To think colleague shouldn’t be on permanent WFH due to his DW’s Covid risk?

[oober6]

As in the title really.

The world has opened up, social distancing requirements have gone, vaccines have given us all plenty of protection.

We are key workers who have worked throughout, coming into work every day. I would love to be able to WFH! It would be a lot less pressurised, and of course, no commute etc.

AIBU to think management should now be telling our colleague that he has to start coming back into work? He is healthy and fit.

As the mother of a son who has a congenital heart condition I have sympathies all round to be honest. DS didn't have to shield when Covid struck as he isn't on medication ('just' had a few heart procedures since birth to manage his condition).

When the kids went back to school after lockdown, DS did too. My manager (I work in DS's school) arranged for me to work solely with DS's year group so we could keep his (very large) bubble intact.

Now everyone's back to 'normal' we're still careful. We do go out but we go to places that we can book or we happily walk out if it gets too crowded. We'll go to the cinema but we book aisle seats on the cross aisle walk way so we're not surrounded by people if it's busy. Same for the theatre - we try to get seats near the front or very back and on the aisle. We don't go to restaurants now that are 'turn up and squeeze in' and we won't be going abroad for a while. DH has been lucky as his company is offering various WFH options and he's taken advantage of that. Most of his department have and it's working well. As DH has to travel from one end of the country to the other if he goes into the office (his office is literally 500 miles away - redundancy meant no choice for where the next job was) he's asked and got one week in the office, three weeks wfh. He WFH for seven years when DS was born so he's very used to remote working so there's no problem with work ethics.

Although DS is back at school and we're back at work, we still try to mitigate the chances of getting Covid as much as we can. It's possible to go out and still be vulnerable. Sometimes things have to be done but some things that keep you sane or are enjoyable, have to be looked at for risk if you have a vulnerable person in the family.

Ultimately OP, you have a point to take to management that you're all sinking under the weight of being one person down physically. You don't have a say in whether this person should return and saying the family go out or the kids go to school makes no difference - it's the risk/benefit of those things that matter to a vulnerable person. Going out for the day helps with mental health but may take a degree of planning to keep safe. The kids have to go to school. A partner WFH takes away some of the extra, unnecessary, risk.

But you have a right to have all hands on deck so management either have to find the person different work, employ someone to help you or work something else out. No one has a 'right' to work from home but some people need it in order to carry on, are worth it to the company and your management obviously feel this person falls into that category.

Don't bring up 'his wife does this or his kids does that' as that just comes across as nosey and bitter. If his absence is causing problems for the team, that's what needs to be addressed. Stick to that.

So the problem isn’t that he’s WFH, it’s that he’s slacking, and taking the piss by going for day trips and shopping when he’s meant to be working? That isn’t a WFH issue, it’s an issue of bad management and supervision.
Really pisses me off when WFH is abused, it gives homeworkers a bad name. I’ve been doing it since last March and have been equally or more productive as when I was in the office. And I’ve worked the same hours.

It's none of your business.

Hey OP, would you be happy to wear a mask all day in work and have the windows open to make it safer? Because if you adjust your expectations for what's happening you might get somewhere.

@FictionalCharacter

So the problem isn’t that he’s WFH, it’s that he’s slacking, and taking the piss by going for day trips and shopping when he’s meant to be working? That isn’t a WFH issue, it’s an issue of bad management and supervision. Really pisses me off when WFH is abused, it gives homeworkers a bad name. I’ve been doing it since last March and have been equally or more productive as when I was in the office. And I’ve worked the same hours.

FinctionalCharacter I took that to mean 'they have left the house so he can come to work'. If they're not in a bunker then it can't be that bad(according to OP)

Was initially feeling you were being unreasonable until I read the bit about them being out and about. YANBU.

@FictionalCharacter

So the problem isn’t that he’s WFH, it’s that he’s slacking, and taking the piss by going for day trips and shopping when he’s meant to be working? That isn’t a WFH issue, it’s an issue of bad management and supervision. Really pisses me off when WFH is abused, it gives homeworkers a bad name. I’ve been doing it since last March and have been equally or more productive as when I was in the office. And I’ve worked the same hours.

I read that differently, I don’t think he’s going on day trips during work time, OP was using it as an example of how he is happy to be out and about generally.

@OverTheRubicon

"godmum56
I have been both a manager and an employee and have never understood the picking up slack thing. If you are working as hard as you should be then either you can't "pick up slack" or it requires extra hours which should be paid for or some less important stuff has to be dropped....basically if the business is running as it should be then any slack is minimal. If you are missing out on breaks which are part of your t and c or going home late/arriving early then that needs to be addressed.....but as someone who managed a very busy tightly staffed NHS service, I'd have LOVED to know where all the resource comes from to pick up slack?"

"Really? So if a team member was off sick then did all their tasks not ever get done, or did people not have to stay a bit late / do less well on their main jobs / rush all day / skip lunch, in order to ensure that the right service ran? Most of us have, and that's what picking up the slack looks like.
It's fine if it's a day or even a week, but far too often, it's okayed for someone to WFH full time, or drop a day, or not do certain tasks (often due to a reasonable adjustment for disability) - but without adjusting the tasks required of everyone else. That just breeds resentment as well as people quitting or going off with stress."

nope. we were a community service. If someone was off sick and any part of their caseload was urgent then non urgent appointments got rescheduled. Referrals got triaged as they came through the door (not door really, by phone/mail etc). around 2/3 of them were non urgent and these would have to wait for longer. If people worked longer than their working day they got toil so working longer didn't help. Breaks were used for phonecalls/other admin. Longterm sickness was a real issue because we had no agency budget and anyway it was just about impossible to rely on finding agency qualifed rehab staff.