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.

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?

The decision to allow working from home is taken by individual organisations. My pay is very low for my organisation (just over half the median). If I can afford a kitchen table then so can everyone else where I work. Indeed, as I am so badly paid I don’t live in london where my job is located. For many people like me a long commute (rail season ticket costs 20% of my take home pay by the way) is a consequence of crap pay and working from home will alleviate that.
It’s easy to be against wfh when your commute doesn’t cost that much money, time (3h a day) or stress.
And pegging out the washing can a) be timed to be during the lunch break and b) takes a heck of a lot less time than the tea breaks people waste their time on in the office.

No it didn't happen before the pandemic. Not like that.

Because they're WFH, they can't just hand the phone to the manager or a more experienced colleague, when they don't know the answer to a query.

So they have to try to call that person to ask them what to tell me (the client or customer).

They take ages to get hold of the person who should be available albeit at home and not an office. But they're not.

So it ends up with customers and clients on hold for anything up to an hour, just to be told someone will call them back. Who never does, or will do one week later when you've already gone elsewhere.

Funny how office workers always had their jobs labelled 'boring', 'pedestrian', the rat race and generally treated with distain. Usually by people in jobs that involve being on your feet or even people who don't work. Or entrepreneurs or people who say 'oh I couldn't do anything as repetitive and uncreative'

And a this time we have been propping up the whole economy, all this time.

I do have to wonder, since offices were already going this way and more and more companies were offering this way of working, why is it only now people are concerned about us single handle running the country?

No one seemed to worry about this 2 years ago.

It's also very off-putting speaking about important and/or private issues, including financial, whilst hearing distracting family noises in the background.

No way, Tealight! Everyone on MN staunchly affirms they are far more productive WFH.

As for consultation, it's not a democracy. The wfh was temporary due to the pandemic. If they haven't changed your contract and want you back to the office and don't like it, put in a request for flexible working.

Can’t you apply to wfh under flexible working rules? They are being silly.
And no things aren’t going back to normal across the board, many many people will now get the choose to wfh

*the choice

How many of us do a job with no telephone use whatsoever? I imagine a fair few of us. Yet the examples constantly trotted out are about those who previously worked in call centre. These jobs never paid big bucks so it saddens me that these are the individuals we're going to force back into packed offices whilst creative media, HR, finance types get to stay at home.
And you're telling me we're going to sacrifice our environment for the sake of not having to hear a dog in the background of a phone call. Get a life.

@SaltyAF

It's Lloyd's and I was wrong, it's 9-3. Still useless to me. Barclays is worse 10-2.

Odd Lloyd’s is 9-5 in my town

@Tealightsandd

No it didn't happen before the pandemic. Not like that.

Because they're WFH, they can't just hand the phone to the manager or a more experienced colleague, when they don't know the answer to a query.

So they have to try to call that person to ask them what to tell me (the client or customer).

They take ages to get hold of the person who should be available albeit at home and not an office. But they're not.

So it ends up with customers and clients on hold for anything up to an hour, just to be told someone will call them back. Who never does, or will do one week later when you've already gone elsewhere.

Give over.

I have 17 years experience in call centres and customer service. Most call centres are appalling at getting a manger to come talk to you. Even retailers were in the same position. Because there's not always a manager available and lots of them used to just refuse. The request went in a queue to be called back later.

Lots of call centres tell their staff to never transfer a call to a manager.

Its always been a common complaint of customers that they have to make repeated calls and end up on hold for ages. The data the call centres hold, even show that. They do projects every couple of years to fix it, that never amounts to anything. Because it's just avtick box exercise.

Are you seriously suggesting no one had this experience as a customer with a company, before early 2020

I called my bank yesterday. The hold was the same, the person I spoke to was great and answered all my questions clearly and was professional yet friendly. So does my one experience prove, the wfh is actually helping customer service?

@Tealightsandd - your posts seem to assume that full-time wfh will be forced on everyone. While there are some employers who have closed offices, these are in a minority. Most companies are looking at hybrid working and a decent organisation should provide a suitable office space either every day or, at a push, with very minimal wfh for anyone who cannot do their work at home because their well-being suffers, because their environment puts their health and safety at risk or because they simply can’t do the job at home.

The hybrid or fully flexible models just give choice to those who can and want to work from home. What is the problem with that? I don’t see wfh taking opportunities away from anyone, just opening up more to some. Or do you just oppose it on the grounds that it’s unfair because not all can access them? Which ignores the fact that someone living in an hmo today could well be in a completely different set-up tomorrow and able to take advantage themselves. And all the other advantages some jobs have over others, like not involving weekend working or night shifts. Wouldn’t it be great for sandwich shops if the average office was open 24 hours a day seven days a week? Why should pampered office workers not work shifts like this? Not sure where you’d stop with an argument like that.

Customer service keeps being mentioned too. There really is no inherent reason why wfh means you can’t get hold of people. These problems are either pandemic-related or (more likely) convenient excuses.

Im with you OP, albeit my situation is slightly different in that my company which has a history of being wfh has recently taken the lease on an office and a colleague is now insisting we all need to work there. This colleague has always seemed to dislike wfh and it suits them however I would prefer a mix of both.

@80caloriesofbiscuitplease

How many of us do a job with no telephone use whatsoever? I imagine a fair few of us. Yet the examples constantly trotted out are about those who previously worked in call centre. These jobs never paid big bucks so it saddens me that these are the individuals we're going to force back into packed offices whilst creative media, HR, finance types get to stay at home. And you're telling me we're going to sacrifice our environment for the sake of not having to hear a dog in the background of a phone call. Get a life.

I use a phone. But a mobile. Never used a delivery phone when I was on the office. My number is available to all staff of the staff phone list.

Any staff who did use a phone had a mobile already, before this.

Call centres are used as the main example by people who hate wfh (for other people) because they can claim it impacts them
The secret is that a lot for big businesses that had call centres, already had staff that wfh. They just didn't tell customers that.

@Scaredycatmoo76

I live in an affluent SE town full of Londoners. My bank opens from 10-2pm. Weekdays only.

I can’t bank online atm as it’s not working on my iPad or laptop ( error code telling ne to phone the bank) . I phone up to see if they can help and have to sit through a long message about banking only (duh). In a queue for 40 mins. Lady helps me pay my bill but can’t help with the app. Another 5 min way fur a second person to tell me I need to have another go. Still doesn’t work.
I ask when the banks will open up but they don’t sound hopeful and say it’s all online. Absolute fuckers I KNOW!

Yup only a few people in my organisation have to speak to the public (no more than about 20/2000). I spend all day doing analysis and it’s so much easier at home without the noise of an open plan office that we previously took extra days from home ad hoc if we had particularly lots to read.

@Tealightsandd

It's also very off-putting speaking about important and/or private issues, including financial, whilst hearing distracting family noises in the background.

That could be breaking some data protection. I have spoke my bank, my doctor, my mortgage provider, my energy provider and lots of other people in the last year and never heard their family in the background.

Either you deal with poor companies, have some really bad luck or simply coming up with anything to prove a point.

No reason you can't work from home on the phones. The technology is there ( and there shouldn't be any family noises in the background - no one is advocating trying to work with kids in the house. They will be at school/ nursery/ other childcare on working days). It's presenteeism and it stinks.

I wonder why banks face to face service os so poor and so varying. In our town, they reduced hours. Because some staff were having to sheild. But they are now back open fairly normally and normal hours.

But that's not the case everywhere. Which of course will be contributing to more people calling the bank hence longer call wait times.

@Tealightsandd

We'll see a stark increase in inequality with WFH.

So somebody comes from a deprived background or has escaped domestic abuse or experienced ill health or had caring responsibilities limiting their ability to earn. They're ready to apply for/return to work. Talented, skilled, lots to offer employers. Yet they can't apply for the job. Why? Because they can't afford a suitable WFH environment.

They can't try to move to a better home unless and until they're in the job. And even then, many entry and even intermediate level jobs won't pay enough to immediately fund a move. Plus family commitments etc.

Just to address this specific point, my company has offices across the UK. In the past, roles were usually tied to an office where the relevant team was based. So you were either close enough to apply or not. Now things are more flexible and it’s recognised that location isn’t so vital, you could have someone effectively choose which office is most convenient. No reason in most locations why they couldn’t be in every day too if that’s what worked for them. I’m sure other organisations have started looking at recruitment in this way too.

It's definitely not just my experience Maya

It sounds like you've been unusually lucky.

Standards of service have significantly worsened.

Your employer will lose employees, and find it hard to recruit from a wide pool of talent

Maybe he will decide to look further afield if all his employees want to work from home. Maybe recruit from another country or other cheaper parts of UK. After all if you work from home you can work from anywhere cant you ?

I think lots have misunderstood you opening post OP. You weren’t asking if your employer is allowed to make you go back to work - just if it’s morally right that they do.

I’m torn. Yes a work life balance is lovely for those at home with kids. But young employees miss out on not having enough staff in the office to train them, and living in cramped flat shares where they really can’t focus on work.

Young people have suffered enough due to covid. Let’s not screw them over even more.

I do think kinder and more flexible hours for those with families are desperately needed though.

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.
So why the long queue outside the Barclays in question if there's no demand for face-to-face service?

@Tealightsandd

No it didn't happen before the pandemic. Not like that.

Because they're WFH, they can't just hand the phone to the manager or a more experienced colleague, when they don't know the answer to a query.

So they have to try to call that person to ask them what to tell me (the client or customer).

They take ages to get hold of the person who should be available albeit at home and not an office. But they're not.

So it ends up with customers and clients on hold for anything up to an hour, just to be told someone will call them back. Who never does, or will do one week later when you've already gone elsewhere.

That’s the companies’ incompetency, not WFH. I’ve never had any issues reaching people both for energy companies I dealt with (So Energy, People’s Energy, Octopus) and among my collègues.

@Tealightsandd

It's definitely not just my experience Maya

It sounds like you've been unusually lucky.

Standards of service have significantly worsened.

You are missing my point. My one experience, recently, doesn't prove anything.

Your experience is a fairly common one and was 2 years ago unfortunately. Wfh, is not the reason you are receiving poor service.

Companies are using wfh as the excuse. But its more to do with their cost cutting exercises. They aren't replacing staff that the lose, through attrition. They don't have the staffing numbers to cover the increased amount fo sickness. They aren't trying to improve the service, because they have a convenient excuse. And I can gaurentee the service won't improve when they go back. Not for a long time. And besides which lots of them already were wfh. Wfh in call centres happened before the pandemic.