To ask what ‘work from home if you can’ means?

[Merryoldgoat]

I work in an independent school. I’m back office staff and from March until September worked absolutely fine from home with the odd visit to school. We (back office staff) all went back as normal in September.

My office isn’t Covid safe. My assistant and I sit within two metres of each other, there is no protection etc.

My assistant wants to work from home. I don’t especially.

I have zero issue with her working from home - she’s diligent, able and thorough. I like going in because I just find it easier to be on the ground but it’s personal preference.

My manager (effectivemy COO) doesn’t want us to work from home. Fine for me, not great for my assistant who is quite unhappy about it.

The basic reason my manager doesn’t want home working is that some other staff are NOT effective at home, and that he feels it’s divisive as there are probably only 6-8 people who can work effectively from home.

I’ve told my boss I need to think about the way forward - we are butting heads on this.

I think that if he wants us to work in the office it needs to be made properly Covid safe. Otherwise he should facilitate a rota for us or allow us to work from home.

YABU - you work in a school - deal with it and go in as normal despite your roles being easy to do from home

YANBU - your manager should facilitate home working, a rota or make your office Covid secure before expecting you in as normal.

To clarify again - I’m happy to work in school. I like being there and I like the space from home.

In case it’s relevant I’m a Head of Finance, my assistant is an accountant.

@flowerlessorchid

Oh its also worth adding where I am we are going through a restructure (have been since the start of lockdown, good timing there) and there are mass redundancies. So people are keen to show their face to avoid being made redundant.

Well done OP thats a good update. You are one of the few good managers!

Do you work in my husband’s place?

He has no students on site at the moment In his department due to positive cases & half the staff are isolating but he has to travel into work every day on public transport to deliver online classes that he could quite well do from home (& do better from home as our WiFi is better)

You aren't academic staff though that's a big difference. If the whole of KPMG, Deloitte etc can have all their accountants working from home I'm sure one in a school can. He is part of the problem here.

I think not @Comefromaway, we have students on site. Which is another reason why we aren't allowed to WFH as the 'client base' is back on site so do we have to, regardless of how much actual contact we have with them in our working day.

Just read your update - well done!

Happy for you OP well done! Unfortunately my employer has taken the approach of because we are an educational setting we can all be in at all times so should be. There is nothing that anyone says that will move their position. We've had 3 new cases in the last 2 weeks with lots of people off awaiting tests

@Silvertogold

Happy for you OP well done! Unfortunately my employer has taken the approach of because we are an educational setting we can all be in at all times so should be. There is nothing that anyone says that will move their position. We've had 3 new cases in the last 2 weeks with lots of people off awaiting tests

I detest presenteeism.

I actually work very well from home and go through a lot more than I usually would as I wasn’t interrupted all the live long day.

However my mental health is better at school and I’m still doing well so I’ll stay in until a directive says otherwise.