Has anyone refused to go back into the office?

[GreenPepperRed]

Just that really. Have a job that can easily be done working from home. Company is now saying compulsory 3 days in the office. Has anyone just not gone in and carried on working from home? How did that turn out?

The majority of my department is insisting they are not going in. Can confirm they are serious because I went in to the office a couple days back and there was probably 10% of the people in.

Intrigued what my company will do. Fire us all?

@TheKeatingFive

Do people's contracts actually state where they will be working?

Of course

I think people underestimate the value of learning from each other and how much easier it is to facilitate this face to face, be it a couple of times of year or a couple of times a week

This is why my employer has said people need to be in twice a week including senior staff. My role is a bit different, so the value of my being in the office is less obvious. But if you work with junior staff you do need to see them face to face. Hence why I said there should be flexibility - not all employers and jobs are the same. The OP will know if she needs to be in to impart knowledge (or indeed learn it).

You are conflating call centre which are understaffed (deliberately) and had people furloughed for months, with people doing their normal jobs from home.

Not at all. My cousin manages call centre staff. It's been very difficult to do that when everyone's wfh, she's the first to adult that their standards have slipped significantly. They didn't furlough anyone, they have the same staffing as prepandemic, it's just that productivity is much lower in lots of sectors from home.

I got a new job and negotiated a home based contract. Try that. Third sector jobs are much more flexible.

My cousin manages call centre staff. It's been very difficult to do that when everyone's wfh, she's the first to adult that their standards have slipped significantly

well it must be one of the only call centres in the country that hasn't cut staff.

But even taking that in consideration - aren't call centres well known for not letting people take toilet breaks etc? So maybe WFH simply meant staff could actually go to the loo occasionally. How awful!

@QuirkyTurtle

A PP also made the very good point that we have to think of the interests of younger people, who may not want to spend their careers working from home.

I disagree so much with this I'm not sure I'll find the words. I'm in my 20s and climbed the corporate ladder very quickly. I manage a team now, mostly people in their late 20s / early 30s. The overwhelming opinion of my team, and any other young people in this big company, as well as any and all opinions I see online is that young people do not want to commute and work in an office. Young people have seen now that a healthy work/life balance IS possible and that we don't all need to be slaves to the corporation. That there is so much more to life than a 9 to 5.

Yes we had great banter in the office, and now we have that on lunches out. And there is the option to come into the office sporadically on certain days if we want to.

I find it extremely important for the sake of young people that this new status quo is maintained. The old boomer mentality of working yourself to death is gone.

You are too funny. You like working from home, so you have appointed yourself spokesperson for the 20-somethings of Britain.

Lest we suspect that you are inventing evidence to suit yourself, you inform us that you ‘climbed the corporate ladder quickly’ (nobody in a senior role uses phrases like that. That’s a tip from me to you, for free, to save you from making a fool of yourself) and that anyone who sees any value in working from an office is an ‘old boomer’ who likes being ‘a slave to the corporation’. Hahaha!

No one has asked us to go back in the office yet. I haven't been in for 2 years now

@MissMaple82

Why do you want to work from home still? So you can slack off?

Yeah I slack off sometimes working from home. But not any more than I did at the office. And at least at home I can slack off productively.

Some people are refusing to go back at my work. And this is at an office where all we’ve been asked to do is set out a proposed working pattern with a minimum 1 day a fortnight in the office.

I don’t think it’s going to work out well for them at my work. The loudest grumblers are totally clueless about how to approach something like this. No attempt to make a decent business case for a change to their contract or address the organisation’s reasons for wanting people back - it’s just “but I personally don’t WANT to go back” (or “but I’ve got a dog/moved far away and now it would be a hassle for me to go back”). Okay well, last time we hired for a position like yours we got 100+ applications so… good luck?

*You are too funny. You like working from home, so you have appointed yourself spokesperson for the 20-somethings of Britain.

Lest we suspect that you are inventing evidence to suit yourself, you inform us that you ‘climbed the corporate ladder quickly’ (nobody in a senior role uses phrases like that. That’s a tip from me to you, for free, to save you from making a fool of yourself) and that anyone who sees any value in working from an office is an ‘old boomer’ who likes being ‘a slave to the corporation’. Hahaha!*

Ok well done on completely misunderstanding my entire post.

And yes I acknowledge my views are entirely anecdotal and I can't speak for everyone. But I will stand up for the people in my team, as a good manager does (that's a tip from me to you, for free).

If your contract needs to be changed to accommodate wfh (most do if originally started in an office environment) then you need to consider other aspects that will need to be changed.

You will need to have the correct wfh office set up to ensure Oc Health - your tax status changes, the companies responsibilities change, the costs to the company changes. Don’t expect a company to jump at this, if your company owns the building there is no cost saving for you to work from home, if they rent they may need to move the office to smaller premises.

There are plenty of associated costs with this from business cards, headed paper, web changes, doubling up of equipment as examples. So this could well impact your salary, pay rises etc for years to come. Whilst many employees may have saved money during the pandemic wfh, companies didn’t and this will be reflected going forward.

Ultimately it’s up to you, but don’t expect it to always fall favourably.

I'd have utterly hated wfh in my early 20s. I loved the social aspect of being in an office and learned loads from observing interactions between senior people.

It was also how I recognised which direction I wanted my career to develop and put in place the right relationships to make that happen. Genuinely don't believe I could have done that nearly as quickly or effectively from home. It's the regular and ongoing interaction which build solid relationships, not occasional lunches out (on whose time?)

I totally support the idea of hybrid, but the entitlement of some is astonishing. If you are a leader being asked to bring your team back in and you refuse, it's surely not going to end particularly well for you, career wise. It's naive to think otherwise.

[quote MrsJBaptiste]@eca80 Meetings are shorter but my God, the amount of meetings...! Everything has to be a 'meeting' as we're not chatting in person and I can sometimes have 6 or 7 in one day 😨[/quote]
I hear you! I had lots of this in the office too, tbf- had to schedule time with myself to get things done.

It is a management problem, not a wfh problem. I think wfh has exacerbated a lot of bad management practices and highlighted just how many in management don’t really know what they are doing. I do coaching for project managers, and the really great managers I work with have adapted (with effort) and are just as effective as before. It is with the marginal ones where the wheels have really fallen off. The initial reflex is to blame the employee or the situation (wfh). Good management is hard, and most people are promoted into a managing role with little or no training.

@Belladonna12

How do you know that there is zero reason? If she's in her 60s she could easily be at high risk from covid

She isn’t. If you read my post correctly, it does say this person goes to restaurants and on coach trips. These are no reasons, just lame excuses. She’s unproductive.

I'm curious about the "doing the school run" thing.
So, you take 20 mins or so out of your afternoon to collect the kids - then what? Bring them home and..... who is supervising them after that, whilst you're meant to be back at your laptop?
You're being paid to work at that point, not do childcare.

@QuirkyTurtle not being antagonistic but “boomer”, that’s quite offensive

My 20 something nieces and nephews are all delighted to be back having hated wfh and no contact with their teams (that too is anecdotal)

I am CEV so was on the shielded list and work PT and have been working perfectly well
at home since the start of the pandemic. I feel safer, happier, can concentrate better, my stats show I am more productive and its just so much nicer. Work now want me and everyone w back in the office for 60% of our contracted hours.

Work requested an OH report before asking me to go back in the autumn (as they were aware of my health and shielded status) and it said to stay at home until January. They requested another report recently last which recommended I stay at home until June. My work are choosing to override this and want me back before this.

I feel frightened and my anxiety is through the roof but I think they have decided to get tough and if I don’t comply they will manage me out. I am doing 95% of my job except one thing which was done virtually during the pandemic and it worked perfectly well but they have now insisted that this needs to be done face to face.

Entitled CFs.Just because it's more convenient to work at home doesn't mean it's a right.

WFH has an impact on problem solving & creativity - online meetings do not offer the same kind of interaction as in person ones.

It's all very well to say WFH works for you to do nursery/school runs, etc etc and make up the time in the evening but too many people are taking the piss and not doing that. It doesn't fit with the company working day and over time staff become isolated and its difficult to know what they're doing, how they can be devloped/ progressed etc.

Its all very well for those who have their own home but for those entering the work place / early in their career and house sharing / living with parents it's awful.
They get far too little training & informal interaction with their colleagues, they're stuck working in their bedroom which has a huge negative impact on their mental health & they don't make the friends/ contacts that we did at work. (Significant numbers of people meet their partners at work)

Financially masses of pension funds have invested in property in major cities - if all those leases are given up then pension fund values will drop negatively affecting everyone's retirement.

This is not a single issue, it links across society and has long term implications.

At the end of the day all restrictions have been lifted and it's down to organisations to decide how they want to run their business. I work in a senior management role and there have been great advantages to WFH but effective communication between individuals and teams has been decimated in a lot of cases, there have also been a lot of corners cut or standards dropped to be able WFH. It really depends on your contract, if you're contacted to work from the office and WFH was a temporary solution refusing to go into the office will just ultimately get you fired.

Sounds to me like they're being reasonable in offering a hybrid policy to try and compromise, they could have just said back in 5 days a week like my DHs company, then you'd really complain!

@SpiderinaWingMirror

Readjust your thinking. If 2 years ago you were told you could wfh twice a week, you would have been delighted.

Exactly. I thought we'd be back in full time when COVID had died down. I'm in the office 2 or 3 days a week and I'm really happy with that.

[quote Firkinhavinalaugh]@QuirkyTurtle not being antagonistic but “boomer”, that’s quite offensive

My 20 something nieces and nephews are all delighted to be back having hated wfh and no contact with their teams (that too is anecdotal) [/quote]
I didn't mean to offend. It's just an easy way to refer to a certain group but I acknowledge it has a negative connotation and I probably should have clarified. I don't take offense to being called a Millennial, as that is the generation I was born in.

well it must be one of the only call centres in the country that hasn't cut staff.

Got any figures for that?

But even taking that in consideration - aren't call centres well known for not letting people take toilet breaks etc? So maybe WFH simply meant staff could actually go to the loo occasionally. How awful!

I don't think we can chalk up the major customer service issues due to wfh as 'going to the loo' occasionally, much as I'm sure you'd like to.

The problem I've come across is that whilst people think they're equally as productive working from home as compared to working in an office is that it's just not true.

Communication and team working is hindered and minor issues that could be sorted across the desk become big issues that need a meeting to resolve.

I've informed some of my team that it will be 3 days per week from the office and gave a period of notice to allow them time to make the required arrangements. For this team in particular, they are so dysfunctional and not delivering that we are at serious risk of losing a massive contract. If we do lose the contract then they will all be made redundant. Some are questioning and are adamant that they are just as productive from home, but they're really not and even if they specifically may be, the overall outputs from the team isn't. They need to be together so that the whole really is greater than the sum of the parts.

We did a survey in our company to find out what people preferred, not unsurprisingly, younger people wanted to mainly work from the office and older members of staff with families wanted to remain working from home. You can't please everyone.

We’re all back in the office full time (or as our contracted hours allow). I’m happier with this.

My work have said that we can request to wfh if we want but it cannot be for childcare reasons (on a permanent basis) they recognise that with young kids it’s difficult to actually work so those of us with young kids have to show that we have childcare in place to wfh.