To ask where all these ‘WFH’ jobs are?

[Cowparsleyheaven]

So many people saying their company doesn’t want them back in, they’ll either be WFH fully or a hybrid of the 2.

I should pre-face this by saying I’m looking for an administrative role and I get that often you don’t get the ‘privilege’ of WFH until you’re a bit more senior, but there seems to be a lot of talk on MN of people being told they’ll be working from home, at least partially from now on.

I have 2 interviews in the next 2 days, both for administrative roles, both offer no flexible working and it’s fully office based, 8.30-5 etc. I’ve searched and searched and honestly, in my area there really doesn’t seem to be THAT many roles advertised that offer remote working. There are lots of administrative roles advertised, but only 2 in the last couple of weeks have listed remote working.

I would love to WFH, at least some of the week but these roles seem to be like gold dust.

Obviously if I’m lucky enough to be offered either of these roles I’m interviewing for, I’ll have to just take what I can get but one is an hour and 10 minute drive each way every day, in my first interview they said the majority of their staff have a long drive in (it’s fairly rural) and that for the last year they’ve all worked remotely, but going forward, it’s everyone back in the office full time again. This just sent alarm bells ringing in my ears a bit tbh as if it’s not a customer facing role, I can’t see why you wouldn’t offer your staff some sort of flexible working, knowing that they have a long commute each day. I’m wondering how rigid they’ll be in general.

I guess what I’m asking is, AIBU? Is it just that administrative roles are rarely based remotely?

I’m in an admin type role in a large financial services company. Their wfh policy is consistent across the entire company, all grades, and they’ve said post-pandemic/restrictions they expect everyone to be about 50/50 office and home.

Where are you searching, OP? I job hunted earlier in the year for WFH-only jobs and found loads on:

LinkedIn
Escape the City
Charity Jobs
Third Sector
Flexa
Remote-Jobs
Otta

Plus lots of recruiters too. Of course you should be searching across the country! It makes no sense to look for a WFH-only job that’s local, when the point is you can work anywhere.

People I know who have always worked from home and/or will keep doing so at least part of the week ie if not needed out and about.
IT service designer
Charity admin
Research
Policy roles in lots of sectors/organisations
Social housing/ housing association management
Comms/marketing
IT platform sales
Lawyer and paralegal
Translation services
TV script writing/editing/managing

BAE systems have a large proportion of their staff WFH

@stillcrazyafterall

Civil servant here, one of our team has just moved to the other side of the country in the hope that WFH is permanent. Many CS admin jobs are hybrid.

Let's hope for him that he's right then...!

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade by pointing out that the knowledge that somewhere is currently WFH is useless to the OP unless they're willing to formally offer it as a permanent way of working. But I am really alarmed that so many people are rearranging their lives around vague statements of intent from employers who haven't yet actually made any contractual changes and aren't willing to offer them to new employees and so who haven't actually made any commitment at all to this.

Civil servant here too but have just been told I am full time in the office from next week.

My cpany are all advertised as office based because if they do your contract as work fo he but then want you in for a meeting they have to pay travel whereas if you are officially office based with the flexibility to work at home then they don't.

Also I think for us we would want office based initially for training ect then when we know you let you work form home.

If you use linkedin to search for jobs you can search uk wide and filter by remote jobs I have searched for jobs on linkedin and the remote ones which I am sent are advertised as “administration/data input” etc and when you click to apply it turns out they’re all for paid surveys.

TBH I think the intention now is going to be vastly different to the landscape going forward.

Companies talk the talk now, but I think the more companies start to push people back into the office, the more companies will follow.

And the truth is that most people really aren’t as a productive at home, call centres for instance definitely aren’t, and companies have been using the fact that their call centre staff are working from home as valid reason for their crap customer service.

And I speak as someone who is currently looking to work from home, something which as a person with a disability would make the likelihood of being employed that much higher but there is very little around that is being advertised as working from home.

Plenty being advertised as “temporarily remote,” but that doesn’t help going forward.

My company has moved to fully WFH, to the extent that they've given up the lease to their central London office (which is where the majority of staff worked from). We would recruit nationally for admin staff but it would hamper your progression if you weren't relatively local to a regional 'hub' as the next step up would be to take on a role which includes visits to clients.

I’m a structural engineer and WFH is going to comprise the majority of my future in my current role. They realised there’s no need for us all to be in the office, they’ve downsized the office and you can book a slot to go in if you wish or need to for a meeting etc.
Our admin are in the office though. They’re needed on hand for those in the office. Depends on the type of admin though...you’d think some could be done remotely.

Change your search criteria to national.

From my family, we are in utilities, accountancy, construction and consultancy. All of us have some WFH going forward. Some admin are given that flexibility but some are required back in the office already. Very broadly, those admin staff that need to do lots of printing (sending letters for example) or using clunky databases that are slow at home were required to go back in last year. Those admin that were perhaps scheduling things or doing data input (when files are all electronic) have been able to continue at home and will be allowed a mix of office and home going forward.

Work in publishing and pretty much my entire company is WFH. It seems only senior managers are going into the office at times for meetings. I've only been in once since March last year.

Most of the main job boards now have remote as a search option

Also google home based admin jobs uk and look on google jobs - there a loads and you can filter by date posted and contract type etc

Good luck

I’m civil service and we are heading to fully back in the office soon. Currently week in week out.

I work for a PLC and all our colleagues in admin roles are WFH or come in on a limited number of days.

Driving more than an hour for an admin role is crazy!!!

I'd add that not all roles are advertised as WFH - we dont state it, but we are very flexible. If you see a job advertised do you ask if you can WFH?

Thank you so much everyone! I will definitely be looking up some of these companies/ job pages!

Yes, I really think even if I’m offered the one over an hour’s drive away, that I’ll have to say no. The salary really isn’t that great, it would cost me £1000’s in fuel each year. I haven’t asked either of these companies if they’d be willing for the successful candidate to WFH at all, I guess I’ll see what they say at interview but I would’ve thought if they were WFH at all, it would be mentioned rather than me have to bring it up which I find a bit cringe

Part of my job is admin / team organiser part of it is technical, I'm WFH only due to the pandemic, started going back to the office 2 days a week.
All our team is wfh but in normal circumstances we'd all be in the office unless we're out on site.
Unfortunately I think you're blinded by a lot of people being able to wfh due to the pandemic, in normal times wfh is not always an option, as we progress through the pandemic back to normal or whatever the new normal is most employers will want their staff back in the office.
If its any consolation I prefer wfh but it's not going to last.
You would be very lucky to find an admin role that's wfh

Civil service, job I'm leaving is entirely remote, job I'm taking on (different department) also entirely remote. I'm not sure if our admin staff will be completely remote though, they're the only ones in our organisation going in on a rota apart from IT.

I’ve been WFH since March last year. Have several new colleagues I’ve never met, some of whom live too far away to commute and intend never to start.

I work in professional support for a university.

How much money do you need to make per month?

My role is hybrid working. This was the case pre covid and will remain so. We only need to go into the office occasionally now.

However, any vacancies are advertised as office based. They want people who are willing to do the job and will travel to do it rather than someone who is not suitable for the job and applying purely for the perk of WFH.

I was already able to WFH when I wanted pre-pandemic, they offered me it in my interview. I work in marketing. We have no obligation to return to the office, and my contract now says I WFH.

We've been told we'll be WFH with just one day in the office per week - I'm gutted as I was so looking forward to be back in the office.

I work in an Admin role for a University and it's the same for all of us, no matter how senior. Looking at other University jobs, they're all starting WFH for the foreseeable.