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?

@OodieWoodie

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.

This is true. The job I do was never offered as flexible or WFH so I never went for the position with that in mind.

I suspect it also depends on the person they employ. I was slightly more senior, they may have expected someone more junior to be more office-based.

NHS. Most admin is WFH at my trust

I work for our Local Authority and we are advertising in our department for a number of positions at the moment. We are stating that there is an expectation that successful candidates wfh with very limited access to the office. That's not because of Covid but because the LA has sold its main city centre building and relocated to a much smaller one 25 miles away with a lot less space.

One of the stated criteria in the JD is that you need to have good broadband connectivity at home. Someone we recruited recently lives 150 miles away.

You need to widen your search area. Good luck.

If looking at a largish company have a look at their website to see if they have a flexible working policy, it might give an idea of which roles / grades can ask to WFH.

I work in HE in a professional services support role (so not teaching), admin roles have been home based since last March but are expected to start coming back in over the summer, our HR department are about to launch a flexible working policy so if staff want to continue WFH they can apply to do so (not guaranteed the line manager will agree though - I have already had to look at which roles I line manage could continue WFH if the member of staff asked to do so and which need to be in the office).

Admin is tricky from home, especially in a company that is not very digital/paper based.

I work for FTSE 100 company in the finance function. Whole company moving to hybrid working but reducing office capacity such that its expected most of us will be in a day a week at most. That includes our team admin assistant.

My company are very flexible though. DH works for a much more old fashioned organisation where they have a lot of secretaries doing stuff like diary management, front of house, travel bookings, organising meeting spaces and refreshments for clients, taking meeting notes, processing changes to documents, booking expenses, doing simple paperwork to onboard new joiners etc. The work isnt very self generated, it relies on senior staff asking for things to be done, and the senior staff prefer to interact face to face so admin teams are expected to work in the office.

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 sort of think this is true. A lot of companies want to retain choice & control over where their staff work, wfh is for company benefit (cost savings) rather than employee. I know lots of companies who continue to want people based within an hour of work/contracted to work in the office with wfh being discretionary, so that if home working proves less productive they can require people to come back in.

I work in professional services for a London university and have been at home since last March. Earliest we will be back in the office is July and even then only 1 -2 days a week per team. It will almost definitely be a hybrid-model going forward for non student-facing teams. There will be big cost savings for London based employers needing less office space.

I work for a university. We are currently all WFH with the expectation of 40% of time back in the office from about September.

My contact was 100% office based but I relocated and magically it's possible to me to WFH. (Always could have they were just stubborn)
Just ask at the point of interview. I am nothing super special nor well paid either so there was no major desire to stop me going elsewhere - it just involved me asking the question!

@Hardbackwriter

I think there's a massive gap between what employers are telling their employees is going to happen and what they're actually willing to advertise and put in the contracts of new employees. My employer says no return before September and then loads of flexibility but HR wouldn't let my boss advertise my maternity cover as open to fully remote 'due to the precedent and since the new policy isn't yet finalised'.

I saw a thread like this before and people kept recommending employers that they personally know are currently fully WFH but a) that doesn't help you doing a job search without that insider knowledge and b) you can't take on a job that you could only do remotely (e.g. that isn't commutable) on the grounds that they're currently WFH and you hope it'll last - well, you can but it'd be very foolish!

This

I work in publishing and have been to the office maybe two or three times since the first lockdown... my boss is now getting rid of the office, so I guess wfh is here to stay!

I’m Civil Service too, and everyone at my organisation is wfh still. Including admin roles.

I guess at many places, admin is the thing you’d most want / need dealt with in the office. But it doesn’t have to be, judging from how the CS has managed.

All 800 people in my organisation are WFH right now, and will go back to flexible WFH 2 days per week as they now don't have enough desks for everyone with social distancing. BUT you won't see that in a job description because they won't be putting people on home based contracts or they would have to pay their travel into the office. So there may be more WFH than you think, you'd have to apply or inquire, rather than them being advertised as WFH.

My admin team are coming back into the office 4 days a week, with one day from home, but their role is operational and they are needed on site to deal with visitors.

I'm going back in 2-3 days a week because my role doesn't need me to be on site as much.

I think many organisations will gradually increase time spent in the office, despite what they are saying now. Many managers I've spoken with in my organisation has noted a decline in productivity of their teams.

Before this, homeworking wasn't well looked upon, it was only for certain roles. Now we're looking at hybrid, which I must say I never ever expected.

Very large private company.

England Netball have advertised admin jobs in the last few days. Some are office based, some are remote working.

I work in insurance and virtually all of our staff are now WFH and will be until at least September. So this includes underwriting, claims, marketing, insurance call centres, web design and all other roles. Going forward after September we will be in the office two to three days a week. This is not I would note because we have a good employer necessarily (though we do), it is about cost. Having demonstrated that staff can work from home for some of the week, our business has moved quickly to reduce office space, so now if do need to get into the office then we have to book a desk.

Admin and hybrid working here. I think it depends on the organisation.

I agree to try local government. All on their knees due to finding cuts so ditching expensive offices.

Yup, Gov jobs! I haven't been in the office since last March and won't be returning, WFH permanently now.

I work in an industry where it can be tough to recruit good people. We've taken on lots during lockdown who don't live anywhere near the office. So roles do exist, but it can be harder to find them towards the beginning of a career.

Civil service and despite almost incessant messaging about how well WFH has worked in terms of productivity, efficiency, work/life balance etc., their messaging has now switched to "nobody will be able to WFH permanently unless there's a business need for it".

I'm intending to apply to become a permanent homeworker, but I agree with others that even if your employer has been making all the right noises, chances are they'll be trying to go back to pre-pandemic times. I'm guessing that WFH is no longer as attractive to employers now that they won't get 24/7 access to their staff, who are now able to leave the house and go to more exciting places.

trixies That doesn't apply across the entire Civil Service.

My department has actually given our office away to another part of the business that is public facing. We have had a full consult and will be WFH with monthly meetings at various CS locations that have room in the estate for 25 people for a couple of hours .

@frustratedbeyondbelief Interesting. I wouldn't assume that anything applied consistently across the CS, that'd be amazing. ;)