Why are certain newspapers so against WFH?

[Circlesandtriangles]

AIBU for seeing a persistent agenda in The Telegraph against working from home? It also has a completely misogynist undertone. Not everyone has to be a massive fan of it, but why work so hard to stoke up opinion against it??

Example headlines from November:

"If you want to lose your job, work from home"
"Just one in ten women working from home plan to return to office"
"Take it from a mother, working from home is a disaster for women"
"HMRC spends millions so staff can abandon offices"
"Afghan allies ‘left at the mercy of Taliban’ while civil servants worked from home"
"People working from home do half an hour less each day, study finds"
"It's high time staff returned to the office"

@Snoozer11

On the other hand, I work alongside many women who are clearly thriving WFH, and it's showing through their work and productivity, and it hasn't been unnoticed. Those saying it poses a threat to women's progression be speaking too soon.

I agree. And in my workplace its striking that the people bitching about WFH damaging productivity are mainly the people whose jobs most consist of swaggering around on boozy lunches with other City blokes who think nothing of writing off an afternoon in the pub under the guise of "networking".

There is a value in "visibility" and networking for sure. But one of the things I've noticed is that people WFH (who are often, thought exclusively, women who are unable to get out to network because of childcare responsibilities) tend to pick up a lot of the slack from the people who think its highly important to be seen in City wine bars all the time. This predates COVID but COVID has made it much more binary in my industry.

The working mother who is at home is far more likely to still be working at 7pm when the 30 somethings are all out carousing in wine bars.

You need both of course in people-based businesses. But people who spend a lot of their time using "networking" as an excuse to outsource work to others who can't get out to network are being disingenuous when they claim people at home are being lazy. A lot of the social side of work relies on their being warm bodies in the backroom who keep turning the documents over and getting everything done.

@NightmareSlashDelightful

Feels like an appropriate place for a Yes Prime Minister quote.

Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country, and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?

Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

Perfectly placed!

@LittleGwyneth

I think PP are right, it's because lots of wealthy people own inner city real estate which will be fucked if no-one goes back to the office, as will chains like Pret. For big businesses it's best that we get everyone back to commuting and working in offices, no matter if that's what people want (and pretty much every single survey says that it's not what people want - hybrid working is almost universally preferred).

Actually, I wonder about this. If the businesses close, the owners may be able to get permission to turn commercial sites to residential. They could make a fortune creating endless tiny, under windowed flatlets.

@icedcoffees

Because many sectors rely on office workers being in the office, and are hugely struggling with so many people working from home. And the Telegraph is a paper that's aimed at those business owners who are struggling.

Lots of food shops and cafes, for example, would do a roaring trade at lunch with office workers getting sandwiches and soups or going for business lunches.

Likewise coffee shops with people grabbing a coffee on the way to the tube or the office.

This is the point people frequently make, but it’s interesting how the same newspapers will berate young workers for buying lunch or coffee while at work, because they should save their money for a house deposit.

Yet in the same breath if those workers aren’t buying from Pret every weekday the economy will collapse.

If the economy relies on me buying a sandwich from Pret at lunch time, its in worse shape than I thought.

Its interesting about the boozy meetings under the guise of networking. Because one thing we have found is that internal meetings are way better on zoom. The men (and its always a man) who goes on for ages in meetings with a pretty useless contribution, seem to do it way less over zoom. Our internal meetings have been way better. I used to dread them, now I think they are fine.

@julieca

If the economy relies on me buying a sandwich from Pret at lunch time, its in worse shape than I thought.

My thoughts exactly! Even when I worked from the office all the time, I never bought coffee or sandwiches while out, so it’s particularly galling for the Torygraph to be banging on about how I have to go back to an office so Pret can have my lunch money.

And it always is Pret they talk about - you’d think there weren’t any other sandwich shops!

Because maybe like the rest of us they are sick of shitty customer service, poor response and return times, endless colleagues complaining about the safety of the office as a convenient excuse not to come in and sit of their arses at home and don't get me started on colleagues who want to self isolate before a holiday ffs!

People are also taking the piss with childcare and using it as an excuse to save money but not using breakfast clubs. The sooner we return to something more normal the better.

@julieca

Its interesting about the boozy meetings under the guise of networking. Because one thing we have found is that internal meetings are way better on zoom. The men (and its always a man) who goes on for ages in meetings with a pretty useless contribution, seem to do it way less over zoom. Our internal meetings have been way better. I used to dread them, now I think they are fine.

Mmm, there's a good deal of truth to that.

@Nc123 I suspect the owner of Pret is a Tory donor.
The Tories have no problem saying manufacturing or farming has to adjust to changing commercial markets, but Pret and commercial offices have to be safeguarded.

@julieca

If the economy relies on me buying a sandwich from Pret at lunch time, its in worse shape than I thought.

Well clearly one person does not make a difference, but millions of people do.

More people WFH would dramatically change the economic make up of cities where people commute in and I don’t think that’s a bad thing to be honest.

@julieca

Its interesting about the boozy meetings under the guise of networking. Because one thing we have found is that internal meetings are way better on zoom. The men (and its always a man) who goes on for ages in meetings with a pretty useless contribution, seem to do it way less over zoom. Our internal meetings have been way better. I used to dread them, now I think they are fine.

Indeed. There's far less joshing and "all lads together" behaviour on Teams and Zoom.

A lot of people at my gaff are bemoaning the loss of the great "culture" of City workplaces which apparently is the deepest casualty of COVID.

If by "culture" what is meant is a lot of gammons in fake Saville Row getting pissed at the rugby all afternoon and getting their secretaries to do all the dog work then you can keep it.

I don't love video calls but I'd rather that than lose five hours of my day being the support to a load of backslapping by blokes who went to school together.

@Wizzbangfizz

Because maybe like the rest of us they are sick of shitty customer service, poor response and return times, endless colleagues complaining about the safety of the office as a convenient excuse not to come in and sit of their arses at home and don't get me started on colleagues who want to self isolate before a holiday ffs!

People are also taking the piss with childcare and using it as an excuse to save money but not using breakfast clubs. The sooner we return to something more normal the better.

Better for who?

A lot of customer call centres I ring are offshore. I haven’t noticed a dip in performance and think that those who claim it has is based on anecdotal instances.

A return to “normal” just means being a slave to the commute

We don’t have to wfh all the time. It can be a combination of office and WFH. Not sure why people are so binary/dense about it.

I recognise the trend, but I didn’t realise the Telegraph in particular was vehemently anti-wfh. It explains why my long-retired DF is so anti. We were out and about a few months ago and he said it was awful things weren’t back to normal, which was puzzling because everything was open where we were. Turns out the whole of society is waiting for everyone to get back to the office.

He didn’t have any solid arguments for his position other than the old it’s work, it’s not meant to be fun chestnut. He was ranting about the terrible example set by civil servants on Pelatons. Tbh I was quite upset at how bitter he seemed to be about wfh-ers since I am one!

He’s a Telegraph reader.

There's also the point that there are loads of reasons why any particular customer service team might be doing worse. I've yet to see anyone who has experienced declining customer service and blames wfh even acknowledge the potential impact of school closures, for example. Or people leaving and their roles lying vacant, or shitty employers who abused the furlough scheme.

Some places have cut staff, other places have problems recruiting staff. Easier for companies to blame wfh than their own staffing levels.

@olivehater

Right then the ones that have to go to work should be paid a premium. We don’t get to have any of this lovely flexibility and most parents in my sector have to work part time so that they can be their for their kids at least a little bit. We are also the ones having to fork out childcare. If you want to have nurses and midwives in the futureetc then you need to make that attractive too. Just saying change your job then to someone in and established career is thoughtless.

People shouldn’t lose flexibility just because not everyone can have it. Yes, nurses and midwives can’t work from home, and I do wholeheartedly agree they should be paid much more than they currently are, but maybe other sectors that could offer more flexibility but don’t, will respond to the rise in WFH by offering more flexibility. It’s a good thing. People who previously just accepted that work-life balance wasn’t a thing discovered that it can be and understandably many people want to keep it. it’s so important - look at Sweden and the four day weeks, six-hour days. They work less but still have better public services especially for mothers and children. It is possible, and the sooner UK work culture realises this and has a shift towards flexibility for all, the better

@LaurieFairyCake

The people who are really rich - ie. big commercial landlords/chain sandwich shops leech off us

They don't give a crap about people having a better life balance

What is it - 3% of the population own 95% of the wealth ?

Of course those fuckers want you to go back and line their pockets a bit more

They're fucking leeches - the leeches ARE NOT benefit claimants, the working poor, the disabled

Good point. No wonder they like to stoke up an argument in these areas, a nice distraction from them bleeding the system dry.

The things is, lots of companies are embracing WFH. Even if you don't want to WFH yourself, I expect having the choice to when you might need it would persuade people to choose one company over the other. It's very short sighted, but once workers vote with their feet (I expect young people who have never known office culture will expect it now), they will have to embrace it. No amount of bleating in the Telegraph about perceived limitations of WFH will change that, they are just preaching to the converted.

@julieca

Some places have cut staff, other places have problems recruiting staff. Easier for companies to blame wfh than their own staffing levels.

Bingo.

There also seems to be a tendency for people who are against wfh on productivity grounds to conflate everything with customer service. Let's assume for the sake of argument that we had empirical evidence customer service was worse because of wfh rather than cost cutting, the great resignation, months with children and sometimes toddlers needing care while employees worked. Even then, why on earth would this be relevant for wfh across the board, instead of just in one type of role?

@thepeopleversuswork that sounds an awful culture.
Where I work is not as bad as that, but everyone except the men involved, has commented how much better internal meetings are. To the point.

I agree that big city centres being carved out is not a bad thing. I have seen places opening up near where I live, all independents, while the city centre suffers. This is an improvement.

@thepeopleversuswork

No surprise whatsoever that the senior jobs in these industries are dominated by men who have wives and partners at home to deal with the children. They've always scorned flexible working officially because its seen a sign of poor commitment but I suspect in reality its actually because its something which hands more power to women.

Yes, 100% this. A working culture that embraces more WFH as a viable option opens up more opportunities for women in terms of their careers. It’s a fair & justifiable change that’s long overdue IMO

[quote CaveWoman1]@thepeopleversuswork

No surprise whatsoever that the senior jobs in these industries are dominated by men who have wives and partners at home to deal with the children. They've always scorned flexible working officially because its seen a sign of poor commitment but I suspect in reality its actually because its something which hands more power to women.

Yes, 100% this. A working culture that embraces more WFH as a viable option opens up more opportunities for women in terms of their careers. It’s a fair & justifiable change that’s long overdue IMO[/quote]
To that we can add many people with disabilities, chronic health problems and who are neuro diverse and find busy workplaces unhelpful (yes I know not all ND people fall into this category)

@Wizzbangfizz

Because maybe like the rest of us they are sick of shitty customer service, poor response and return times, endless colleagues complaining about the safety of the office as a convenient excuse not to come in and sit of their arses at home and don't get me started on colleagues who want to self isolate before a holiday ffs!

People are also taking the piss with childcare and using it as an excuse to save money but not using breakfast clubs. The sooner we return to something more normal the better.

The large news organisation I work for brought in a hybrid WFH system, with two days a week in the office. I've managed to get a permanent WFH contract, so I don't go into the 'mothership' unless I want to. My job has not changed materially. The only difference is that my commute is 30 seconds to my desk in the dining room, rather than a half-hour bike ride. If anything I work far more efficiently.

My employer is happy too. They've reduced our office space from two floors of a landmark building to one, cutting the exceptionally expensive (millions per annum, literally) rent by about half. As with most major media/news companies it's only in a prestigious building because all the competition is.

I also see a lot more of my partner and child.

This is my 'normal' now. And it's a fuck-ton better.

@chipsarnie you are basing your assumptions on your own experience as I am on mine, I'm glad it has worked out so well for you and fwiw I don't disagree with a hybrid wfh (pref would be 3 days in 2 off) model but in my own lived experience I know and work with many people who take the piss. I also think the office is more productive, just by being face to face and asking someone something instead of e mailing or setting up a meeting and is especially important in a mentoring younger colleagues way.