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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Why are certain newspapers so against WFH?

233 replies

Circlesandtriangles · 07/12/2021 05:54

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"

OP posts:
manysummersago · 07/12/2021 18:52

BBC news is discussing the problem with Afghanistan. Seems to be implying civil servants certainly weren’t effective when WFH.

Nothinbut · 07/12/2021 19:06

@manysummersago

BBC news is discussing the problem with Afghanistan. Seems to be implying civil servants certainly weren’t effective when WFH.
Do you mean one department, actually one team within the department or the entire civil service?
Frankola · 07/12/2021 19:20

That reader demographic is more likely to be business owners, retail and commercial property owners.

manysummersago · 07/12/2021 19:22

No idea, I just caught it on the news. But there do seem to be a few people who have found that wfh isn’t brilliant service, tbf.

Starcaller · 07/12/2021 19:30

I work for a newspaper and we've worked quite happily at home since the pandemic began. Some people are back in the office now, mostly out of choice, but most are still at home much of, it not all, the time. There has been very little disruption besides the initial few days of getting everyone hooked up with laptops and to the system.

It has given us a lot of freedom to be able to employ some great people that wouldn't otherwise be able to work for us due to distance, commitments as a carer, childcare, etc. And there's a lot of chat on Teams that even the introverted people feel comfortable in joining in, which was not always the case in an office environment.

As our boss said on a call the other day, 'Working from home is not the bogeyman we all thought it was'. I for one am going to be permanently home-based and I imagine quite a few others will remain so too.

VikingOnTheFridge · 07/12/2021 19:31

A cynic would think it has something to do with the evidence the select committee heard about Johnson and the Pen Farthing flight.

MasterGland · 07/12/2021 19:58

Also, The Telegraph have also ran quite a few articles in the lifestyle sections about moving to the countryside now you can work from home. Tips on surviving winter in the sticks, type of thing. So coverage has been mixed.

julieca · 07/12/2021 20:27

@Wizzbangfizz

And also again focussing once more "well it suits me and my life goals" so it should suit everyone and no one can force me to come back in. And I support a hybrid approach, did it before do it now. Covid really has shown the best of everyone.Hmm
This is VERY unfair. I very specifically talked about how wfh suits some people and not others. I will continue to wfh and got a new job during the pandemic that is permanently wfh. There is nothing wrong with that.

And I did not say it suits me and my life goals, although that is true it does. Firms will offer what they have to in order to recruit good staff. I am not brilliantly paid, but I am good at what I do and happy to carry on doing it. I don't need to present at meetings in work to learn. I have done plenty of presenting in the past. But the people I learn from are others in other organisations doing similar jobs, not from my work colleagues.
A lot of jobs these days are far more specialised, and apart from the odd IT issue, others at work really cant help me. In fact, one of the challenges of being in the office was always fending off politely suggestions of how I could improve things, from people who have no understanding of the legal underpinnings of my role that I have to comply with.
Work environments change. When I started work most people were in small shared offices built around teams, and then open plan offices came into being. Then there was the rise of the cubicle, followed by hot desking. Nothing stays the same. You either have to adapt or find a firm stuck in the old ways of doing things, and they do exist.
Personally, I think small offices based around teams worked best. I was in an office with two other people. Small enough to have quiet to get on with work, but also people who knew your job you could talk to. But open-plan offices were supposed to prevent cliques, make people work beyond their immediate team, and make it a more dynamic -place to work.

Zipper666 · 08/12/2021 18:24

@ClintBartonsWife

Owners probably have a lot of money invested in commercial property.
There may be something in that theory! Here in the US, the big cities like New York and Chicago have millions of square feet in commercial property lying empty. Some businesses like Insurance and money management which always had offices over several floors with hundreds, sometimes thousands of workers beavering away have found that they work still gets done, the workers are not a stressed and actually work harder and longer because they no longer commute. Meanwhile the acres of empty offices still on long leases are leaking money. Several companies are looking to convert those slab like offices in the heart of Manhattan into luxury condos with prices for even the smallest in the millions!
Mirw · 08/12/2021 18:26

There are lots of reasons for people not working at home. One that really affects women much more than men is that people in social housing and in private rented housing breach their tenancy agreement if they work from home now that lockdown is over. If they push it, they are making themselves homeless. Far too much of a burden and also a breach of their rights. So WFH has to be a choice for everyone who works in offices, not the new norm. I personally work from home but it is my choice rather than forced on me by an employer. But it has to be a choice.

Sallybates · 08/12/2021 18:27

Because it represents those who own offices, property who want the worker drones in there. Wouldn’t it be great if offices were made over for folk to live in instead?
Families could chose if WFH suited them, save money on fares, drycleaning, parents spend more time with children

requiredusername · 08/12/2021 19:05

Well Boris is sending everyone back home again now anyway.

FanGirlX · 08/12/2021 19:14

@olivehater

As someone who has never worked from home it pisses me off. I am still paying out childcare, petrol etc. I choose to work part time and take the equivalent pay cut that goes with that while I see people on the school run that then nip to activities/coffee shop/playground with their kids. Sure there are some that put all the hours in later but their are plenty more who don’t whilst taking a full time wage. Civil service appears to be the worst for it. If this is going to carry on then this that those that have to travel to work need to be paid a premium or no one is going to choose these careers going forward. And why the hell would you when this jobs that allow working from home have it so cushy?
Civil service offers flexi time. You still have to do the 37 hours a week but you can do them anytime between 7am and 7pm, Monday to Friday. Civil Servants are also sometimes part time, if someone is on a 30 hour contract they can do their 30 hours between 7am and 7pm, Monday to Friday. This all has to fit with organisational needs though and is therefore agreed with their manager.

Hope that helps.

FanGirlX · 08/12/2021 19:23

@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.
It doesn't work like that though. It's supply and demand. For example shortage of HGV drivers meant salaries went up. It's always been the same.

Lower skilled jobs tend to pay less and have less good terms and conditions because there are a lot of people who can do them without much training - retail, warehouse workers etc. Higher skilled jobs pay more because there are less people who can do them, as they need years of training - doctors etc.

FanGirlX · 08/12/2021 19:25

It's a right wing newspaper. Flexibility helps women to work, and of course the Tories would like us all back in the kitchen with the baby on our hip.

Are you including Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May in that. Can you name a Labour or Lib Dem prime minister?

FanGirlX · 08/12/2021 19:28

Let’s be honest a lot of these work from home job could be done in the half the time they are claiming for.

Do you have actual evidence for this statement?

Sassoon · 08/12/2021 19:29

They're a paper who represent Tories, capitalists, and those who make money from workers so they're never going to like workers having any autonomy or not being forced to buy lunches, petrol or clothes. Also some people seem to object to it out of pure jealousy, for no other reason than they can't do it themselves 🤷‍♀️

exaltedwombat · 08/12/2021 19:54

They're attacking the government, not WFH specifically. 'Boris commanded it, therefore it's wrong'.

Not a bad maxim, actually...

Lovely13 · 08/12/2021 20:08

It’s about control, I think. Mainly white privileged men have always sat at head of business table. Now it’s all gone a bit wavy for them. They don’t like it!
Having said that, for younger generation, think they’re missing out on being inside the workplace. Skills to be learned there that you can’t get online.

Lifetheuniverseandeverything · 08/12/2021 20:11

The same Telegraph that is denigrating the survivors of Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein? That Telegraph? It’s a mystery.

Wizzbangfizz · 08/12/2021 22:43

@requiredusername I'll be interested to see who complies, I'm hoping my govt dept keep offices open and give people the choice.

ThistleTits · 08/12/2021 23:06

@manysummersago

Where is a universal basic income being seriously discussed?
Never, not positively in the Telegraph anyway.
asha456 · 09/12/2021 01:23

@Mirw

There are lots of reasons for people not working at home. One that really affects women much more than men is that people in social housing and in private rented housing breach their tenancy agreement if they work from home now that lockdown is over. If they push it, they are making themselves homeless. Far too much of a burden and also a breach of their rights. So WFH has to be a choice for everyone who works in offices, not the new norm. I personally work from home but it is my choice rather than forced on me by an employer. But it has to be a choice.
Equally, I would want people in rented accommodation to have the choice to WFH as well, and not be forced by landlords into an office. If the government can make it legal temporarily then they could also make it a permanent right.
Original poster
Circlesandtriangles · 09/12/2021 07:01

They'll have to suck it up and be fans of it again now given the latest guidance I guess. I really disliked the general "it's time to get back to work" narrative in September that implied we had all been sat home twiddling thumbs for the past year and a half. I've got a job which has always involved hybrid working, mix of home and from office, which feels like a great balance. I think it's really short sighted to vilify WFH - it's best if people have choice and can choose what suits their circumstances best, and the flexibility is really appealing and works well for so many people, particularly with caring responsibilities or kids. It's not something that works for everyone or every job by any means but I hate the creation of another division between people and the construction of the "wfh isn't real work/ is lesser work" narrative.

I definitely understand more about the telegraph from this. I moved to UK a few years ago so feel like I missed the understanding of the background of the different media outlets and naively thought the Telegraph occupied the middle ground. I don't even know if there is any newspaper occupying the middle ground now that I think about it!

OP posts:
Badbadbunny · 09/12/2021 08:16

@Sallybates

Because it represents those who own offices, property who want the worker drones in there. Wouldn’t it be great if offices were made over for folk to live in instead? Families could chose if WFH suited them, save money on fares, drycleaning, parents spend more time with children
Lots of commercial properties are owned as investments by local councils and pension funds. Loss of rental income and reductions in value will hit "normal" people, i.e. reduced services by local councils due to loss of revenue and reduced pensions for ordinary workers.

As for conversions to residential, that's usually prohibited by local planning regulations, hence why so much is left empty in city centres - it takes a lot of time and effort to get through planning approval stages for change of use.