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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Are your employers still making you go into work?

97 replies

PardonMyFrancais · 18/10/2020 09:32

For people who could work from home - AIBU to think responsibility lies with your employer to allow you/encourage you to do so?

I’m in an area which has just been put into tier 2, however I have quite a few friends who are still being told they have to travel into work - on public transport - every day.

All of them spent lockdown working from home with no issue.

It’s annoying me far more than it should. Reports have shown there is a greater number of infections in the workplace than in pubs, yet hospitality is the sector which seems to be demonised the most?

Page 16 of this report

OP posts:

crazycatgal · 18/10/2020 21:22

My DP and the rest of the office are being made to go in because the MD says that some people weren't doing their job properly during lockdown.

Yellredder · 18/10/2020 21:23

I could work from home with the occasional trip into work. But we're all in. It's a bit of a nightmare and plenty of people are coming down with COVID.

kathmacc · 18/10/2020 21:26

I think when bosses start to insist on employees being back at work in the office it's more to save their own jobs - if productivity stayed the same without hands on middle management....

Loshad · 18/10/2020 21:27

I have to go work ( teacher) as does DH (NHS clinician) other members of both are teams are working from home (HR and finance -school, secretarial staff and finance -nhs) in both of our experiences it is much slower having to use a wfh colleague. Eg DHs letters normally done in a day or two, now taking a week plus, queries about bills, payments etc much harder to resolve.
I certainly don’t think everyone is working “better” at home.

catsinstockings · 18/10/2020 21:29

Only about 10% of employees at my workplace have jobs that can be worked from home. I am in that 10%, but my employer still wants everyone to come in. I find it ridiculous, I often have to do out of hours work from home but It's not ok for me to wfh at other times even on government advice?

MrDarcysMa · 18/10/2020 21:50

My office is open half the week unless people are vulnerable/ have vulnerable family members. We've got a handful of people insisting on coming in 5 days/ week though as they can't work effectively from home.

We're trying to encouraging the majority do 2 days/ week at home in case there's another lockdown so we're used to working effectively at home.

Beaverdam100 · 18/10/2020 21:59

My employers set me up to work from home at the start of lockdown and have said i will never be going back. I do still go into the office to pick bits of work up from my pigeon hole but thats it.

MadameBlobby · 18/10/2020 22:01

We can go a couple of days a week but we are not forced to.

I am a home worker but supposed to go every month but I have bailed this month as numbers where the office is are high

Earthworms · 18/10/2020 22:04

@Moondust001

I'm working from home for the next six months I suspect. At least. That's assuming a vaccine in that time. And I have always had a working from home facility, and always will.

Whilst I do not disagree with the broad premise that it may be possible for more people, I think you have also to take into account that "I can work from home easily" is not necessarily the fact of the matter. What people see as convenient and easier for them can also be less productive and more complicated for employers. It's a judgement call - some people do better, some don't, and some take the piss. In my team I have all three. I have staff who have moved to fully working from home easily and are just as productive or even more so. I have returned some staff to the office after they begged to go back because they hate working from home even though it is possible (and their work was definitely suffering in measurable ways). And I have one member of staff who has had two formal warnings for unauthorised absence (supposed to be working but disappeared and uncontactable) and is now in formal performance management procedures for not doing any work! Fortunately, I won't have to sack her because her contract runs out next month and it won't be renewed. But to hear her speak she's working hard and can work from home totally!

Im in exactly the same boat

WorksTheDinerAllDay · 18/10/2020 22:06

Me - Social Services admin - have to go in once a month as part of a rota to do the post. Rest of time I'm at home.

DH - private research company - WFH order unless you need to be in the building. A couple of staff can't do their jobs from home so everyone else has been booted out to give them space.

BoudicasBoudoir · 18/10/2020 22:06

I’ve been WFH since 11 March. My team is scheduled to start ‘easing back’ to the office ‘from March 2021’.

Wish I hadn’t left my favourite shoes there.

HoneyBee03 · 18/10/2020 22:15

We're all back in our office full time. We've been given the option to work from home again but everyone has refused. Judging by the amount of traffic at rush hour its looking very much business-as-usual in the city I work in.

ConfusedDotty · 18/10/2020 22:29

We have been forced to go back to the office. I have worked from home since March with no issues at all, no dip in performance or anything. I work for a huge company that you will all be familiar with.

As to why they want us back is unfathomable to me, but there is nothing I can do about it.

I just think of all those workers for whom it was impossible for them to work from home, so, I am not in such a bad place.

soontobe2 · 18/10/2020 22:34

I am an Office Manager and we are currently working with a skeleton staff in the office on a rota and the rest wfh. Unfortunately half of the people who think they are/claim to be working effectively from home are actually not. They are doing exactly what is specifically asked of them and no more so not working a full day. I don’t want to have to micro manage grown adults but their productivity is down and I am finding myself and a couple of others picking up all the slack. This isn’t sustainable indefinitely and my MD is pushing for these certain people to be back in the office asap.

thepeopleversuswork · 18/10/2020 22:54

My (white collar) employer is terrible for this. Expectation is that we go in once a week. Purely about keeping up appearances.

I've wfh at far higher productivity levels than I did in the office, something which has been recognised by my line manager in my appraisal, and they are fully aware that my commute is not only something I'm not comfortable with but which massively eats into my ability to work.

I'm incredibly aware that I'm lucky to be in the position of being able to wfh at all but I think its reckless that people are being forced to go in once a week for absolutely no reason other than paying lip service to presenteeism.

Osirus · 18/10/2020 23:47

I think some at my place of work are still working from home, some in the office.

However, I’m still on furlough with no word about what’s happening come 31st!

corythatwas · 19/10/2020 00:03

University lecturer here, absolutely no reason I couldn't do all my teaching from home, in fact, my colleague teaches identical seminars at home because she's shielding and it's working fine. But my uni has decided that students won't accept it unless we do a token number of seminars on campus so as she can't, I have to. I am not so much afraid for myself, but I am very worried that one of my students might contract LongCovid, I don't think they understand at all that this part of Covid doesn't spare their age group.

Legohead7 · 19/10/2020 00:40

Yes, I am back in the office in a tier 2 area and loving it. Feels like old times.

Bleaktimes · 19/10/2020 00:49

We are all back in the office (small business). Every single one of us has said we prefer working in the office to wfh.
Much easier to leave work at the end of the day and have a separate home life.

MrsToothyBitch · 19/10/2020 09:15

Yep. I was back a day a week from June- doing a short day to avoid "peak" hrs on public transport and back in full time from 1st Sept. So now commuting from a tier 1 to a tier 2 area on public transport. I work for the MoD and can't wfh due to gradings rather than being tied to the site, particularly so I did very little before Sept anyway.

They've since discussed letting me wfh for the foreseeable and in general because the whole MoD has had a bit of a sea change towards it, but I've had nothing through yet. I'm desperate to do it to drop 4 days worth of commuting. They've now let my opposite number do it because she's vulnerable, which proves I could do it if they wanted to make it happen- they're coming round to it. Telling her to wfh also only happened because MY boss stuck up for me. The initial plan was to send her home on full pay but with no work for the duration and to just dump her workload on top of mine. Boss refused to let them.

WhereamI88 · 19/10/2020 09:53

We are still WFH but honestly it doesn't work as well as people make it out to be.

Senior people have taken to working odd hours, later nights. This means juniors have to work longer hours than before because they can't take time off during the day the same way senior people can.
I have noticed with people I am supervising, that they are doing their tasks and that's it. No discussions, improvements, volunteering to do stuff. This a professional, highly paid career, not a low paid admin role. This affects their careers and productivity in the long term. There's also less willingness to help out colleagues etc, everyone is very insular now. This is a job where the projects are enormous, nobody has their own task and that's it, team work is essential. So it's all becoming much harder to manage.
People are not learning anymore. They can't ask questions easily, there are fewer meetings, seniors are getting on with doing stuff themselves because it's easier but that means people aren't learning.
I'm on MN while having my coffee. I'm so demotivated. I need people, I hate having to be all alone all day long. My life is sleep, eat, work, all within the same 1 bedroom flat. And I resent my employer for both making me work longer hours (see point 1) while also being too lazy to set us up to go into the office.
Even though we are extremely profitable and have announced record all time profits, we are now firing almost all support staff. No one needs secretaries and assistants and other support anymore. I have no idea what they will do, most of them are in their 40s and 50s, and will have to retrain in something totally new. So WFH is not all so positive and amazing for many people.

Original poster

PardonMyFrancais · 19/10/2020 10:17

@WhereamI88 totally understand this.

I think my frustration comes from the hospitality sector being made to close down in some areas, and lose a lot of income in others. People are losing their livelihood against their wills and for not a huge amount of gain in terms of decreasing infections.

At the same time, some people are being forced to go into offices and on public transport when we're being advised by the government to stay at home - this I don't think is right.

We need to work together as a country to bring these infections down, not put profit over safety.

OP posts:

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