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.

We're going back to a compulsory 4 days in the office, one day from home if you want it. And of course people can apply for flexible working in the normal way and use their experience over the last year as evidence for why their application should be allowed.

All that said, I think WFH was always going to be a short term solution. People were able to work effectively from home because of existing goodwill and relationships created in the office. That won't last forever. It's also been awful for new joiners and for junior staff who learn a lot simply from being around their colleagues.

I keep reading about people who've moved somewhere remote in lockdown and are now outraged that they're expected to turn up at work. What did they think was going to happen?

@WhatWillSantaBring

*Absolutely spot on!

Sums up the issues employers side of things perfectly.

Yes, the piss takers can also do so in an office, but there is much more scope to take the piss when you wfh.

People are literally saving money on nursery costs and after school provision as they 'knock off' at school pick up time when they are supposed to be working until 17:00 .

Then, as I said before, there's the dog walkers who take a nice chunk out of the day take fido out , whereas before they would do it before or after work.*

I respectfully disagree. For some people, WFH has been an excuse to take the piss. For good employees, it works fine. Today, for example I'm WFH, starting at 7.30 and will finish at 18.00. Breaks I've taken/will take: Prepare lunch (10 mins)(then eaten at my desk while working). Walk Fido (1 hour). Hang washing (10 mins) . Prepare dinner (20 mins). Collect kids from school (45 mins). \Piss around on MN (20 mins). Total working time: 7h45 mins.

Typical day at the office:
In office 8.30 - 17.00. Lunch (45 mins). Coffee bar trips (x3 at 10 mins each) (30 mins). Piss about on MN (20 mins). Total working time: 6h55

You see I think the issue is a little bit different than some employees taking the piss.

Reading MN, how many people have been going on about how much they saved during the lockdown because of no commuting and no childcare costs?
I don’t think those people, if still wfh, would want to give that up. So sure, commuting costs will still be down. But they would also want to keep the childcare costs down. And THAT isn’t compatible with wfh when you are out of the pandemic, you don’t expect children running in the background/have a 45mins break to pick up the kids etc…
I also don’t think these people would also be happy to give up 2 hours in their evenings to finish work because they were picking up the dcs, preparing tea etc….
What I suspect will happen is women (because that’s what it will be) doing two things at o ce again, juggling work and children etc….

I don’t think that’s right. Nor for the company, nor on an ethical POV and nor when you talk about the equality between men and women because basically women will end up burdened with even more tasks to deal with than they had before (when they were paying childcare but actually had the whole of their working time for themselves)

Agreed. I think those pp's who are getting a bit defensive and uptight about their office jobs or WFH, just need to think about how it sounds to anyone who's worked on the front line during the past 18 months.
I wouldn't say, I'm a teacher and have had to work in school throughout the pandemic therefore everyone should go out to work. Of course not. The original thinking was, if you can work from home, then do. But I think some people need to be aware of how their comments sound to front line workers in particular who might be reading this.

I’m a key worker who has been working from home throughout. As have many other key workers. Obviously some jobs are people facing by their nature but why force people back into the office if that is not the case for them? Think about all the staff at the Treasury. They put in place furlough, business loans etc, came up with the financial support the country has had during this time. That’s a job that can be done from home on an ongoing basis so why force them to go back? (I don’t know if they are being forced back - just an example). I don’t see why people who work in roles like that where it literally doesn’t matter where they are should have to go back to the office full time just because teachers, surgeons and shop assistants can’t work from home

@PattyPan Yes also the disregard for the stress that key workers WFH have been under. Do you think it was fun working in procurement when no one could get PPE? Or HR when we had to redeploy all the clinically vulnerable staff to non patient roles? Or payroll? I don't think any NHS staff have had it easy in the last year and a half.

Seems disproportionate to insist on people spending their entire careers in an office five days a week for the supposed benefit of new starters and young people new to the workplace. So you benefit from this for a few years and then spend several decades grinding through a commute and office life (which many do not enjoy) returning the favour.

I’m not even convinced that young people are desperate to be in full-time. Colleagues of mine sharing city centre flats are among the keenest wfh advocates.

We need to adopt new norms - ensuring we have time during the day free of meetings and being available for the kind of quick chat you would have in the office. Making it clear that it’s ok to contact someone if you have a question. I have loads of five and ten-minute calls each day dealing with ad hoc queries and tasks, so my colleagues (including ones I’ve never met in person) are obviously comfortable with contacting me.

More training, team update and social events where you meet people across the organisation - there ought to be more funds for this if less office space is needed.

I get why five days a week wfh won’t work for all roles, but there is just no need for everyone to be in every day for graduates, etc. It’s overkill, and those young people will enjoy the benefits themselves sooner or later.

@PattyPan Think about all the staff at the Treasury. They put in place furlough, business loans etc, came up with the financial support the country has had during this time. That’s a job that can be done from home on an ongoing basis so why force them to go back? (I don’t know if they are being forced back - just an example).

Perhaps they wouldn't have screwed it up so badly if they'd been working together in an office to properly discuss the problems/solutions. As it is, we have over £3m self employed excluded from meaningful support, billions of fraud re the furlough/loan schemes. Even Rishi and other treasury officials have admitted things weren't perfect but "they did the best they could under the circumstances". No one knows whether proper face to face meetings and collaboration would have produced better support with fewer holes and less risk of fraud. But it certainly wasn't a perfect set of solutions that protected everyone who needed protection, so not really a good example of how WFH works just as well!

@AntiWorkBrigade those young people will enjoy the benefits themselves sooner or later.

They won't if they never get a chance of the job in the first place because firms aren't taking on trainees/apprentices due to so many staff working from home!

[quote 80caloriesofbiscuitplease]@PattyPan Yes also the disregard for the stress that key workers WFH have been under. Do you think it was fun working in procurement when no one could get PPE? Or HR when we had to redeploy all the clinically vulnerable staff to non patient roles? Or payroll? I don't think any NHS staff have had it easy in the last year and a half. [/quote]
Agree totally. I worked so many hours during the first year dealing with changing rules, changing policy, shifting political directives. I had many days where I didn’t move from my desk for 10+ hours and was still just as key as my customer facing colleagues.

It got so bad that I changed jobs and left the public sector as I couldn’t cope with the demands any more.

My new role is permanent WFH with the option on n of office days, if I want them, when we reopen. It’s also fully flexible, I have kept wrap around care in place, but if I want to pick DS up one day and finish later it’s not an issue at all so long as my job gets done.

The flexibility and WFH were key benefits to me of my new role as my MH has never been better. No more 12 hours out of the house, no more missing pick ups due to train strikes cancellation and overcrowding.

Of course there are downsides to WFH for everyone. It obviously suits early careers better to have a few office days, but there’s no reason why hybrid can’t work for the majority or why employers should force a 100% return.

Exactly @80caloriesofbiscuitplease! I have been working 50 hours a week for months from home, for the benefit of the public (not NHS), and it’s been a nightmare having so much to do. If I’d had to spend 15 hours a week commuting on top of that then I would have had a breakdown. I don’t take a lunch break but I take 5-10 mins to hang out the washing , check MN a few times, I think my employer is still quids in. Workload will probably be this high until the end of the year and there’s no way I want to go into the office full time while that’s the case.

@AntiWorkBrigade yep, for young people wfh is great long term because you can move further away and afford to buy a house or rent somewhere without having to share with strangers.

@Badbadbunny have you heard of MS teams? They were certainly still discussing it and having meetings. I work in a policy making role, not HMT, and there really has been no difference for us in wfh. The compromises they had to make will have been due to the lack of data and the need to act quickly, not because of the lack of face to face meetings.
And I haven’t heard of any organisations that are blaming wfh for not recruiting, it’s down to tighter budgets/economic circumstances.

We all have to go back to office from sept at a minimum Of 60% in the office

More training, team update and social events where you meet people across the organisation - there ought to be more funds for this if less office space is needed.

My employer is trying to make up a budget shortfall of £20 million due to covid controls - there will be no spare funds to pay for CPD or social events because hybrid was forced on us. They are going to redeploy the resulting 'spare' office spaces for other business demands.

I wish people who say that it doesn't work would actually go and work in a fully flexible environment first

I did hybrid, for about 3 years (using my own equipment at home, of course). 95% WFH. That's why I despair of doing it on ongoing basis.

tbh, I accept I will have to 95% WFH going forward. I just see alligator traps in every step of it along the way.

Submit a flexible work request. If you have over 26 weeks service then you can do that

@SofiaMichelle

Your employer sounds massively backwards. As long as the work is getting done who gives a shit if someone walks the dog or hangs out the washing or what have you. Flexible work actually MEANS flexible work where I am. I had a new starter ask me the other day if it was OK if she started an hour later one day so she could watch her DC's sports day. I was like you don't even need to ask me. You're an adult. As long as the work is done I really don't care what time you start.

Sounds like you're over staffed.

That attitude is the same attitude that makes people shit employers.

Oh my god, you can start an hour late one day and still get your work done....let's reduce staff to make people more miserable.

My boss knows we could function with less staff. We still make a fortune as a company. We don't need to reduce our out goings, make staff lives harder and be completely inflexible.

That doesn't benefit anyone

I think for many companies there is a distinction between temporary and permanent WFH. I work in a role that always has been WFH with the exception of the odd site visit (which very quickly were able to be morphed into something else) but people seem to think that existing systems can be very easily moved into WFH and that's not always true.

Even recruitment procedures. Our roles are recruited for with a consideration that the majority of it is WFH. The role profile is set up to recruit people who won't suffer from isolation etc because we knew what we were going into and actively chose it. So for example it used to be the case you could enter the role at a lower level and train up on the job. They have stopped that for a bit and only recruit for qualified staff at a higher level ( if they are qualified they had to have already done the role in a WFH format because its how it works nationally due to the nature of the role).

All of our processes are designed around remote access. Increased auditing forms a huge part , complex tracking systems (compliance based....as in are we achieving they don't log how long we are online etc or keystrokes) but they were developed over years. Its not something that can be put in properly and made to be robust in a year.

Its not so simple for companies to transfer temporary WFH systems to permanent.

@Badbadbunny - I’m not sure how simply not recruiting entry-level roles can be sustainable indefinitely. Is this not a pandemic situation, rather than something that would continue with proper long-term wfh?

I noticed the Law Society had issued some guidance on supervising trainee solicitors recently which gave a number of days of in-person contact a week that would be expected. It wasn’t five. So compatible with hybrid working for both trainee and experienced staff.

[quote Badbadbunny]**@AntiWorkBrigade* those young people will enjoy the benefits themselves sooner or later.*

They won't if they never get a chance of the job in the first place because firms aren't taking on trainees/apprentices due to so many staff working from home![/quote]
Really? Is it not due to trying to keep outgoings to a minimum? its just because people are wfh.

That must mean they are super efficient when wfh.

You are fortunate if you can work from home -not everyone can.. no one is entitled to work from home, it was a good perk due to the pandemic,for some anyway.

I have constantly been hearing how people are scared to go into the office, all this mollycoddling is driving me nuts.. I think some are genuinely scared, but others are just saying they are tbh, because its bloody cushy.

Sorry OP, but Wfh was only ever temporary and if your employers find it is less productive than having people in the office then it's not exactly a big surprise they are telling you to come back in now restrictions are ending.

tbh It's a bit of a mystery why some people seem to think their individual preferences / ability to get the school run done trumps their employers decisions!

On a more positive note- I am back in the office already and absolutely loving it. Getting a lot more done and can completely switch off when home. You might surprise yourself when you get back in!

Sounds like you're over staffed.

We really, really aren't.

And we have excellent staff too. Plus a brilliant staff retention rate. I don't think we've actually had anyone leave in over three years now.

Antiworkbrigade, I don't think it just benefits new joiners- it benefits everybody. Perhaps it depends on your job but in my work (City law) people learn from colleagues all the time in a way which is organic and relies on strong interpersonal relationships and time spent together. Training sessions are not the same.

Ps for those who maintain that the commute is the issue, you need to move closer to your workplace!!

Where you live is literally not your employers responsibility/ problem

Unless you're working in a call centre, who the fuck is tallying up every single piddling hour they are working? I couldn't tell you how many hours I'm doing in a week. Some weeks I do way over and above because there is something happening which requires it, some weeks I do less because there is less on. It balances out. I'm judged by my work, not the amount of hours I spend at my desk.

That's also how I judge my team. It honestly made me feel so sad when the schools were closed and friends of mine were saying how their employers were being "flexible" in saying meetings could only take place between 10 and 4 or some other piss poor nod to "flexibility". Most employers wouldn't know true flexibility if it punched them in the face.

@Rhinothunder well it kind of is if my employer doesn't pay me enough to live anywhere my place of work. Luckily they do and I live in a rough area but when I used to work in a very upmarket private clinic I used to have to travel for two hours to earn my £8.60 per hour. Whilst the clinic was making thousands per week.