the middle of a pandemic. Longer term, no. Organisations need to be getting back to normal operations or their customers will go elsewhere. That may well be a mix of return to work and WFH, maybe split weeks, or whatever. If the organisation as a whole can be back to normal operations by WFH, then they'd be crazy not to, but realistically, WFH has been a sticking plaster over a broken arm - it's kept things going at a lower level, but it's simply not sustainable if the customers aren't getting the service they demand and the organisation suffers an exodus of customers to other organisations who are managing better.

@makingmammaries

The Costa/Pret argument is ridiculous. Those companies milked commuters for all they are worth: maybe they need to review their business model? I wish commuting would die the death, but if efficiency is seriously impacted then I can see why employers would want people back in the office.

I feel sorry for the people employed by them, not for Pret/Costa as companies.

I think he is being shortsighted. I would rather not commute (I have a home office) but I know that going back at least some of the time will facilitate communication. Additionally it will send a positive message to my employer that I am not a problem they have to solve.
However, I am old enough and financially secure enough to be giving very serious thought to how I want to be working in 5 years time. Lockdown has given me an insight into how it can be.
So I will go back when my employer asks as maintaining my current income gives me time to plan and organise how I want things to be in the future.
In regulated industries there are quite strict controls around offshoring as regulators are concerned about the domino effect of problems in the offshored functions disrupting the onshore business.