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.

@SmokeyDevil

It's obvious what the solution is. Let people decide! If they want to wfh and can and do so well, let them. If they want to work from the office for whatever reason, let them. Happier workers is what you want, not pissed off ones.

No - the employer should decide - they pay the money. I can't say it often enough - there should be no suggestion of a 'LEGAL' RIGHT to work from home. An employee cannot arbitrarily insist they must save on a commute/childcare , get a dog, and nap in the afternoon at the expense of employers profits and customer services.

@Tealightsandd

I cannot say it too many times.

As a customer and client WFH has been crap. There's been a significant worsening of standards of service.

As someone who works in a customer-facing role that hasn't been affected by WFH, I can tell you that customers have been noticeably more belligerent, demanding of my time and just plain nasty ever since a few months into the pandemic. I don't claim to have any explanation why, it's just what me and my colleagues have noticed.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's part of the reason you're getting worse service. Perhaps call centres for your broadband service (to just pick an example at random) are getting far more complaints and whingy calls at the moment, meaning there's more of a wait.

After all, call centres functioned perfectly well WFH since before the pandemic, there's no reason why they would give worse service purely due to WFH - they can still employ the same amount of people (more, actually, due to no longer being constrained by the space requirements needed for staff in a physical office, or the cost of the building) with the same capabilities as before.

Well there is a legal right to request flexible working including working from home so whether you like it or not it does exist.
The employer has to have a business reason to refuse and that can be challenged if not a good enough reason.
I expect there will be a lot of requests now and employers will have to change their models because people's expectations have changed.

@LightasaBreeze

How can anyone work properly on the kitchen table, DH had the spare room to work in and that was bad enough, I could hear his calls through the door, luckily he is retired now or he would have been banished to the caravan on the drive.

Well I work on my sofa. Have done the whole way through. Due to disabilities I find it much easier and better for me as I am comfortable and no longer need to use a mouse.

Most people have a house and a kitchen table. That's fine. Offices are not special unless you need specialist equipment.

What if more than one person need the kitchen table? What if they need a kitchen table for kitchen reasons like eating or preparing food?
As well as not having suitable chairs etc. Its probably ok for a short term emergency measure but I think majority of people would not choose to work that way.

Can anyone explain to me how it's good customer service for my local Barclays (that used to have 3 tellers) to only have one window open and you have to queue outside until you are allowed in and the reason given is 'staff are wfh'? Perhaps it's just a cunning plan to close it down.

As I said, lucky you (and lucky me).

I’m not sure it’s about luck.

@GreyhoundG1rl

Your employer will lose employees, and find it hard to recruit from a wide pool of talent, as they will only find people who want full time office work. Everybody knew this was just a temporary thing, and that one day full time office work as you call it, would revert to normal.

I don’t think lots of companies are returning to full time office work, and those who enforce it for jobs that can easily be done remotely, or by coming into an office a couple of days a week will find themselves at a disadvantage to those companies who are embracing the positives that can be taken from all this.

My company, which is global, is now moving to a permanent hybrid working structure.

Some jobs do need to be at a location but many have been proven to work really well when employees are able to work from home. We’ll go in a couple of days a week or as needed but the expectation for everyone to be in 9-5 Monday - Friday is gone, I think that concept will begin to feel very old fashioned.

As a customer and client WFH has been crap. There's been a significant worsening of standards of service.

As a customer I've found some small issues (mainly things taking longer to arrive, which is never the end of the world, and companies have been very up-front about the possibility and very apologetic) BUT have mainly found there's been more give and take e.g. if I needed to return something and didn't get to the post office in time to make the usual return window, they've always let me off.

Well there is a legal right to request flexible working including working from home so whether you like it or not it does exist.
The employer has to have a business reason to refuse and that can be challenged if not a good enough reason.
I expect there will be a lot of requests now and employers will have to change their models because people's expectations have changed
Reduce productivity is certainly enough of good reason. Employees who very much want to work from home will always claim productivity has not reduced and even increased.

Sadly they often don't have the relevant information at business level to make that claim. Most organisations and companies want maximum productivity. How many would be stupid enough to demand staff go back to the office of indeed productivity has I creased since staff have been working home.

The reality is that in many instances, productivity has reduced and that why people are made to go back to the office.

If reduced productivity was the reason then they'd have to prove that that did apply to this particular employee and not just in a general sense. If it did then surely it should be dealt with via performance management in any case.
They'd be better off to have evidence of tasks that could not be completed from home and it would seem difficult to me to resist a request for one or two days from home.
Some amount of wfh is going to be the new normal I firmly believe that and employers and the world will change around it. We'll look back in 10 years and laugh at all the floors and floors of little booths at Canary Wharf.

@Billandben444

Can anyone explain to me how it's good customer service for my local Barclays (that used to have 3 tellers) to only have one window open and you have to queue outside until you are allowed in and the reason given is 'staff are wfh'? Perhaps it's just a cunning plan to close it down.

Because most banking functions can be done online/on the phone? I don’t remember the last time I went to a branch of my bank in person.

Even doing a mortgage application was all done on the phone/online.

The point that is repeatedly made about sandwich shops and the like is very interesting because it suggests individual office workers owe people working in these areas a living, even if it means arranging their own lives in a way that is disadvantageous to them. This is an argument I hadn’t really seen prior to the wfh debate. If that’s the case, when does this duty start and stop? Are people who take their own sandwiches to work and don’t buy a coffee every day not ‘doing their bit’?

These businesses sprang up to service a market - they saw an opportunity and took advantage of it. Great. But do we now owe them to keep that market in place artificially?

It’s an uncomfortable argument to me because it’s coming out and saying that commuters should be forced into a routine that is not good for them and may be completely unnecessary so they can be milked by businesses.

An employee cannot arbitrarily insist they must save on a commute/childcare , get a dog, and nap in the afternoon at the expense of employers profits and customer services.

But the employers of workers that they force into an office will find those workers leaving. They'll go to jobs that allow them to choose, and there's quite a lot of them now, especially in my line of work (IT). I do not need to be in an office, they will want me in for no good reason. I'll just leave and considering they struggled to hire someone in the first place (public sector), good luck to them finding a replacement. It won't happen for ages, and who does the work in the mean time? No one.

You can say that we only want to wfh to have a nap in the afternoon, I can say that people only want to go back into work do they can waste time gossiping on the kitchen over a coffee. Both aren't true fit the majority of people, and I have also seem people sleeping at their desks in an office. Lazy people will be lazy wherever you put them, makes no difference.

I’d be interested to see some analysis of how small businesses have done in residential areas pre/during pandemic. I know since OH and I are both wfh full time we pop out for a coffee or lunch locally on a regular basis. I have had brainstorming sessions with local colleagues in my garden (or theirs) when weather has been nice using our outdoor blackboard and pavement chalk to make notes then photographing & writing up. On those days whoever is “hosting” will order in stuff for lunch. So still buying lots of stuff just from different vendors. Personally I’m longing to get back to the office as I find working when the kids are home really hard and prefer the very clear divide of working in the office

@bunnybuggs you do realise that way before the pandemic, many companies, particularly start ups, had flexible working in place and let employees wfh? It’s not a new concept by any means. Some startups have been operating on a ‘pick your own hours’ basis for years, as long as the work is done. Granted this isn’t the norm in large corporations but flexible working IS a legal right.

Totally disagree the employer should dictate everyone should be in the office. We need to rethink our attitude to work as a society and prioritise general well-being and flexibility over profit and rigidity. It should be the employee’s choice in jobs where it isn’t necessary to be in the office. My work is moving to a hybrid model and so are many, many others. I don’t ever want to work 5 days a week in an office again (and I live alone in a small flat) so I simply wouldn’t ever apply for or do a job that demanded that. Im not alone in my thinking. This is a great opportunity to radically rethink how we as a society approach work (although as I and many others keep saying, wfh and flexibility is not a new concept).

It’s an uncomfortable argument to me because it’s coming out and saying that commuters should be forced into a routine that is not good for them and may be completely unnecessary so they can be milked by businesses.

Fully agree. It's also completely illogical considering that sandwich shop workers are unlikely to earn enough to live close to work. Maybe they'd also appreciate living closer to home and owning/staffing a new premises within their own neighbourhood (or via food truck, I love a good food truck pootling around!)

@Ijustknowitstimetogo

As I said, lucky you (and lucky me).

I’m not sure it’s about luck.

Ok wow. FORTUNATE ?

@Dutch1e

It’s an uncomfortable argument to me because it’s coming out and saying that commuters should be forced into a routine that is not good for them and may be completely unnecessary so they can be milked by businesses.

Fully agree. It's also completely illogical considering that sandwich shop workers are unlikely to earn enough to live close to work. Maybe they'd also appreciate living closer to home and owning/staffing a new premises within their own neighbourhood (or via food truck, I love a good food truck pootling around!)

I always thought of organising lunch sessions for all the people WFh so we can go o to lunch together 😂

I always thought of organising lunch sessions for all the people WFh so we can go o to lunch together 😂

I love this idea. Pop-up communities, brilliant!

Totally agree @AntiWorkBrigade. I used to bring my own lunch and herbal tea to the office so a) the economy doesn’t suffer if I consume those same products without first transporting them 50 miles and b) if people really don’t want to make their own lunch they can go to a sandwich shop near their house or order something locally. We’ve been so busy lately I have ordered deliveroo a couple of times for lunch which isn’t something I would do at the office.
Businesses aren’t owed customers and if people don’t want to use them anymore then they have to adapt, that’s what capitalism is all about.

Exactly @PattyPan

Capitalism is about businesses doing what is best for them

For a lot of businesses this now means ending WFH now the government restrictions are ending as it has been shown to be less productive and less competitive (see the objective audit results for this- don't base your arguments on the claims of single individuals WFH and wanting to continue)

WFH was always temporary and isn't anyone's 'right' by default

Because most banking functions can be done online/on the phone? I don’t remember the last time I went to a branch of my bank in person.

Even doing a mortgage application was all done on the phone/online.

And customers who have difficulty doing these things online or on the phone, or who just prefer to do business face to face, just have to put up with it?

And if the person on the other end of the phone is wfh at their kitchen table, how can I be sure that there is no-one else listening to our conversation, or looking over the staff member's shoulder at her computer screen?

I don’t owe Pret A Manger a living. (I do miss their brownies though, as well as the one that had a sort of hard white covering on it.) Not enough to go back to my £5,000+ timesapping commute, however. It’s one day a week in London for me from now on, with the new special train ticket hooray for that.

@DameAlyson

Because most banking functions can be done online/on the phone? I don’t remember the last time I went to a branch of my bank in person.

Even doing a mortgage application was all done on the phone/online.

And customers who have difficulty doing these things online or on the phone, or who just prefer to do business face to face, just have to put up with it?

And if the person on the other end of the phone is wfh at their kitchen table, how can I be sure that there is no-one else listening to our conversation, or looking over the staff member's shoulder at her computer screen?

There’s no point in keeping things open if nobody uses them. Even train stations are closed if there’s low usage, you can’t complain that ‘only 3 people use it’ so it makes sense to stay open. Everything has a cost. My idea though is that banks should run pop-ups like vans which travel around different places instead of standalone branches. Of course the use is limited due to safety etc but this idea is already being trialled.