To be furious at my DPs boss

[sticksandstone]

DP works in an office environment and after today's new guidelines & restrictions have been announced, he should be working from home which is perfectly doable.

He worked from home since the beginning of lockdown and has recently went back to work, he worked every day (mon-fri) and had daily meetings (as usual) with his colleagues.
We are based in the north east, currently in a local lockdown, as cases are rising rapidly.

However, his boss quickly sent an email around which states

"We will not be changing the current situation in that we require people to be in the office. For now the priority is getting the latest project finalised along with planning a road map for ongoing work.
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Currently the general position is that going back to the time of lockdown where we all worked from home with have serious potential personal impact on some employees."
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AIBU to be quite peed off that he is prioritising work (which has been done from home for a period of 5 months) over the potential cost of lives for his employees and their families? We have a new baby and a couple of high risk people in our household (including myself).

Is he actually allowed to make this decision for his employees? Shouldn't they have a choice in the matter?

Great, another 6 months of getting the "everyone is working from home so we can't do X,Y,Z" excuse. It's getting boring now! Having internet access is not the same thing as being able to run a business from home.

YANBU - we have had the same. Getting the current project done is the only important thing.

Sounds like wfh didnt work well for your dh company. Maybe there were people slacking off from home. Maybe your husband wasnt working as well at home as he thought he was. The point is, if wfh was so great, the company wouldnt have a problem doing it again. But they do.

As someone who worked in the office right through the pandemic (front line worker) I have little patience for people moaning about going back. They seem to forget they signed up for an office job. Businesses are not being unreasonable to want their employees to get back to the office jobs they hired them to do.

I think it massively depends on your DH sector and also how well WFH really went.

In our work, we had Jabba headsets made available and got all tooled up. Only, they actually made people sound like they were at the bottom.of the sea and didn't necessarily patch calls through correctly leading to missed enquiries. On paper it was all set up, but in reality, not so much.

I would also not discount the health argument. We don't have room to set up a desk upstairs and I cannot sit at our kitchen table because we have young children who are in and out. I cannot expect them to stay out of the dining room as our house is open plan and they are very young.

So I spent lockdown working on my bed and developed musculoskeletal issues. The NHS medic I saw said she had seen loads of people in similar situations. I won't go back to WFH now unless it's mandated and that is not about MH.

Interesting how differently the government treats employers and individuals. Individuals are seen as incapable of moderating their behaviour without laws being brought in to mandate what they can and cannot do. Employers are able to tick a few boxes and are somehow fit to decide that they know better than experts (who recommend home working wherever possible).

Do people still think the government is on their side?

Given how he referenced a current project I think thats fair enough. Sometimes there just isn't a substitute for having people all together. It may be that he can fulfil individual tasks when WFH but not all thats required of him.

Working from home doesn’t work for everyone. Space and MH and young children aside, you have to be incredibly disciplined to work from home, and the truth is that a lot of people just aren’t, and companies just don’t get decent productivity from their employees if they’re working from home.

Very little sympathy because there are so so many of us who have to go in and are also in your position with vulnerable family members. If my mum gets it she’s toast, putting it bluntly. It’s up to his boss, not you.

@W3dontdoduvets

Very little sympathy because there are so so many of us who have to go in and are also in your position with vulnerable family members. If my mum gets it she’s toast, putting it bluntly. It’s up to his boss, not you.

Why the race to the bottom?

Just because some jobs can't be done for home doesn't mean other jobs that can be done from home should be kept in the office just because

The more people work from home and limit their contacts the less chance of people like your Mum (and my DD) getting it.

Absolutely... your husbands boss needs to be ABSOLUTELY happy with the Covid secure environment..

If your husband isn't then he needs to whistle blow to the HSE..

I would be fuming . If he CAN and business isn't impacted then he SHOULD !!

Are the offices Covid secure, OP? And have all staff been required to go back, or just those engaged on specific projects?

If everyone has had to go back, they must either have very big premises for the number of people working there or been incredibly inventive in how they use space to achieve safe working conditions.

My employer has been shit hot on Covid security and, although our offices were far from cramped when fully occupied, the building can only safely accommodate just over half the number of people it did pre-Covid. Anyone who wants to work in the office has to book, to ensure that there is always adequate space for social distancing, masks must be worn in corridors (they're too narrow to maintain a good distance and the layout of the building makes a one-way system impractical) and there are anti-bac wipes and sanitiser all over the place. Every office, drop-in centre and wellbeing centre has been risk assessed and special measures put in place where necessary.

If everyone's working as normal, eg with desks close together, I think there's a real H&S issue and it would be entirely reasonable to raise it, especially in the light of today's guidance. And HSE guidance is still to keep a 2m distance.

Maybe someone should ask to see their risk assessments.

I think it's going to be the same for a lot of people. We can have about 50% WFH but we aren't doing as they want everyone in

@Smallereveryday

Absolutely... your husbands boss needs to be ABSOLUTELY happy with the Covid secure environment..

If your husband isn't then he needs to whistle blow to the HSE..

I would be fuming . If he CAN and business isn't impacted then he SHOULD !!

But the boss has already suggested business is impacted.

And the fact the a lot of the workforce have been back in for a bit with no reported rumblings from the OP suggests the environment is Covid safe.

YABU. Imagine, if the business goes down the swanny, then your husband will join the growing ranks of the unemployed competing for jobs and you'll understand why people sometimes need prioritise the filthy lucre over covid.

I run a small office based business, my 12 staff worked from home during lockdown and are now back in the office.

We will not be going back home working, the staff probably feel they worked ok from home but the stats don’t show that. We are really behind with work and about to hit the busiest time of the year. During lockdown we were struggling to bill enough to cover wages let alone other overheads and our systems just didn’t cope.

We have taken on 3 new members of staff recently that need training and this isn’t possible from home.

As far as I’m concerned I have reached breaking point. I haven’t had a break since last October as we reached end of busy period in March and then COVID hit, I was due to be on holiday in 2 weeks but just cancelled it as I need to be in to support the team. If the staff aren’t happy working in the office then they can look for a new job that will allow them to be at home, but a bit of compassion and consideration for what the business owner is going through having to make some really tough decisions goes along way. I doubt the boss is choosing to put their staff at risk but the alternative is risking 30 years of work and everyone’s livelihoods (in my case anyway).

On MN, MrsRobinson, everyone's been way more productive working from home, never need to go back in the office, are all in specialist niche (and high earning) jobs that could never been outsourced to anyone else and their employer is just patently unreasonable and doesn't care about bloody covid if they have to go into an office.

@Batshitbeautycosmeticsltd well not niche and not high earning but productivity... my job is so closely monitored you couldn't skive WFH if you wanted to my boss knows if I'm on a toilet break or not!

Be careful what you wish for. If your job can be done from home it can be done from India.

@Northernparent68 not necessarily. Our customers wouldn't accept a contact centre abroad, and we have to be based in one of the sites
Say you're ringing your local boots opticians and it's a main line for booking. Ok you might be a bit miffed if you book in through a contact centre in London when you're in Cumbria but you accept it. Most people wouldn't be happy ringing a contact centre in another country to book in

I get it, op. If your dh is working well from home then it sends out a negative message to ask him to return to the office in this environment. Not the actions of an employer prioritising staff wellbeing. Yes, it's a small risk for most of us, but if it's an unnecessary risk then it is hard to justify. Pointless saying some people have had to go to a workplace throughout as this is about whether or not going in is achieving something not possible at home. I mean, some people have to go to work on oil rigs, but it wouldn't be acceptable to expose others to the dangers that environment poses.

That said, nobody this thread ultimately knows whether or not your HD's employer is being reasonable as we don't know what gain they're getting if everyone is in the office.

I know I'd be annoyed by the mh comment from the employer. They should be supporting those employees to work safely in the office, not getting everyone back in (again, assuming wfh really is working).

As for the comment that crops up on all these threads that there is no sympathy for people who took office jobs and now don't want to go back... fair enough. However, a lot of the negatives of wfh that we previously went along with have been disproved for many of us. I suspect a lot of people are quietly forming their views about what they want from a job as a result of this. Wfh is not new, and it will continue. More of us will seek these roles out now.

Northernparent68 If your job can be done from home it can be done from India.

I keep seeing this trotted out. Just because a job can be done from anywhere doesnt mean it can be done by anyone

Dont you think that companies which could outsource to a cheaper option havent already done so? Lots have and a lot have then brought the work back in house when the outsourcing/off shoring didnt bring the benefits which were touted.

My company has forced people back into the office claiming it to be 'covide secure' which it is if you ignore all the people sitting cheek by jowel, the narrow spaces between banks of desks, the narrow passing areas etc etc

We have been forced back into the office because the MD is of the old school who believes that if he cant see people sweating over their work then they arent working hard enough.

He can declare the office to be covid secure then skuttle back to his inner sanctum where only carefully vetted people are allowed to tread.

I suspect a lot of people are quietly forming their views about what they want from a job as a result of this. Wfh is not new, and it will continue. More of us will seek these roles out now. I'm sure they will be but you're mad if you think it's an employees market. It's an employers market now. Competition for all jobs will be high.

I work in care so have gone to work come hell or high water but a couple of my friends work in offices and have said as a group productivity was way down when they work from home so only those with a good record are allowed to.

He has a choice

Stay or hand in notice

The boss is not being unreasonable in the slightest

I also find it amusing that everyone on MN thinks they have been super productive WFH. It's obviously not true!

The biggest problem with people who WFH is that they tend to sit in silos with clear job boundaries. If your job has been designed like this then, yes you can be super productive. But I have noticed that, in our office, where job roles are less well defined and people usually work as teams there are grey areas where work has dropped through the gaps and is not being done. Not because nobody is working hard. But working hard does not equal productivity.

Also because people haven't being doing the peripheral grey area tasks, they have had more time to focus on the core work, so they feel like they are more efficient.

I can see this because I am back in work full time, as my job is being the link between factory floor and office staff. I do wonder how many managers of offices are actually seeing what I am.

Plus, if our productivity has actually increased as a country over the last few months, there would have been significantly less chance of us being in a recession right now!

Well it really depends @LooseMooseHoose, I am just as happy going into the office as WFH so not really any particular skin in the game, but I find that people are much more responsive from home. Usually amongst the flurry of uneccessary meetings that seem to happen in an office, it can take ages to hear back or arrange a phone call; now it's much quicker and I find people are making more of an effort to share info than assume others have seen it. Yes certainly missing out on 'water cooler' chat does have negatives, as does missing out on some of the natural learning that goes on when you are surrounded by others, but it depends how well your company has adapted.

Of course if your job is related to those on the factory floor then it's beneficial to be in, but if an entire office is working from home, that's not the case. We have found that many of the 'grey area' jobs are actually pointless and useless, and the time doing them has been spent trying to ensure collaboration between teams, training and meetings are able to be hosted successfully remotely. If people are unclear of their job roles and there is stuff falling between the gaps, then surely even if everyone is in it needs better management?