WFH, suddenly taken away, are we really just going back to the old way?

[80caloriesofbiscuitplease]

Today my (public sector) employer announced we were all expected to be back in the office, full time from a months time, with home working only to be used in emergencies.
I know that response to WFH has been mixed from other professionals and some employees have frankly been less productive from home. I would have been happy with one day per week from home as a compromise.
My argument is that there should be a consultation period where we could put forward our rationale for being able to maintain an aspect of home working. Also are we really going to go back to the old way, packed buses, packed trains, traffic, pollution, all for presentism?
I feel that we've seen another way, with happier employees, healthier employees and an improvement in the environment. I work in a grey concrete wasteland where I regularly sit at my desk all day without a break. At home I can open my doors, hear the birds, stroke my cat. My mental health has improved so much and that makes me a better employee. Today two of us were in the office and four were working from home. They really want to go back to six of us coming to work all day, every day to answer emails and input data which we could do from home?
I know I could look for another role but I like my job and I'm quite good at it. I don't want a role which is completely home based, but I feel saddened by the whole world going back to the way we lived before.
And yes I know some have worked out the house the whole way through. It's not a 'my life is harder' competition.

Young people generally want to live close to a town centre
I have no idea what exactly will happen. It depends on market forces in this capitalist world of ours but maybe innovative employers who want to attract the best creative talent will pay a wfh allowance so people can kit out a home office or hire space or a mixture as they choose
If there is demand for work spaces more will arise and maybe they'll have coffee shops and gyms and even crèches

Maybe some of those city centre commercial office blocks will get changed into live/ work spaces.

My point is just that you can't hold back the tide of change. The world of work pre pandemic was already changing and this has only accelerated it. Offices aren't the same now as they were in the 1950s so why would they not evolve again now

I suspect the massive high rise office blocks with floors of little booths have had their day and will anyone really really miss them??

I don't have all the answers and I don't pretend to but I do think it's really dim and short sighted to argue that everything should go back to just how it was because that's how it used to be. employers who use this opportunity to innovate will be the most successful in the end.

Personally cannot wait to get back to the office. Fed up of 12 h b2 b zoom meetings starting whilst I should be having breakfast and eating into baby bath and bedtime. All whilst having a screaming 2.5 year old in the house. I need peace , quiet and sanity!!!

Maybe they won't be in their own businesses' office but in a workspace with other young people.

Why would employers pay for that? All the cost without any of the benefits of office space.

Why should the employees be expected to pay for that? Totally unfair.

No, they’ll gravitate toward companies that give them actual office space.

How many people on this thread are meant to be working from home at the moment but are actually on mumsnet instead

I work flexible hours and as long as I get my work done to the requisite standard to the required deadline, and turn up for meetings when I should be there, nobody cares where and when I do my work. So I can do work, post on MN, go back to work.

I am a bit surprised that everyone goes on about making friends at work being an essential reason for ending remote working. If you don't waste 3 hours a day on the commute, you can join clubs and societies at home and make friends there. Obviously my view is coloured by the waste of time and money that is the commute to London. It's obviously different if you work close to home, but then you can make friends at home anyway.

[quote 80caloriesofbiscuitplease]@Ihopeyourcakeisshit with all respect you don't know me. I work in a hospital. I've done four days in the building all the way through, 50% of that time being ward based. I've done the driving around various hospitals using my own petrol to pick up PPE. I've driven my whole family two hours away to do a COVID test in May last year when it was acceptable to just isolate for 14 days just so I could go to work the next day to make up for the people who were shielding or WFH. I've come in when needed, stayed late, increased my hours, changed roles, cleaned when we had no housekeepers, worn scrubs, made tea for knackered HCP's, ordered pizzas. I've done everything I could to support the NHS during this shitty pandemic and now all I want is to carry on with my one day at home. Which is a day with no clinics (not a Friday.) I feel like I've done all I can to help my trust and they're treating me like a naughty child. [/quote]
I didn't realise you only did one day wfh during the pandemic. I think you might be more successful asking for that to continue rather than asking for 50/50.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity I suspect the massive high rise office blocks with floors of little booths have had their day and will anyone really really miss them??

I agree. I also hope the "centralisation" idea of just having offices in a few (or one) city centres will also come to an end. I'd love to see a return to much smaller, regional offices. Somewhere where people can get back to living and working in the smaller cities, towns, etc.

The organisations who centralised everything in huge city centre offices have done untold damage to the country's demographics by sucking in all the jobs into relatively small parts of the country. That's left a massive vacuum in the regions where there were few "good" jobs so people had to move to the city(ies), especially graduates who never went back to their home towns after leaving Uni because there were no jobs there.

It would be really good if the big organisations rented smaller office space in towns and small cities as "hubs" for meetings etc and for those who prefer to work in offices, or for training/apprentice schemes, etc.

I want things to go back to normal for no other reason than I don’t want house prices to collapse in London.
Don’t see why people should be getting London weighted salaries without having to live in London.

There’s a lot of pressure to get back to the “office” to support the local economy in those areas but it is a retrogressive step. The world has moved on and it will prove impossible to put the flexible working gene back in the bottle. My advice to find another job.

I agree with the idea of embracing new ways of working, it is a bit unimaginative to have to return to work structures and cultures that actually 'didn't' work for many people. My 14 year old already questions the point of the commute his Dad was doing to London, the impact on the environment, that way of working doesn't resonate with him and I can see his generation proposing change and wanting a hybrid scenario with more of a 'life'.

I appreciate the issues for new starters and those who don't have good enough homes to work in but with all respect it is not just about 'young people', this level of flexibility has been hugely beneficial to many parents- IME these are the people that have the tacit knowledge in an organisation and they are in demand and needed for organisations to work effectively. They do have more bargaining power because of this and I don't think that flexibility is going to be given up easily. I have WFH job in info sec so not customer based and I have been able to do more work with the WFH option as I can quickly do the school run rather than leaving work an hour before collection time. Many of my female friends in jobs that are WFH or their own businesses have thrived as they are not constrained by the office hours. That is lots of talent back in the economy that perhaps before were thinking of quitting whilst their children were young as managing school/nursery and travelling to offices ages away could not be done.

This is anecdotal but my peers and DC'S friends parents are nearly all thriving with this new way of working. I think it is noticeable that this is largely due to the bigger role the fathers are playing in school drop off and collection, even collection from after school clubs ending at 6 which was not possible prior to the pandemic as many of them worked in London or travelled for work.

My DH and I have been wfh since March 2020. Both employers now planning a hybrid model 2/3 days in office. This suits us very well. Not sure why some posters think its essential to have a separate home office - we don't have one. I work in the kitchen, DH has a desk in the corner of our bedroom. We're happy to make these compromises to our living space in order to avoid the soul-crushing daily commute.

Regarding the supposed lack of money being spent in coffee shops etc., we go out most lunchtimes to a local neighbourhood coffee shop, as this helps to give a bit more structure to the day and also forces us to take a proper lunch break. This is important as I've often been tempted to just work through lunch, something I rarely did when office-based. We have two fairly new local cafe's and both are doing great business, we see the same faces most days, all people wfh just like us. So the money is being spent in the economy, just locally now, which is a good thing imo.

I suspect there are quite a few SAHM's on here who have a vested interest in arguing for the return to the office

I wonder if this will be the solution to our Brexit problems. Less coffee shops catering for commuters, less office cleaners, receptionists might fill the gaps left by some Europeans leaving.

Don’t see why people should be getting London weighted salaries without having to live in London.

I’d reframe this and say that all the jobs previously closed off to those who can’t afford to live in or commute to London will be opened up to a diverse talent pool. How bloody brilliant! Then employers will have to work hard to actually be good employers and hardworking, talented people will have opportunities previously closed to them.

I notice how everyone who's jumped on my comment about young people has gone for the advantages of not needing a central home, but hasn't covered the lack of support, development, mentoring etc. All that stuff you just assimilate by being in the same room with experienced people, rather than through formal training. Things you will all have benefited from enormously in the past, but are incredibly resistant to doing for the next generations.

Even if you don't care about the individuals, your employers need it to happen for the future of the organisation.

Yes, we don't have offices at home either, I work in the office when DH is WFH and he is often away for work for a night or two so I WFH on those days. I have also noticed the local, new coffee shops doing well.

Yanbu, a hybrid approach is the way forward or at least giving employees the choice to. I work for a government agency and they have said we basically will be going in 2 days a week in the future. Before the pandemic we went in 4 days a week.

This is anecdotal but my peers and DC'S friends parents are nearly all thriving with this new way of working. I think it is noticeable that this is largely due to the bigger role the fathers are playing in school drop off and collection, even collection from after school clubs ending at 6 which was not possible prior to the pandemic as many of them worked in London or travelled for work.

This is lovely and could be so beneficial for those kids who used to not see a working parent (often dad) during the week as well as beneficial for the mental health of the dads. My dad commuted long hours and had a mental breakdown at 55 and didn’t work again. He was ok as had a good pension etc but he loved his job and if he’d been able to do it one day a week from our house and take us to school l think it would have saved him.

Are you in a union? Is this something a union rep could help with? If not have you put this in writing? If everyone in your team is on board why not write to your line managers with a request for flexi-home working?

I run my own business and have worked from home for the last 10 years, I love it, I started when kids were tiny but it’s so handy to be down the road and flexible when they’re off school or need picking up early. I can take them to after school sports, walk the dog, go to the gym and fit work around everything. I foften end up working Sundays or evenings but that’s my choice. Good luck 🤞🏻

I think it's about choice.

Some people need to get away from their screaming kids. Some people need to get away from their excessively chatty coworker

As for onboarding young employees, why can't they temporarily go in more frequently until that new employee has bedded in? A PP mentioned that junior employees go in 4 days a week.

@JeanneDoe

I want things to go back to normal for no other reason than I don’t want house prices to collapse in London. Don’t see why people should be getting London weighted salaries without having to live in London.

That seems a ridiculous reason.

@Goldenbear This is anecdotal but my peers and DC'S friends parents are nearly all thriving with this new way of working. I think it is noticeable that this is largely due to the bigger role the fathers are playing in school drop off and collection, even collection from after school clubs ending at 6 which was not possible prior to the pandemic as many of them worked in London or travelled for work.

All that could still happen if parents could work in offices closer to home, i.e. in their own town/city, rather than having a stupidly long commute of an hour or two to London or other big centre centre office blocks.

When my OH worked in a small office pretty close to home (local town centre), he could use his informal "flexitime" to do some school drop offs/pick ups, attend sports days, school plays, etc. That would have been impossible (and in fact WAS impossible) for a few years when he had a job 90 minutes away.

You certainly don't need to work from home just to be able to participate more in your family life. An office closer to home with a shorter commute is just as good.

I think people should be able to work from home if they can and want to. If you don't want to, go into the office. But I don't see why I should be going in when I'm happier at home, can do all of my job from home, just because my bosses want to have an arse on a seat in a different building.

Plus as op pointed out, the environmentalists on here should love wfh. It helps the air quality if there's less traffic. People still order stuff online from home, and still buy food (if not more food) when working from home. It's not like the supermarkets saw a downturn, and many small businesses in my area had an increase in selling food by delivering it. Companies have always needed to adapt, the ones that don't fail.

I notice how everyone who's jumped on my comment about young people has gone for the advantages of not needing a central home, but hasn't covered the lack of support, development, mentoring etc. All that stuff you just assimilate by being in the same room with experienced people, rather than through formal training. Things you will all have benefited from enormously in the past, but are incredibly resistant to doing for the next generations.

Even if you don't care about the individuals, your employers need it to happen for the future of the organisation.

All of this can be done with hybrid working. Conversations and mentoring aren’t particularly different in person than on Zoom and any direct actual supervision that technology can’t handle can be done on the office days.

Incidentally, there seems to be a bit of a myth about the ‘useful chats at the water cool’, and info ‘floating around the office’ when in reality most office time is people cracking on with their work or making small talk.

It’s weird that in the face of a climate crisis people think we shouldn’t find a better way to work than putting millions of cars on the roads every day. Picking up a phone, arranging a video call or even a walk or coffee with a colleague is not hard.

@JassyRadlett

And I really can't state enough how shit WFH has been for customers and clients.

I’m a client for a significant number of agencies and suppliers - ranging from professional services and creatives to tech services.

I haven’t noticed WFH having a particularly shit impact - in quite a few cases it’s been the opposite. Most I haven’t noticed a difference apart from change of interface or disruption due to the actual pandemic, not WFH.

And my team’s productivity has (measurably) increased.

All the bleating about productivity and it being crap for clients just makes me think those places need to invest more in people, systems and contract/agency management skills.

Management skills are systemically poor in this country. The pandemic has exposed those businesses that haven’t been investing in it.

Completely agree, my step daughter works from home in a call centre role. Her headset broke and it took the company 4 weeks to send her a new one.....

You certainly don't need to work from home just to be able to participate more in your family life. An office closer to home with a shorter commute is just as good.

Well it can’t be close to everyone’s home so that doesn’t work. And besides, what’s closer to home than… home?!

Plus wfh has arguably benefited my employer more than me. I have a long commute (3h round trip) and I would not be willing to work 10 hour days on top of that but I’m ok doing it from home because it’s no more time than I would have lost had I been commuting.