Work telling us we wont get opportunity's if we don't show our faces?

[lovemenomore]

Hi all,

Wanted to know if IABU for being peed off/demoralised at this message from the owner of the company I work for.

Basically started the job in Jan & it has been 100% remote due to Covid/office closed etc. Since the restrictions have lifted I have been in and met colleagues but continued to wfh as do 75% of the company. There has been talk of us never having to go back in full time and people can choose what to do. Nothing formal has been announced. If we do want to go in we have had to book in. However the other day this was posted on our internal comms site;

"While booking is now no longer required, we are noting who turns up. Expect those that do to get the best opportunities and progression. It's obvious that being 'front and centre' means you are top of mind. We've always been a company that prioritises what you do and achieve over simple time served, this is just one aspect of that."

What are your thoughts? To me that is saying if you dont come in you will not be given the opportunities....

Lots of the staff arent local and live all over the country/world. A few of my colleagues are miffed but some friends have said all companies are like this?

@VladmirsPoutine

This is terrible. WFH has been a godsend for so many people!! For example if you have kids, have disabilities, are an ethnic minority! The only reason they want people back in the office is pressure from middle managers whose job description involves annoying junior members of staff and having pointless meetings; and also the pressure from commercial landlords.

What do you mean if you are an ethnic minority?

Yes, they were managed, but they didn't change their behaviour in spite of being pulled up on it several times when we were office based. It took lockdown for things to change. Over a year later we are still finding work that the micromanaged employee didn't complete.

This is such a depressing thread.

I pointed out that a policy of rewarding office attendance with the good projects and the best opportunities will disproportionately impact women (or anyone with caring responsibilities but that includes far more women than men) and people with disabilities. I got jumped on with a load of "oh there's always one!" type comments.

Is it that hard to imagine why parents, carers and people with disabilities particularly value being able to WFH?

Especially in the SE where commutes of 1-2 hours each way into London are very normal (and nothing to do with lockdown relocations)?

And other people will value the work life balance that WFH or (in most cases) hybrid working brings.

I WFH pre-pandemic, with 1 day/week in the office and 3 from home. I have a long commute, a school aged child with SEN and a husband with a chronic pain condition. He is also mostly WFH, full time and managing others.

WFH allows me to continue to do the professional, London-based job that I am good at and enjoy. It keeps me and my skills in the workforce. It's as simple as that. In my husband's case, most of his energy and time goes on work and evenings/weekends are for resting and recovering to be fit for work next day, but not commuting and being in an environment that's fully adapted for him enables us to salvage a little bit of quality of life and family time a couple of days a week if we are lucky.

As a p/t, mostly WFH member of the team I know the pre-pandemic reality and downsides of reduced visibility, and the ignorant assumptions that you're less productive. (Which is nonsense - I work longer and get more done on at home days and I was doing 60 hour weeks at the height of the pandemic as a part timer.) I really thought the pandemic would be a turning point, as so many people experienced WFH for the first time and learned that, even if it didn't suit them best personally for the long term, it is perfectly possible to do an excellent job mostly remotely, and as organisations sorted the tech and learnt the skills. I thought there would be more flexibility, more enlightened policies and improved connectedness regardless of location, as we emerged from Covid restrictions.

Reading this thread it feels like we've gone backwards not forwards. I could cry.

Yes, they were managed, but they didn't change their behaviour in spite of being pulled up on it several times when we were office based.

That's bad management though! Everywhere I've worked you have performance reviews & appraisals & these link to any increment or increase

@rottd you still can't change someone's basic personality. There are difficult people in all walks of life. You only need to read mumsnet to know that. You can't just sack someone because you don't like them. They weren't committing sackable offences. The bully was the type who "knew her rights". Lockdown made it easy to end her employment

And what increments and increases? We haven't had any for years.

And what increments and increases? We haven't had any for years.

Your experience is not everyone's hence why I gave my experience. Anyone not doing their job will not get an increase or a promotion where I have worked. I don't think that's a revolutionary idea!

You can't just sack someone because you don't like them.

Who suggested otherwise? However if someone is not doing their job correctly of course that needs to be managed.

On the childcare issue, in normal times I have childcare during work hours. (After school childcare finishes at 6 which means I duck out at 5.50, fetch my son, but can finish up tasks when I get home if urgent, or catch up after bedtime. WFH means flexibility.)

During lockdown or if children self-isolating, obviously people had kids around while working. It was a nightmare, it was coping in a crisis, it was survival mode. This is not what normal WFH looks like.

But to the extent that experience of kids, or dogs, or elderly parents crashing conference calls has changed office culture so people feel more able to bring their whole selves to work, to admit they have kids/caring responsibilities, to accept that team members have domestic emergencies or family crises happen and staff who are trusted to juggle and make the time up, generally repay that trust and flexibility - these are positive things aren't they?

Kids on laps during a conference call, outside of lockdown, shouldn't be normal but shouldn't be OMG career ending either?

@VladmirsPoutine

This is terrible. WFH has been a godsend for so many people!! For example if you have kids, have disabilities, are an ethnic minority! The only reason they want people back in the office is pressure from middle managers whose job description involves annoying junior members of staff and having pointless meetings; and also the pressure from commercial landlords.

How is working from home a godsend to ethnic minorities

How is working from home a godsend to ethnic minorities

The poster already gave an answer to this question - literally just a few posts down from the one you quoted.

@RoastedHazelnutLatte

How is working from home a godsend to ethnic minorities

The poster already gave an answer to this question - literally just a few posts down from the one you quoted.

Yeah I saw that I know the black members of my team are keen to be in the office but we do benefit from working together, and obviously I've only spoken to the people I know, so I'll take that poster's word for it. I can see how anyone working somewhere with a toxic culture be it racist, ableist or sexist would benefit from WFH.

@ActonSquirrel

I agree. Those who work jobs that can’t be done from home seem to often have the misconception that working from home is lounging in pyjamas on the sofa with a laptop balanced on your knee, checking occasional emails, with the TV on in the background. I have worked from home for years. Ive never worked in my pyjamas or on the sofa. I don’t bother with shoes but apart from that I get dressed and do my hair, etc just as if I worked at the office.

Well then you're the minority and one of the few who are professional.

Our zoom calls for team meetings show most people in joggers and a t-shirt doing exactly what you describe.

One person who came to the office for the first time said it was actually nice to have a routine and get up and out make up on as she had been for 16 months getting out of bed staying in her pj's and walking next door to the lounge!

Well isnt this a scientific assessment of how many people are shirking whilst wfh... Not my experience at all. Most people at my workplace look professional, eg not in sweats, are punctual and actually do their work. You cant just leap to conclusions about everyone else based on a small sample of people around you

Or the employee is a piss taker, and no amount of good management is going to change that.

God that's a frustrating attitude.

If an employee is a piss taker, a good manager and well managed organisation will absolutely deal with it, up to and including that employee no longer being an employee if they don't stop taking the piss.

So what will be the underlying recession driver?

My best guess is there will be two - a surge in unemployment when furlough ends and a series of rises in interest rates. We’ve never experienced interest rates as low as this before; they’re going to have to go up.

Does what someone is wearing have any relation to the quality of their work? OK, if you are in meetings all day in a bikini it might be awkward and if you are meeting a client you would want to look smart but what if you job doesn’t entail that? I’ve worked from home in jeans and t-shirts just the same as if I was working in my office at the weekend - which I’ve often had to do, including now. A lot of time seems to be wasted worrying about what someone is wearing rather than the quality of their work. Is that how people are judged? Surely there should be a more evidence based approach? Are people that shallow in who they value? Appearances only and not output?

My best guess is there will be two - a surge in unemployment when furlough ends and a series of rises in interest rates. We’ve never experienced interest rates as low as this before; they’re going to have to go up.

I agree they'll have to go up but I'm not sure we'll see a real surge unless inflation really runs away - and at the first sign of contraction we know the BoE will drop them back.

I'm not so sure on end of furlough - I think employment will rise but there is also huge demand in the system, including for less skilled labour. There's currently a mismatch between skills/available labour/demand at the lower-skilled end (as well as huge demand for higher skills driven by pandemic+Brexit which could give wage inflation a push) but I'm not sure that it's enough to drive a really serious recession, particularly with lower household debt/disposable income/demand holding up.

I'm much more worried about labour supply in terms of short to medium term economic impacts - and the impact that may have on inflation (as well as the self-inflicted Brexit wounds that are also a longer-term inflationary driver than some of the supply ). That said inflation doesn't seem to be running away at this point, and some of the current drivers are one-off bounce backs.

As I say, I think there will be economic pain. But the economic catastrophe prophesied last year seems less likely than it did, and if government policy continues along current tracks (no huge retrenchment programme though I think there will again be pain in the system) including its infrastructure programmes I think we'll just about muddle through (albeit with wartime levels of national debt).

@JassyRadlett

You wouldn't be permitted to do that at the office so I don't see why it's allowed wfh. It does happen

What was the management response?

Perhaps management was not in the meeting. So there would have to be a process of reporting colleagues to management and management dealing with the reports. None of which would be necessary in the office. I honestly think people are naive if they think everyone that WFH is working just as they would be the office.

That said I am not sure about the policy of the organisation in the OP. If they want people in the office, they could just say so, rather than issue thinly veiled threats about promotion opportunities.

At least they're saying the bit most companies leave out out loud.

It's more a choice of if Sally is great and WFH and Susan is great and goes into the office well Susan is more likely to get the promotion they're both after.

Perhaps management was not in the meeting. So there would have to be a process of reporting colleagues to management and management dealing with the reports. None of which would be necessary in the office. I honestly think people are naive if they think everyone that WFH is working just as they would be the office.

Almost certainly not, but people are describing ongoing patterns of behaviour not one-offs. And in remote working more than in-person, managers need to have good strategies for being across with their teams, what they're doing and how they're behaving.

I fall into the camp of 'if we're still being productive and respecting clearly set boundaries, and people are feeling as positive and motivated as possible, then I don't care if they don't have a full face of make up or a tie.'

So for me, staff who repeatedly failed to have their cameras on during zoom calls, despite it being organisational policy to do so and without a specific agreed exemption - that's a management issue to deal with. It affects the team (as we've seen here, people feel resentful about it) and affects the way in which people build and maintain relationships in remote working.

We had these principles in our organisation before the pandemic (we have offices all over the place, including in different countries, so virtual relationships have always been important.)

So if people aren't living up to their end of the bargain, that's on me as a manager to deal with, working with the resources my relatively well-managed organisation has given me to deal with them (clear and well-communicated policies, a structured process for dealing with behaviours that don't meet the standard, good ways of measuring productivity and effectiveness of individuals and teams.)

I have one individual at the moment who is absolutely taking the piss. She was mildly taking the piss before the pandemic but it's escalated. So we are dealing with it. The flipside is that my team productivity is much higher, I have to stop people from working rather than the other way around and the main support I find myself giving is how to build effective home/work boundaries for people who haven't been used to doing so.

That said I am not sure about the policy of the organisation in the OP. If they want people in the office, they could just say so, rather than issue thinly veiled threats about promotion opportunities.

Yes, that was the clue to me that it probably isn't managed well.

Lots of businesses have found productivity is higher. Staff are not exhausted and don’t waste time with pointless chatting. I work the same whether at home or in the office. I’m not sitting on the sofa quaffing wine! When I’m in the office sometimes it seems busier even though I’m not producing as much because I am having not entirely relevant conversations with colleagues. Maybe managers consider that a full days work but less gets done!!

@TorringtonDean

Lots of businesses have found productivity is higher. Staff are not exhausted and don’t waste time with pointless chatting. I work the same whether at home or in the office. I’m not sitting on the sofa quaffing wine! When I’m in the office sometimes it seems busier even though I’m not producing as much because I am having not entirely relevant conversations with colleagues. Maybe managers consider that a full days work but less gets done!!

I'd be interested to see if any businesses can really quantify if wfh provides benefits. You'll note I don't say "productivity" because my own view in my organisation is that the high priority tasks are still being done, a number of the lesser tasks or collaboration/training/mentoring type activities are not. So the organisation is less effective and this is getting worse over time.

My experience of people working at home is entirely different to yours. A lot of people seem have adopted the attitude that wfh is more efficient so it's ok for them to work fewer hours so are spending time which would previously be work time on watching sport during the day, looking after children (after childcare was available), doing household chores etc. Which is ok, if they are still doing the same amount, hence my comment about I suspect a lot of people are doing enough to look productive, but holes appear when you scrape the surface. And it means the people that are actually physically working end up picking more of the urgent stuff that comes in.

A lot of my job involves talking to colleagues and collating information. In the office the talking to colleagues bit might take 10 minutes because I'd just stop by their desk when they weren't busy. Now many of these colleagues have decided my requests to talk to them are not important to them so ignore me and my job takes 6 times as long. Which brings me to another thing that is highlighted by wfh - poor management. Much easier for a manager to shrug and ignore the onset of rot if they can just aren't physically there.

Being in the office helps with opportunities to get ahead because there are more opportunities to suck up to the more senior people (who are in the office to suck up to their senior management as well), and to be able to slag off others.

My job is different. It’s very much team work to deadline. If something has to be done, it has to be done now! No prevaricating. The hours are very much fixed and during those hours I’m at my desk. It’s in my living room but I can work with my teenagers pottering about the house just as much as I worked with colleagues pottering about the office! If I wasn’t doing my work then my boss would realise within a few minutes, likewise when I give tasks to colleagues I get an instant response and can see they are working on something. So there’s no scope for someone to nip out to do the school run or whatever. I don’t even have time to move washing from the machine to the tumble dryer. I am working! But when WFH I am saved a lot of commuting and that means I am actually fresher to do the job.

WFH/returning to the office/hybrid working was discussed on Woman’s Hour this morning.

I would, ideally work a hybrid model, as a pp said the option of WFH because the washer has broken is preferable to having to take a day off. However I am back in the office and a lot of things are much easier being around all my colleagues, WFH full time was never likely to be a universal thing once lockdown ended.

I honestly think people are naive if they think everyone that WFH is working just as they would be the office.

I think its naive to think that when people worked in an office their 8 hours were productive 8 hours. People disappearing to make a coffee, have a chat, go to the toilet, have a cig coming back 20-25mins later. Doing this several times a day.

My team aren't working as they did the office as they had to be present, 8-4. If it was a busy week or a quiet week. Those were the hours the were expected to be present. They now work what hours they want. However, if there's a meeting that must be attended, they attend unless they have booked the days off. I genuinely couldn't care less if Susan logs off at 3.150m to pick her grand daughter up from school. I care that she has the report we need on time. Which she knows the deadline of, weeks in advance

We have daily, weekly and monthly deadlines. They all get hit faster than they did in the office. For loads of reasons including what was the point of being fast when you had to sit here til 4 anyway. Plus the social side of office life (which plenty of people hate) takes up time and you feel you have to join in.

My team are all adults. I don't have to micro manage what they wear, which hours they are productive. I trust if they may miss deadline they would give plenty of notice so we can pull sometime back.

I don't track productive hours. I track work loads. It's easy to spot someone isn't pulling their weight. And the people taking the piss at home would have been taking the piss on the office too.