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.

My idea though is that banks should run pop-ups like vans which travel around different places instead of standalone branches

Barclays had that idea decades ago. My dad worked for them and staffed sub branches that were open half a day a week in the mid 60s.

It already is a legal right to request flexible working!
Well, of course it is. We have a legal right to ask just about anything that enters our heads.
We can still expect to hear the word No when it doesn't suit our employers...

@Tealightsandd

as they will only find people who want full time office work.

Lots and lots and lots of people might not want full time office work, but only a minority can afford not to. Homes suitable for WFH are the preserve of a privileged few.

Also, with the country in massive debt, our battered economy really could do without losing the billions that it gets from the office based industries.

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

I agree WFH in utter comfort is probably more for the higher income bracket. It’s just going to create a bigger gap between the have and have nots. Describing how you WFH just sounds entitled because as previously mentioned not all people have a suitable home from which to work.

Haven’t RTFT but data protection is a red herring: if your systems and protocols are good it doesn’t inhibit WFH, as most people discovered in 2020.

I think we’d be mad to go back to FT office based work as standard.

It was always just custom and practice, not the sensible or right thing to do.

And if you don’t trust your employees why are they working for you?

I’m never working in an office again and will turn down any role demanding it.

I do think organisations have some catching up to do in terms of health and safety, equipment and managing productivity and engagement though. All entirely possible with WFH, just need a different approach

@LightasaBreeze

A lot who wfh are quite selfish to other family members when they are at the kitchen table doing their oh so important job and have no thought to what misery this causes, loads of threads on here about this.

I’m sure someone posted on a thread during lockdown saying that her DH used the dining room table for work (if I remember rightly, sitting room, dining room were one big room with small kitchen). She had to keep young DCs ‘out of the way’ and quiet. Upstairs in a bedroom... 😡

@lljkk my local independent food retailer's profits have gone up by 30%. Local butchers are doing a booming trade. A friend is opening a local toy shop as people can shop in the day and not just at weekends. School mum is opening a health food shop. I'd say our local high street has never been as thriving.

@StillCalmX

I need two screens. I hated wfh, my house isnt lovely, no doors to throw open, no room for a pet. I would like buses to not be as packed as they once were tho

This is what privileged people need to understand. Not everyone has an ideal home to work from.

@Zoorhik so people should be given a choice. People who don’t have a good place to work at home or don’t like to can then choose to go into the office without people who don’t want to being forced to. No one is advocating for everyone being forced to work from home.

@vivainsomnia

It already is a legal right to request flexible working! Funny how so many seem to interpret 'request' as 'entitled'.

As already said, everyone gets to request, it's been so for many years. It's then up to the company to decide if the business can be carried without negative effect doing so.

In many cases, it will have a detrimental effect and that enough to say no.

Let's face it. Why would companies buy or rent space if staff can work just as productively at home? They do because as a whole, businesses tend to be more productive when their staff are all in one place. It's not just about the productivity of one person but the team.

In the end, it will come down to supply and demand. The staff that are hard to replace have more of a say than staff that can easy be replaced.

Some companies have clearly not seen a drop in productivity so they have no business case to insist everyone goes to the office. As I said my company will be hybrid working and I’ve recently seen jobs advertised at a couple of high street banks (in the head office) an established startup and many journalistic outlets, all stating that if full time office work doesn’t suit you they will accommodate your preference. If a company runs a consultation and most staff say they want flexible working and not 5 days in the office, then ignores that and demands everyone back in, that is a union issue in my opinion. You can’t ask your staff what they want then ride roughshod over their preferences and expect no pushback. I welcome the idea that employees organising rights and power will grow as they demand work to work for THEM, not the other way round. Why do some people unquestioningly accept we have to defer to our employers with no discussion, no alternatives and no autonomy?

@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.

I am not sure how that happens tbh.

Staff in banks, as I understood, were allowed to work face to face.

I don't know why the decisions was made to only have 1 desk open.

I suspect, like you, it's to justify it closing down. More people will go online, save queuing where possible. Then they can say they don't need the branch.

The HSBC in my town and neatest city had a queue last year, but only because they could only allow a certain amount of customers in at once. The 3 counters were still open.

[quote PattyPan]@Zoorhik so people should be given a choice. People who don’t have a good place to work at home or don’t like to can then choose to go into the office without people who don’t want to being forced to. No one is advocating for everyone being forced to work from home.[/quote]
So people who don't have the luxury of a nice house with space to work should go back to the office and do all the donkey work that has to get done so others can do the school run and peg the washing out?

No one is forced to do anything. If people don't want to go back to the office they need to find another job. It was only meant to be temporary.

[quote 80caloriesofbiscuitplease]@lljkk my local independent food retailer's profits have gone up by 30%. Local butchers are doing a booming trade. A friend is opening a local toy shop as people can shop in the day and not just at weekends. School mum is opening a health food shop. I'd say our local high street has never been as thriving.[/quote]
And? That can continue no matter what if people prefer and the shops have opening hours to accommodate their clientele.

@osbertthesyrianhamster why do you think those that go back to the office are doing geh donkey work.

My team work entirely online. Our job is identical when we wfh as when we are in the office. There's no extras work.

But are you suggesting people can't wfh, because some of their colleagues don't feel they have the room to do it, or don't enjoy it?

@osbertthesyrianhamster but it won't continue. Because the people spending in the shops will be further away at a desk in an office, buying lunch (usually) from chains.

And when you add commutes on people don't have as much time to go shopping in their local town.

Smaller towns have benefitted from people wfh. And will lose out when people return.

But no one seems fussed about those people.

So people who don't have the luxury of a nice house with space to work should go back to the office and do all the donkey work that has to get done so others can do the school run and peg the washing out

Bitter or what?!

Genuine question: do you believe that in an office, no one ever does anything comparable, in terms of time taken, to the school run or pegging out the washing?

Problem is if your job can be done wfh in the U.K. then it can probably be done wfh in another country with lower salaries.
I thought the Tony Blair institute had recently warned if such a probability?

I think the point of the thread is the OP was upset her individual feelings haven't been taken into account in her employers decision re wfh now the restrictions have ended.

But the bottom line is:

it is the employers decision which is final re where they want you to be based.

If you don't like what they're asking, leave. If you're truly that good at your job/ that in demand- no dramas you'll be able to make it work for you.

Just don't expect that everyone has the pre ordained right to be at home forever!

A lot of people perceive themselves as equally productive at home when they're not. A lot of people who are wfh effectively now may be less effective as competitors / colleagues move back into offices. A lot of clients who have tolerated altered business models due to the restrictions may now not, you might find your opportunities are less than your colleagues who are back in and networking.... etc . There are so many different factors

But what it 100% has absolutely nothing to do with is how long your particular commute is , how much you love pegging out the washing or getting chores done or the success of local high streets and sandwich shops

It's about performance and customer / client satisfaction

Indeed a lot of companies might want to be flexible but may find it hard when competitors are moving back into offices and client meetings etc start up again, just look at what happened in America . 360o turnaround from most employers.

As to what will happen in the UK-only time will tell!

my local independent food retailer's profits have gone up by 30%.

how does anyone even have that kind of info?

@lljkk

my local independent food retailer's profits have gone up by 30%.

how does anyone even have that kind of info?

Indeed 🤔

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.cityam.com/blair-think-tank-work-from-home-revolution-could-see-millions-of-white-collar-jobs-outsourced/amp/

Problem is if your job can be done wfh in the U.K. then it can probably be done wfh in another country with lower salaries.

Off-shoring isn't quite as easy as that, as a great many companies have discovered over the decades.

@Dutch1e

Problem is if your job can be done wfh in the U.K. then it can probably be done wfh in another country with lower salaries.

Off-shoring isn't quite as easy as that, as a great many companies have discovered over the decades.

What extra challenges does it involve, over and above those involved in employing someone for a London post and having them work in Newcastle, for example?

I have work colleagues that didn't always pull their weight in the office and this has not improved very much with working so from home. Of course they are enjoying WFH so much and develop a sudden fear of Covid and quote current WFH guidance whenever going into the office is suggested. They are perfectly happy to socialise and go out and about as normal outside of work though. My issue is that for others the burden is increasing because these types are even more off the radar than before.

GreyhoundG1rl timezones, cultural miscommunications, language barriers, cross-border tax hassles, payrolling abroad, equivalency of qualifications, establishing a local presence, training/onboarding, customer pushback, intellectual property issues, cross-border employment laws. These are just off the top of my head and not all will apply, but enough of them do that it's not quite as simple as "if you can wfh in this country we may as well bung it all off abroad."