Digital presenteism

[emptydreamer]

Just curious, a question to all whf workers.

What I have noticed during the time of the lockdown and prolonged working from home is that the boundaries between the "personal" and "working" times became very blurred.

There was no need to rush off at X.XX pm to catch a particular train home or to pick up from school/nursery. No one sees you "arriving". You are always very close to your work laptop and work phone, and it would take literally 5 minutes to check emails. People started responding to emails at all hours (I often had email exchanges that started at 8pm and ended past midnight).

I also caught myself several times having unpleasant thoughts when someone wants a sharp finish of a meeting at say 5pm. Like - "surely you're just sitting there in your front room and you could afford another 15 minutes to finish the discussion". I have never thought anything like that before and it was an unpleasant surprise to myself.

On the other hand, it also seems quite accepted that people run some errands in parallel with working from home - I had people excusing themselves from meetings as there's furniture delivery / boiler guy coming / etc.

I thought it would change now when the schools are back and are imposing a certain timetable on the daily life - but no.

Is it in line with your experience? Do you think we are moving to a situation where there's no fixed start and finish to the working day, but employees are expected to perform work tasks in parallel to personal life? Obviously, it is applicable to a narrow sector of white collar professions only, but still?

I have definitely noticed messages online later and the people who were always workaholics pinging me messages at 7.30pm. I tend to ignore after 6.30pm. I have also noticed lots of people online at all hours.

@Pluckedpencil
Yes, the number of people online at all times on lync also baffles me.

I think there need to be boundaries/team norms to avoid an expectation that you are always available because “you are in your house anyway”.

I actually agreed to a series of 9pm meetings and it got commented on by my boss who said would you have accepted the invite if you were in the office? If not why did you accept just because you are at home? I found that very refreshing

On the point of personal errands, while I wouldn’t expect a colleagues to spend 2 hours of the working day doing their weekly shop in Tesco I don’t think I could get annoyed with someone answering the door to a delivery

On the point of personal errands, while I wouldn’t expect a colleagues to spend 2 hours of the working day doing their weekly shop in Tesco I don’t think I could get annoyed with someone answering the door to a delivery
Thank you. It is not about being annoyed - it is just previously it was expected that if you had say workmen coming in, you'd take half day or a day off. Or at least had an explicit agreement with the manager to make up the hours later. It does not seem to be the case now, people are simply diving in and out of the calls as they are extending the house and builders are asking for something.

I think that depends on your team/organisation. Pre Covid it was accepted and allowed that we could work from home to facilitate deliveries/work being done etc. But we have a very flexible team anyway

No. To me, boundaries should be enforced ESPECIALLY when wfh and the lines are blurred as it is. It s easy to over work and screw your work life balance.

I work for a public body that has a high proportion of home workers even pre-covid - due to shutting local offices as part of cost saving cuts. We work flexible hours and are trusted to keep our own time records - in 12yrs no-one has checked my time sheet! The interesting thing is that as an organisation we have more of a problem around people working far too many hours, than people not working enough. When you're working from home there is a real tendency to mix up work and home, meaning emails in the evening, early starts etc become accepted and you've done an extra hour a day / 5 a week / 20 a month. I am part time and somehow have 20hrs extra on my flexi sheet. It can have a real toll on mental health, where its difficult to switch off from work.

You need to block work hours and keep them for work, and this means no SM, errands, housework, hanging out washing, etc unless you mark the time and catch up.

You also need to block hours for home.

It's too easy to work from dawn to dusk.

You need to block work hours and keep them for work, and this means no SM, errands, housework, hanging out washing, etc unless you mark the time and catch up.
But that's exactly it - all (at least women) I spoke to (mid-career professionals, not someone unable to manage their lives and timetables) admitted to running a couple of chores in parallel to working. Instead catching up late at night / early in the morning. Me included.

My work has always been very flexible and I already had the ability to work from home when I wanted to anyway. I will say that working this way has given me the best work/life balance ever and we have a very happy team. The expectation is always there that we will attend meetings as required and meet deadlines etc but as long as that happens my employer really doesn't mind when and where we work. It's never a problem if we want to take time off for appointments or need to work around personal commitments (obviously if something is urgent then work takes priority).

I know this won't work for all companies but I think the shift towards flexible working is a positive one. There absolutely have to be boundaries though - especially around late night working. My boss has always said that if we get an email from her when we're not working she doesn't expect us to reply but I know this isn't the case for lots of companies. It's really up to management to set the tone in terms of company culture.

I have worked from home for many years, and have seen a huge difference in behaviour since lockdown. I am doing exactly the same work as before, but the need for Zoom calls has multiplied exponentially. Previously, we made do with the odd Skype call, mainly with the camera off. And I agree with PP, the number of e-mails, WhatsApps etc. has multiplied and the expectation is now that you will reply even in the evenings and at weekends.

Myself and other 'old timers' are finding it really stressful, as it cuts into the time we have to actually produce the work we are being paid for. I think it is because people miss the buzz and interaction of the office, and are trying to replicate it online. But I just want to be left to get on with my work!

@suburbancrofter I totally agree, my work days are almost fully blocked out by video calls now, my productive time to actually do work is shot to bits.

I've done some home working pre Covid & am disciplined about hours but that doesnt mean you cant ever have chores on the go in the background.i put washing on before I start work, then hang it out during my lunch hour.i will also do things like turn the oven on to preheat at 4.30. Theres no major drain on time from this, if I was in the office I would often spend 5 mins speaking to a colleague and the conversation would drift away from work, or I would walk to the office kitchen to get a drink (this takes far less time at home).

Its important imho to:

• have a dedicated work space
• separate work phone
• clear hours

@Indecisivelurcher it's mad isn't it, my colleague and I were discussing whether we should just block out the daytime for Zoom calls then do our actual work in the evening - then we realised how bonkers this was

It hasn't made much difference to me or DH, we have never had any set working hours and have always run work and daily tasks in parallel to a certain extent. I a

I was going to add that I often have Teams meetings running in the background while I get on with other stuff. That is something I really can't do with physical meetings.

What I normally do is take an extended lunch break if I need to run an errand. Start earlier that day.

Normally I manage OK but in the lockdown I started to be present all hours and become unproductive.

I also caught myself several times having unpleasant thoughts when someone wants a sharp finish of a meeting at say 5pm. Like - "surely you're just sitting there in your front room and you could afford another 15 minutes to finish the discussion". I have never thought anything like that before and it was an unpleasant surprise to myself.

You need to stop thinking like this. If your workday finishes at 5pm then it is not unreasonable to try and stick to that.

My OH works from home and of course there are days when an extra 15 mins doesn't matter, but equally there are times when it does. If we are due to leave to get somewhere by 6pm then I would be extremely pissed off if he was dicking about on a (non-urgent) work call instead of getting ready.

What if you have an appointment (which you have deliberately sceduled outside of working hours?)

What if you need to pick someone up from the station?

What if you have arranged for someone to come and quote for some work.

There is life outside of work and it is unreasonable to assume that just because somebody is working from home they don't have anything else to do with their time.

@MikeUniformMike

You need to block work hours and keep them for work, and this means no SM, errands, housework, hanging out washing, etc unless you mark the time and catch up.

You also need to block hours for home.

It's too easy to work from dawn to dusk.

I don't understand what you mean by 'unless you mark the time and catch up'?

Obviously you catch up otherwise the work doesn't get done?

There's no point me hanging out washing at 6pm, either.

Surely a lot depends on the job you do and the culture of your workplace and how trusted you are to actually do the work

I start work at 7.15 am because I'm a morning person and it suits me to do that.If that meant that I was constantly doing 10-11 hour days though, I'd rethink it.

I also take 90 minutes out of the working day twice a week to go to a yoga class. My boss is perfectly happy with this because she knows it won't affect my ability to get my job done. I've never missed a meeting or a deadline.

It's important to have boundaries about demands on communication and availability and I think office hours should be observed at all times. Good managers in my view should have agreed times that you should be available for communication and they should be rigorously observed. When a few workaholics start acting like it doesn't apply to them, it can make others feel inadequate.

It's up to the individual if they prefer to get a couple of hours in before breakfast independently, or work a bit in the evening but I would hope that that meant that they were taking back some time elsewhere eg school pick up, gym class.

I take shorter breaks at home. Getting to the loo takes seconds not minutes. The kettle is within arm's reach of my "desk".
Why should I not stick a wash on while my messages load or whatever?

It’s not letting me quote but I completely agree with the comments around being flexible and if it works for you/your boss/your client to start early, have a gap and do something personal and then continue then that’s fine

That’s how it work for me and my team. In the office I would always go to the gym in the middle of the day as that worked for me. But it suited me to be at my desk at 7.30 so did the same hours as everyone else. A good few others in my team do the same so it was acceptable for this to happen.

When I first started going to the gym I explicitly told my manager that I will come in early to make up the time (as I had a clock watcher boss in a previous company). I got told your an adult I don’t mind what you do.

But i appreciate that I am lucky to have a job that allows that flexibility and It’s not the same for everyone

I meant keeping track of the time spent doing things that aren't work.
So if you have a chat on the phone or prepare lunch, or gather washing then hang it out, you know how long you took doing it.
Or if you have a peek at e-mails, MN or ebay or whatever.

Then catch up that amount of time productively.

Things like boiling the kettle and going to the loo don't matter too much because you'd do that at work anyway.

I got into a lockdown habit of just being logged on to work from when I got up to about 9 pm, and being lonely was on here, emailing and shopping a bit too much. It made me feel tired and ineffective. I'm normally more disciplined.

Am I supposed to not let the boiler man in if he turns up early? It takes all of two minutes. I would have blocked out half a day before because I would need to be at home, which takes me 45 minutes there and 45 minutes back and I wouldn't want to leave them alone in my home.

I've often worked overtime, over lunch, early but you rarely get a clap on the back for it.

I don't reply to anything non-urgent after work unless my manager texts me. Which is rare.

@CorianderLord, yes of course you'd let the boiler man in if he turned up early, but how often do you have him round?
It could be awkward if you were in a video conference.

I meant block time, as in keep track of all the little few minutes that eat into the day.