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 an academic (lecturer). I have always wfh part of the week and some weeks I don't go in at all. I haven't been allowed back to the office since last year and I don't expect to go back until August/September, maybe later. I will still go in, but maybe half as much as I used to (I have a long commute though and people are pretty shocked I come in as much as I did). The difference is that I think my work was always partly wfh. I would suspect in an admin role it would be more difficult to be remote as you literally need to be there to push paper around in a sense that more senior people don't (because they expect you to do it).

I think, based on my experience, you either need to establish yourself in a normal job then maneuver WFH partly (during lockdown, fully!). Or look UK or timezone wide and get an actual remote working position.

It sounds like you're restricting yourself to local companies with whom you're a new employee... You need to rework how you're doing the job search.

Speaking as someone who has admin staff and as long as they're competent and can keep up in our environment, I don't give a stuff where people are based. (Small caveat in that some of our work is confidential so sometimes restricted to UK based employees but in general we have started to advertise for any location within -/+ 2hrs of UK time (BST now. GMt winters)

Our admin staff are currently office based while the rest of us are hybrid working.

There are 2 reasons for that; we need a presence in the office to do random printing, scanning mail, accessing old paper files etc, also; they're all newly recruited, training is more efficient and they can give each other peer support when they're co-located rather than being siloed at home.

Forgot to add. You might also need to rejig which type of admin work you are looking for. I've just realised that the timezone job ads I mentioned are all our PA roles. But our contract coordinators work under the admin function sometimes and they don't always get to work 100% remotely if paper copies of stuff are handled.. so they're administration and supporting our fully WFH contract management function, but they can only WFH part time. So you probably want to veer away from any admin role that has literal restrictions!

I was told around 6 months ago that a desk would be provided by them for anyone that wants to work in the office but we wouldn't be expected to. Today I have been told we are expected to work half at home and half in the office.
I doubt there will be many wfh jobs advertised in all honesty, and I would expect those that can wfh to be senior or have worked for the company for a while.

I work for a local council, most staff incl admin jobs are WFH ,only people in office are those whose role means they physically have to be there, everyone else WFH and they seem to want to keep it that way long term.

Depends what type of admin stuff is involved. We deal with hundreds of letters (from the Govt) and lots of documents posted in to (that we need to have had signed so we can send back to the Govt). Our Admin team have been based in the office throughout the Pandemic. You can’t open customers’ post from home.

I'm in pharmaceuticals and the company I work for is doing hybrid from now on (for those that can obviously) I can some weeks depending on what is going on.

Theoretically anything that can be done just on a computer. Government jobs are currently, but they'll be forced back in to set an example when the time arrives. The only way to full make sure it's an enduring thing is to apply for jobs that clearly state they are fully wfh.

@Crocky

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

I'm civil service and still very much at home. No sign of going back in yet and when we do it has been mentioned it will be 1 day a week.

I'm a finance administrator for a large university and they are going to be going forward with hybrid working, with that option being available to all office staff. Maybe look at education admin roles?

[quote trixies]@frustratedbeyondbelief Interesting. I wouldn't assume that anything applied consistently across the CS, that'd be amazing. ;)[/quote]
Indeed !!🤣🤣

I think you'd be best looking at nhsjobs and local government (council) jobs

I work for the nhs and most trusts are tending to vere to 50% time in the office and 50% at home

I'm an administrator in financial services. I WFH Jan and Feb. It doesn't really work. The other admin drew the short straw and had to go in to receive and send post. Transferring calls was a nightmare. Someone had to scan in all my paperwork for each client. If it involves being a general cog in keeping things running, it's hard to do this sitting at home on your own.

Personally I would stick to a relatively local company which advertises WFH rather than one hundreds of miles away as things could change and they could ask you to come back to the office eventually.

Hi All,

Just an update, thank you so much to everyone that suggested I widen my net in terms of searching for WFH roles. I did just that after this thread and applied for a few across the country, I was successful and start my new WFH role on Monday

Bit nervous as I’ve never been trained remotely before but it’s all stuff I’ve done before so hopefully it’ll be fine

Wow congratulations! And well done MN!

Civil service. I'm working from home in an admin role. Hoping to only go back to the office 1 day a week.

Oh great! Well done Op

NHS arms length body. Everyone has been able to work from home since last March.

No final decisions have been made yet around what will happen next. My guess is that it will be a mix of WFH and office for everyone, whatever their role.

Generally speaking banking (outside of branch network) all largely all wfh and then hybrid moving forward but I do imagine for admin level staff or equivalent there will be a call back to the office at some point. I’m middle management and we’ll be flexible indefinitely, come in when and If you want style xx

Well done @Cowparsleyheaven.
@hollieberrie I'm CS and we've been told we have to go in a min two days a week once we're allowed back.

Just read your update, well done, Op!

Going forward I will be allowed to WFH 2 days a week I only work 4 days so it is 50% at home, I work in data protection.

Oops, sorry about post, congratulations!