To think it’s daft to make big life decisions based on WFH without checking it’s permanent?

[GoldenOmber]

My work used to be office-based. We’ve all been WFH since March 2020 because of government rules (not in England).

This week the government lifted that rule, and later that day our employers told us what the plans were to start bringing us back. This is pretty flexible - not starting for a month or two yet, will still allow a lot of WFH for people who want it (like 9 days a fortnight with one in the office). Most people are ok with this. Some people really aren’t.

Now we are having drama over email with a small but vocal group saying how angry/upset they are, because they have made big changes based around getting to WFH and it will now be difficult for them to go back at all. Even 1 day a fortnight starting in April. Changes like moving house far away from office; getting a dog and not wanting to leave the dog alone; selling car and not wanting to get public transport b/c germs (not just covid, all germs).

Work have ALWAYS said WFH was temporary though! I have some sympathy for how long it’s going to take you to commute from your new house in the middle of nowhere, but SURELY you’d factor that in when you bought it?

YABU - no, after 2 years of WFH working fairly well it was reasonable to expect it to continue without checking.

YANBU - yes, they should obviously have checked.

I think the 'it's harder to ask questions/it's great not having interruptions' is another one that's very dependent on career stage and how long you've been in post. My colleague who has worked in the organisation for 16 years keeps saying that no one interrupts her anymore because she can just ignore it and get on with her own work as a huge bonus of WFH - but it's not a bonus at all from the people who need answers to questions and now find them hard to get from her. She is very rarely in that position so I don't think it's ever occurred to her that for them it isn't a 'waste of time', it's essential.

@sanbeiji as one of those brought in to put right things offshored, it's great

At the beginning of the lock downs there was lots of people saying “ oh they will get rid of offices” “. “Wfh is the new normal even when this is over”. People believed it because they wanted to.

It will be interestingly how all this works out long term . We ar moving to 40 % office based which I think is good.

@HardbackWriter

I think the 'it's harder to ask questions/it's great not having interruptions' is another one that's very dependent on career stage and how long you've been in post. My colleague who has worked in the organisation for 16 years keeps saying that no one interrupts her anymore because she can just ignore it and get on with her own work as a huge bonus of WFH - but it's not a bonus at all from the people who need answers to questions and now find them hard to get from her. She is very rarely in that position so I don't think it's ever occurred to her that for them it isn't a 'waste of time', it's essential.

Surely she’s at the end of a screen and can either respond immediately to a call if she’s able to? If not then she should be. It’s very much dependent on the role and organisation I think - not everyone is in the same physical location as their colleagues, nor do they have roles which can be immediately interrupted.

She can, but she chooses not to because she feels it's more important to prioritize concentrating fully on her own work than what she sees as other people's 'silly questions'. She is very certain that she is much more productive at home - she's outraged at the ide of returning to the office - and I'm sure she is getting through what she sees as her 'actual' work much quicker and so to some degree she's right. It makes other people much slower, though. I think she's an extreme example but it's happened a lot in my organisation - lots of people think their team has been more productive from home but that all the teams they work with are less so. By which they mean that their team has concentrated entirely on their own priorities, but been hampered by other teams doing the same.

YANBU. That said, if the work can be done 100% from home and the worker prefers that, I genuinely think it should be allowed.

I think it’s very silly of company’s to insist office based. For example, I saw a job recently I liked and would have been an amazing fit for.

It’s in slough, 2 hours away. I don’t want that commute and I also don’t want to live there. I have kids that need picking up at 6pm from after school club. I can’t be more than 20-30 mins away,

Insisting on working in office severely restricts your pool of decent applicants.

@HardbackWriter I agree. I think a lot of the ‘I get so much more work done at home’ brigade have an overly narrow view of work. Yes, you may tick off more items on your to-do list at home with no interruptions but that’s not the only thing that matters.

From my experience most office jobs contain a mix of ‘concrete’ tasks (writing that report, sending that email etc) and ‘softer’ aspects (helping newer members of staff, informal chats, random useful conversations in the staff kitchen). It’s these softer aspects that to me mean there is a lot of value in spending at least some time in the office.

I know someone who sold their car - more fool for them - back to the office now.

I would suggest their productivity has not improved then - generally individuals combine to form the team or project. If one person holds that up by focusing on their own work then that will have an effect on deliverables, but that can happen with staff based in a physical office. Ultimately if deliverables are dependent on everyone being in the same office and more experienced members of the team dropping what they’re doing to instantly respond to face to face queries then that seems like an odd way of working to me. It will depend on the role though - some roles lend themselves to wfh, others to a hybrid model, while others will require everyone to be within a few feet of each other. Hopefully working patterns will continue to adapt and become more flexible.

WFH has many advantages but there are costs to be carried by the employee. Going in to the office once a week means buying a single ticket at peak times without claiming expenses as you are travelling from home to your office base - not such a huge amount of £ compared to the considerable lump sum of a annual or month long season ticket. But the 1d.pw will creep up to several days per fortnight. Why? because it can, because employers will seek to sift employees out & we’ve yet to determine what restored productivity will look like.

All the energy & utility costs that employers carry- heat, light, telephony - will now fall to employees. So far, we’ve not had an extended cold snap or heat wave since COVID stay at home to work rolled in.

Heating your own home during a weekday to the level of comfort where you can work is different to the energy used to be comfy at home at the weekends. WFH during sweltering heat, the office air con is greatly missed, & likewise during a cold snap heating a single room to WFH for eight hours can still whack up the domestic charges.

Given the energy rate rises coming through in the coming months, for some who are expressing the preference to work from home, there will the stark choice of going to work to minimise household bills.

Maybe it is because they have an office building that - They have a lease/rent they have to pay for, so no point having it sitting empty while paying rent and rates, and maybe they also don't want the huge expense of kitting out their staff with the apporiate desk, chairs etc they would have to provide if making WFH permanent, it's like a double cost for the employer. And not everyone has a big enough house to make room for a dedicate work space. There are pros and cons for both WRH and in the office. So maybe both sides need to make a compromise.

We have asked staff to come back for 3 days,to be reviewed after 3 months
A few are not happy and it's all about their needs,child care and dogs
Fair enough but we have to think about the business or nobody will have a job
I think a couple will leave
While retention of good staff is very important,losing one or two is not always a disaster,and in fact can be a positive thing

I agree OP. As long as people were warned it was temporary they shouldn't have made life changes that means they can't now commute. They should now leave and apply for actual work from home jobs.
And as for people thinking they can do without childcare that's a real sore point. If you can't bring your child in the office then don't expect to look after it at home. You will perform poorly at work or neglect your child.

What is missing here is the leadership view.

I am the decision maker for my organization. I'm new in role but can see that they have been 'on a journey' (sorry, cliche). Initial wfh commitments were made in good faith, we just genuinely didn't know what covid or long-term looked like.

When we confirmed hybrid working it was like a sigh of relief. It will save us money and we are more productive, but I have stakeholders too. I couldn't have asked for approval to move offices/change contracts from my board any earlier than this, because they need to believe me on candidate quality and other issues. And honestly, being a bunch of rich old guys who are mostly semi-retired, I don't think they did.

I'm sure some of my colleagues will be a little annoyed by 40% office return (but not many because we are already in a secondary city) but it is only now we are in a position to make the call, and to do it right and in perpetuity.

I guess it’s just a case of who has greatest bargaining power - especially at the moment with a labour shortage in some sectors.

I think it’s silly to base your life around full wfh if your employer has not explicitly agreed. 1 day per fortnight is tiny - don’t really know why people would disagree.

However some employers who demand more in person work are unreasonable. It depends on the nature of the job. Half my team are in a different country and so meetings have to be done on Teams anyway most of the time. For the people who feel better now there are fewer interruptions - I completely sympathise - personally I think it is good, because it highlights to managers where a person is valuable. If they are more valuable as a supervisor/person people interrupt, then you should discuss with them how to arrange their balance of work to reflect this - and they should be expected to do less focused individual work to compensate for the constant context switching they have to do when troubleshooting other people’s problems. Of course the person may actually prefer their work to be more focused/individual - so it’s a negotiation. Maybe they should get a salary uplift for helping other people.

Unpopular I know but If this person has been able to wfh for the last year then they should be able continue to do that. Why does it matter where they physically do the work as long as it’s completed

@HardbackWriter

I think the 'it's harder to ask questions/it's great not having interruptions' is another one that's very dependent on career stage and how long you've been in post. My colleague who has worked in the organisation for 16 years keeps saying that no one interrupts her anymore because she can just ignore it and get on with her own work as a huge bonus of WFH - but it's not a bonus at all from the people who need answers to questions and now find them hard to get from her. She is very rarely in that position so I don't think it's ever occurred to her that for them it isn't a 'waste of time', it's essential.

Exactly! WFH might be better for an individual. They might well be more productive. But for the team or company as a whole?

It all depends on the role - and let’s not kid ourselves, there are plenty of people who don’t work particularly productively in the office. I’ve worked in enough offices to know that for some ‘collaboration’ is an excuse for a chat. If employers want staff back because they are paying rent on the buildings then they need to say so, not starting pulling unsubstantiated claims out of thin air.

@JennyForeigner

What is missing here is the leadership view.

I am the decision maker for my organization. I'm new in role but can see that they have been 'on a journey' (sorry, cliche). Initial wfh commitments were made in good faith, we just genuinely didn't know what covid or long-term looked like.

When we confirmed hybrid working it was like a sigh of relief. It will save us money and we are more productive, but I have stakeholders too. I couldn't have asked for approval to move offices/change contracts from my board any earlier than this, because they need to believe me on candidate quality and other issues. And honestly, being a bunch of rich old guys who are mostly semi-retired, I don't think they did.

I'm sure some of my colleagues will be a little annoyed by 40% office return (but not many because we are already in a secondary city) but it is only now we are in a position to make the call, and to do it right and in perpetuity.

I’m not sure the leadership view has been missing, Jenny. I’m one, as are several other contributors to this thread.

To build upon @HardbackWriter point, it is easier to plough through a single or team’s task list, but this encourages silo working within a business organisation.

It is the overall output, economy, efficiency & quality of a organisation that is its very purpose & sees it through.

As an example, many cutting edge software engineering teams are globally located yet still require ‘co-location’ - people sat together at desks or in virtual workshops - to innovate & generate quality work. This is where quick progress, knowledge share, skills stacking, & motivation play together to get stuff done at speed.

Of course, organisations paying flat rates for premises - which also have to be heated to some degree & loos flushed - want the bang for the buck by having work take place there.

Again, it depends on the role. Some face to face working might be required, but for many a blanket ‘work in a physical office on one site 5 days a week’ isn’t necessary. Global - or even national or regional - working means that’s simply not possible for those roles.

It's a shame the company's desire to work in the office trump's the individual's life choices, just proves were all too submissive to the will of the employer. WFH proves an office isn't needed to function

My partner has been wfh for the last 2 years, (IT contractor), he is working longer hours since being at home (I have to drag him out of our home office). Mainly because if there is an issue people have access to their work computer 24/7 so the issue gets dealt with asap rather than waiting until the start of the next working day (Monday to Friday). I've got used to him making work calls at all hours and at weekends.

It's a shame the company's desire to work in the office trump's the individual's life choices, just proves were all too submissive to the will of the employer
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