Are you back in the office?

[tiredandmardy]

Is everyone back at the office now? And how is that? Any signs you might have to work remotely again, especially if your kids are out of school again? Any of you - like me - still working remotely?

I know I will get a few comments along the lines of “I was always in - not for me lounging at home!”, so am aiming the question more at those that worked at home/are still working at home.

Got my first day back in next week, after that we are being encouraged to go in at least once a month. I'd rather not but can't really complain!

Back in the office full time and appreciate it more than ever. 2 people WFH in a one bedroom flat was awful and unsustainable, however much WFH seemed like an appealing option before the pandemic.

Best thing to come from it has been that my employers are now open to the odd day from home (waiting for a delivery, a bit under the weather but not 'sick', doing something that's better done undisturbed by office chatter) whereas before they were very into being present & occasional WFH requests were only very begrudgingly accepted.

We’ve been in throughout apart from the very first week of lockdown. However, we have a rota and only have to go in 1 day in 10. This was stuck to rigidly through lockdowns but has eased now where we can go in when we want. So some people just do their 1 rota day, one or two are in everyday and I like to just decide how I feel so this week it has been every day but next week I plan to only go in 1 day.
We’ve been told our building will not reopen fully, we’re all being moved to one section of it and we have had hybrid working adjustments added to our contracts. There was no element of wfh before pandemic.

Still WFH. Our offices have opened this month with limited desks to people who desperately want to go in. My manager has said we will start looking at going back in Jan for 1 day a fortnight, but I really don't see the point (finance). Love WFH and the flexibility it gives to my family life. I actually started my job as the 1st lockdown kicked in so I've never been into my workplace!

I work in corporate real estate. We've been hybrid working since March 2021 but they are now starting to put pressure on us to go "business as usual" and all be full time office based again - so far there is a lot of resistance.

I think the driver is because our commercial department obviously turnover millions selling and managing office space. But I can do my job effectively WFH so I resent the motivation behind pushing us back. I like hybrid working, I have a much better balance.

Didn’t leave. Local government. Hundreds still hone, and about time they came back

Interesting that so many of us are still WFH. I work for an organisation where the offices are spread across Europe and Asia so, given rising and falling cases, they are unofficially having a large part of our office as WFH (we would still ‘meet’ most others on MS Teams or Zoom even if in).

I suspect it will continue until April, at which point I will be unable to hold a face-to-face conversation for more than three minutes at a time!

@MrsDThomas

Didn’t leave. Local government. Hundreds still hone, and about time they came back

And why is that exactly?

@MrsDThomas

Didn’t leave. Local government. Hundreds still hone, and about time they came back

Why?

One day a week in and have been doing that for months. I’d rather not everybody come back! Breaks up the week and gives me a chance to do some shopping at lunch time.

I'm back 3 days a week, 2 at home, and find it's a great balance. It's nice to be at work with everyone, but then I get the luxury of a couple of school pickups a week

Exactly the same scenario for me!

It seems some sort of hybrid working is way, way more common than it used to be too (even at places that were anti WFH/hybrid before)?

Wfh has worked brilliantly for us but the boss has young kids and has decided that we all need to be back in an office, at least some of the time. We're in the process of buying a new office, I'm not overly looking forward to it but it's not a huge commute, 10-15mins out of rush hour so shouldn't be too traumatic.

DH and I are both going in two days a week (since a couple of weeks ago), still wfh the rest of the time.

We are hybrid. But only in 2 days per month.

I was kind of hybrid before. I had to travel to lots of different offices and could work at home when I wanted before. My team couldn't. So it's only really impacting them.

I have reduced travel, but still do if I need to. But have been asked to only do it when I really need to.

The team unequivocally want to remain home. My MD is really happy with how we performed in the time we have been at home so is happy to keep the hybrid status quo.

Our whole company has gone hybrid. Our department was before. The key thing with that is we have set days per department so when you come in you get the benefit as the whole of your department is in.