Anyone's employer changed their stance of wfh after Bojo's ..

[Cosmos123]

Announcement of end of restrictions?
I heard from some.friends that their employers are now encouraging a return to the office of up to 3 days a week.
Other suggesting a gradual return.
Some of these organisations are the ones who initially stated that wfh was here to stay.
Anyone else's employer done a u turn?

Yep mine seems to be going the same way. I keep hearing the md saying that 2 days should be the minimum that people are in the office now. I think it will annoy alot of people .

I think it’s inevitable really. Some companies will sell themselves on wfh as a perk (for those that like it) but for many I think it will be back to the office.

No, my employer cancelled the lease on some of their offices so now have one flour rather than four, so wfh is remaining apart from the odd in person meeting.

Ours has purposefully jettisoned more than half our office space to enable hybrid working.

Long term, I remain unconvinced it's going to stay in place but short term (for at least a couple of years) we aren't changing.

My hope is to get youngest into secondary school before commuting again. My day is much less stressful without the blue arsed fly impression.

The decision made when changes were made to restrictions in January from my employer was a gradual return with continued wfh most of the week and no changes have been made to that.

No. Every went home when lock down started. The teams or people it didn't work for, gradually went back.

Any teams it did work for, the head of departments have been left to run it how they feel works best.

I worked all over anyway, including at home, but home working worked for my teams. So the MD has left it to me to sort. I consulted the team and we agreed 2 days a month worked for every one.

No, most of my compsny will remain wfh, although we got contract changes so it would now be difficult for them to bring us back

I’m a teacher who has tested positive for covid and my employers have tried to get me to come in today as the rules are changing anyway.

Nope. My employer was very understanding and has been letting us WFH throughout Covid. Nevertheless, it’s always been made clear that when things return to normal we’d be expected back in on at least hybrid basis. At the moment it’s once a week but it will be increased to twice shortly. I expect it will go up to 3. All new starters during the pandemic have the office as the place of work on their contacts just the same as us long termers.

No we’ve been hybrid working since we could first go back, 2 days a week max home working. Perfect balance for me, working from home all the time is a miserable insular experience for me.

I work in HR and have always been convinced that organisations would eventually want staff back in the office. To be fair, most of the places I've worked in have had roles which require face to face interaction with customers and so there has always been the expectation that people would get back to the office.

It's going to be hybrid with WFH having a big part of it

Many in my friendship circle intend on remaining WFH unless their company has specifically requested a return but that’s very few to be honest. After 2 years the majority of them are reluctant to return to commuting and the stresses associated with it, others are finding the work life balance better as well.

I was visiting Manchester yesterday and the city centre was noticeably quieter both at lunchtime and in the evening than pre-covid times.

Funnily enough the M&S sandwich shelves looked untouched at 2pm when normally they’d be barren. It’s certainly made an impact on many people that’s for sure.

My organisation mandated 2 days in office back in jan and stated would review this in april, i dont expect it to change if im honest and only because i know were very tight for space vs the number of employees but who knows

No. We went to hybrid working last year, it remains that & it’s highly unlikely to change not least becatse the entire staff team doesbt fit in the office

DH's work had gone back to one or two days in the office before Plan B came in and they've gone back to that. They've been brilliant wrt CEV staff though, and if they have CEV family members at home - I'm immunosuppressed and they've said DH can wfh for as long as he needs because of me.

I work for a massive national company. We've done extremely well during the pandemic so the official stance is hybrid working with our line managers managing it as they see fit. My line manager is absolutely fine for us to continue to work from home with site visits as required.

The MD of our division has decided that he doesn't like people working from home, he thinks people can't be trusted to be productive (results prove otherwise) and while he's happy to adopt the hybrid approach, to him that means one day a week from home.

He's a dick.

Mine hasn’t which is good as the office is 250 miles away 😆

My husband is still working from home and no signs of that changing. The office has been refurbished and designed for far fewer employees. At the very least hybrid working is here to stay for him.

Yes our has back to 60% of time in the office, I much prefer to work at the office than at home I find I am more productive.

All our staff live locally and worked flexibly pre covid - popping in for a meeting, popping back later for to drop something in. We have a day when we are all in for staff meetings and most people do another 1-2 days in the office. I think there will be a gradual shift towards a bit more working in the office but apart from those who weren’t allowed to wfh (only home when furloughed) like reception staff, most of us don’t need to be in all the time.
Personally I think a balance is good as long as no one takes the Michael but I know that our contracts are going to stay as in person, because the company wants the ability to require us all in for say a training day. I’m happy with that. I line manage someone who can be tricky and can well imagine them refusing to come in for something important if we made home work a contractual right rather than as agreed with your manager.

Mine started off with a really flexible attitude to hybrid once we could go back (which is only quite recently as in Scotland). But enough people have fussed and stomped and grumbled about being expected to go back at all, even one day a fortnight, that I think work are going to start mandating minimum days a week back in.

We've all been back in the office full time since July 2020 with the odd spate of wfh for a few since then. I'm beginning to think our firm are freaks!

Interestingly they are continuing with a 5 day isolation if anyone tests positive though and they're persisting with masks if not at your desk.

No my company introduced ‘hybrid’ working last year so you have to do at least 2 days in office . They won’t change on this but senior leaders to try and encourage people to come in more .

Yes we're expected to do 1/4 of our shifts in office.

Reasons given: some people feel lonely, that's fine but I'm not someone's emotional support animal. I want to come in, do my job without distraction and go home. Some people's stats have fallen, again that's fine but mine have been higher than ever and I've been consistently praised for my high performance and dragging me out of bed 2 hours earlier than necessary as the single mum to a rather sleep resistant toddler is certainly not going to benefit my stats or performance. Lastly they said it's because it's not fair to let a select few work from home permanently when others have to come in to the office - so why not have performance and capability reviews and base judgement from that rather than tar every one with the same infantile brush?

I always knew that going back into the office was a probability so I'm not actually that surprised but I did think my employers might review the data for the past 2 years and make a sensible decision based on each individuals performance.