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"?

Management Accountant for Commercial landlord. We all run a paperless office, use a whatsapp group to keep everyone in the loop and have on screen meetings 3 times a week.
We all work from home but the estate managers often visit the properties to resolve issues.

I think WFH works really well for self directed responsible people, well qualified and trained and often in quite autonomous jobs. My H has done it for 22 years and mixes it in with face to face meeting of business partners and suppliers. On the other hand I've never had such shonky customer service and ludicrous call waits on anything approaching 'customer service centres' as I've had since people can work from home. I can't believe now this is all covid related - I think somewhere along the line some people are taking the piss

DH is an aero engineer, quite senior. He's still WFH about half his time. He spends a lot of time in online meetings directing other people, a fair bit of spreadsheet wrangling and making calculations.

Business/Data/Programmer Analyst

basically low code dogsbody. Nothing I can do in the office cannot be done at home.

we use teams, sharepoint, yammer etc so we can project manage, status update have catchup call far easier than in person when we are distributed team.

also when in the office I seem to spend more time fixing small problems for everyone and not working on my projects.

my work place let’s us pick and choose what we want to do where and when pretty much. The operational staff and the sales staff obviously have to be in the plants/on the road the rest of us we are more productive at home

Wfh for 23 years. DH has a job that is in office and needs staff in office. Mainly because productivity and team work isn’t what it was.

i believe a lot of jobs can be WFH but not all people can be WFH.

Revenue data analysis & demand forecasting in the travel & tourism industry.

WFH is fantastic for me. My work, unsurprisingly, requires focus and there are far fewer distractions in my spare room / office than there are in a busy, noisy open plan office.

Civil service. I go in to the office once or
twice a week when in-person meetings with senior execs are set up. Otherwise I do exactly the same from home - use our software systems, send emails, write reports - my meetings with colleagues have just switched to Teams instead of being in-person.

Except the bleeding obvious (dr, teacher, any directly customer facing / replenishment & delivery jobs etc, please explain what desk based jobs can't be done from home, OP?

Presumably the immediate line manager/supervisor of staff working on a factory/warehouse/shop floor may have a desk-based job but needs to supervise the staff. Unless of course they could do that by CCTV and loudspeakers but that would be a little too 1984.

I’m a freelancer and have worked from home for about 15 years. Has always been v v flexible, through the nursery and primary school years. But it’s been great that it has now become more normal to work from home. Basically, if you don’t need to be physically present with others I would have thought you can work from home at least some of the time.

civil servant wfh 3 days a week was working from home 5 days a week now hybrid working but actually no reason what so ever to go into the office grrrr only reason given is "we are an office based working environment ",er yes maybe in the 1980s !!!!

Financial services ,training and knowledge sharing is much better in person. Otherwise I suggest recording such training calls

I work in higher education in student support. 100% at home. Everything in my role is online/on the phone and the office is in another country ☺️

I'm curious to know why your staff must be in the office at all times? I wouldn't consider a new role that didn't at least offer hybrid.

IT project manager for a large construction company

Both of us have worked from home for the last 20+ years. Me running my business, DH working for a professional education provider. All good.

you have people in the office sitting across from one another in the same teams call its ludicrous no need to go into the office time is wasted commuting you get more people foung if sick as catch things much less work gets done as they are more easily distracted in the office
It just seems to be a tick box thing plus it costs a tenner a day to go in !!

as long as you have the internet wifi etc can work from home no problem telephone calls can be made via teams and you can login see and speak to colleagues via teams no need to be in the office whatsoever

we have had many new staff start who have been fully trained wfh via teams no problem

A lot of employees in the company I work for (retail) seem to WFH and I am sure they love it but from a point of view of supporting those of us literally 'on the shop floor' it is not very helpful. We have recently had a very complex new training scheme delivered via Zoom ... seeing the trainers delivering the training from the comfort of their home is not very motivating. We have HR employees who have told me (via email) that as they didn't have a work phone they can't possibly speak direct to me to resolve an issue ... and constant emailing back and forwards is not always conducive to discussing something ... same with all our 'support functions' ... it really doesn't help the divide between 'Head Office' staff and the rest of us.

Another in IT. Financial Services, quite niche so better to cast the net quite wide for recruitment purposes. We meet up occasionally and agree it’s good to do so. There is a certain amount lost not going into the office but 1) we will always be geographically dispersed 2) Those ad hoc conversations don’t make up for the wider recruitment net 3) Those who live close to the main office don’t go in that often 4) We’ve got used to Teams calls. I remember it took a while for people to get used to conference calls - people butting in etc. It’s so much better to be able to record, add links to the chat, bring people in when required than to congregate in a single room.

Analyst. Soon going to be WFH permanently as moving back to the UK from abroad but staying in the same job.

Most companies now who insist on people working in the office are limiting their talent pool massively and not able to access the full range of talent in the marketplace.

Lawyer - in house. My direct reports and my clients are all over the world, so it’s not as if being in one of our many offices makes a jot of difference.

I’m a journalist, and the nature of my work was always remote even when office based, so working from home is actually a great fit for me.

I’m a social worker. I do home visits as needed and admin and meetings are mostly done from home.

DH is a civil servant and manages a national team. They all work from home as their team aren’t in the same office anyway, so all meetings are online regardless of where they’re sat.

PR