Genuine question for those still working from home

[HeritageQuay]

I'm a manager in a company that employs about 100 employees across several locations in the south of England. We are in an industry that stayed open throughout Covid but apart from that we think we are a fairly normal business, i.e. we sell things, and then we deliver those things to our customers.

However, we have always been puzzled by the concept of people being able to "work from home". We think that our employees perform a full range of business functions and but none us have ever been able to work from home, even at the height of the pandemic, because our jobs mean that we have to be in the workplace.

So my question to those currently working from home is "what do you do" and "what industry are you in"?

University Admin.

We never thought we could WFH but 2.5 years later and 1001 Teams meetings and here we are, just one day a week in the office and four at home.

IT. Our team was already split across a number of countries, and some of us already worked from home at least some of the time, so we were very used to conf calls and video cslls, becausewe'd been doing it for years. We support servers literally all round the world, and as long as we've got a network connection, our location doesn't really matter. Moving to WFH permanently wasn't much of an adjustment. Occasionally we have to do site visits for work at datacentres, and we had letters to say it was essential work, if ever needed, but that was probably only used 3 ot 4 times over two years, and not at all by me.

Most of us are now popping in to the office once a week or so, more for social reasons or to use the gym than for work itself... People at exec level are now starting to travel again, so I am hoping that will trickle down, as it'd be nice to see some of my European colleagues face-to-face again. Mind you, there are others I haven't missed at all...

Lawyer. I do international work so my team and clients are rarely in the same office or country as me.

The managing partner keeps trying to coax people back to the office but people like being at home. I find it easier to focus wfh.

I work in marketing, fully from home. My husband is also mostly from home. Most jobs can be done from home 🤷🏼‍♀️

I'm seeing a trend - business analyst in financial services IT.

I make phone calls which I'd obviously be making anyway, regardless of location.I go out on site visits as usual and my home starting point is 20 miles closer to the county I work in so this saves my employer at least £20 daily in my travel.Zoom and teams calls are done at home.

In house lawyer. Mostly contract reviews. All electronic so all on the laptop. Comms with other teams was always done via calls rather than face to face to save time, even before Covid. When was full time, evening and weekend working was the norm. Wfh has simply meant that staff are less burned out and therefore more productive.

I work for a government department and give legal advice over the phone, have worked at home for over ten years and am much more productive than I ever was in an office environment (less noise, no distractions and very little in the way of office politics).

This sounds a bit antiquated and some modernisation is needed.

You can certainly stop accepting cheques. You can reduce cash probably and encourage more online and electronic payments.

You can ask for all invoices to be emailed - most companies will have preferences set up so you can do this.

Electronic expense and overtime submissions for payroll etc.

I can work at home very easily with perhaps one visit a month to the office although that’s not my preference and I like being at work. But needs must and the flexibility can be very helpful.

My job is 100% computer based, all meetings are on Teams now. Everyone I work with is in the same boat. If I go into the office it’s just full of people ignoring the people they sit near to, sitting on Teams meetings. I’m now expected to go i to the office a couple of times per week, I just go in for a nice chat really and do all the proper work when I’m back on my own at home.

Nhs Medical Secretary. 3 days in office and 1 at home because our team leader and CSSM doesn’t like the team working from home…I could easily do 3 days at home and one in the office!

Civil servant here working for a government department,.there are around 150 with my workplace and we are required to work a minimum or 2 days in the office and the remaining WFH, this is split between the various team heads as to who wants to do what. I have worked solely from home since the start of this and haven't gone back in at all due to a health reason. My day is spent in teams meetings,.managing various databases and speaking with contractors and service providers for the office.

Contact centre. I just need my laptop, headset and quiet background
My entire job is on the phone so I'm 9hrs a day taking phone calls. If I need help I message my boss or ring them. No meetings except a 121 every so often

Bizarre thread. The vast majority of jobs that are admin/office/clerical/I.T. can be done from home. Not saying what I do as it's potentially identifying, but it's uncommon and niche.

Thanks @PurpleButterflyWings, your statement is very helpful:

"The vast majority of jobs that are admin/office/clerical/I.T. can be done from home."

In our organisation we only have about 5% of our staff in those functions so I don't feel so bad now!

Analyst/researcher, no need to be in an office, we are all spread all over the country so even if I went into an office none of my team would be there. Its fantastic for working parents to be able to work ft and not have long draining commutes taking you away from your family even longer than needs be. I'm so much more productive too. Some jobs obviously can't be wfh but lots of jobs can be done from home now.

i.e. we sell things, and then we deliver those things to our customers.

The company I work for does that, but most of the admin stuff - website content, telesales, accounts, credit control, can be done from home. With good leadership and regular meetings on Teams it has worked brilliantly for us.

Oviously, some roles can't be done remotely - warehouse roles, pickers, goods in, deliveries etc. The turnover is over £400m.

Accountant, media business. Team is spread across 3+ locations so even if we’re all “in the office”, we’re still 3 continents apart. No one really needs finance to be in the office 5 days a week unless, as you say, there’s still a paper trail but virtually all of our business is done digitally now.

Compliance manager at a bank, can do 100% from home but we are hybrid as there is value from some face to face eg for collaboration. I really like hybrid, best of both worlds.

I'm a freelance sports journalist, with sidelines in editing and translating. A lot of my day-to-day business can be handled remotely. Editing and translating text just needs an internet connection, researching stories and even conducting interviews can very often be done remotely.

Due to various COVID restrictions making it difficult for journalists to travel to some major events in the past couple of years, we've had to adapt to find ways of covering a lot of them remotely. This was most striking for the Winter Olympics in Beijing. We had four reporters, one on site, one in the UK and two in North America. Also, therefore, four in four different time zones. Only one had good access to the athletes, which put him under a lot of pressure to get quotes to support stories that the rest of us might be researching and writing remotely, using streams of the action. It was far from ideal, but we just about made it all work. I wouldn't relish doing it that way again, though, and was much happier when I could travel to Europe for our World Championship in person.

However, there's a big upside. In the past, we struggled to provide much detailed coverage of lower level international tournaments. It's just not cost effective to send someone to a foreign country for a week or so to watch the equivalent of Brazil playing Argentina at cricket (cricket isn't my sport, but hopefully you get my point). Now, though, we're able to access streams of tournaments at the lowest levels and everyone is used to the idea of setting up a Zoom conversation so we can talk to the star player or the coach of the winning team.

So, although WFH isn't ideal by any means, there are times when it gives us something that we haven't enjoyed before - and that means a better service for more of our sport's followers, players and national federations.

Head of a team focusing on developing policies, spend most the day on teams as my team is spread all over the country and a lot of time is writing/reviewing my teams work. Can easily do it from home and work very effectively and trust my team to too. We meet up in person again now to bounce ideas off one another but still do more days at home.

Government based regulatory work. Site work is done on site unless it can be done via teams. "Office" work is done from home. My manager is based in a different office from me, so I could travel for an hour to go into the office and talk to my manager via Teams, or I could stay at home, talk to my manager via Teams and save 2 hours per day.

You realise you broke covid rules right?

The rules were to work from home if you can. People adapted at breakneck speed, invested in tech to enable hone working etc.

By not even exploring options you were very irresponsible.

Dh’s organisation has offices across the county in various location so all his meetings are on teams anyway. He can go into his office but the likelihood of others he’s meeting with being there is low.

PR. Don't get anything meaningful out of going in, in fact find it incredibly aggravating. It costs me around £40 (dog walker, morning and after-school costs, and petrol) and am at least 50% less productive, as lots of unnecessary meetings are scheduled. I also tend not to start working again when I get home, whereas on a home working day I don't finish until 6/7pm.
I speak to my team 3/4 times a day through teams meets and chat. It works really well. Going in feels like box ticking and nothing more.