To think ‘hybrid working’ is a bit shit actually?

[OctopusDare]

(Full disclosure: I’m really hoping all the replies are “YABU because my employer is doing it properly and it’s great”, to give me some hope to look elsewhere. Please also let me know if you’re hiring.)

My office job went WFH at the start of the pandemic. This was shit for those of us who don’t like WFH, but okay, pandemic. This year we have been trying ‘hybrid’ working. What this means is that coming into the office sometimes is ‘encouraged’. In practice it looks like this:

• Senior people mostly don’t, except their bosses want them to, so what we get is them regularly hassling us to “have a conversation with your manager about what works for you and your team! But come in sometimes! But it’s entirely up to you! But also you should definitely come in sometimes,” on Zoom calls from their lovely garden offices.

• About two-thirds of people say they want to work out of the office some of the week, but that they don’t want to go in if it’s nearly empty, they only want to go in if there are other people there to work with. And this never seems to get co-ordinated, so in practice people just… don’t go in because it’s empty because of all the other people who aren’t there because they don’t want to go in if it’s empty.

• For those of us who are in, the office is bleak and weird to work from and feels like a post-apocalyptic disaster film.

• Because of all this it’s really hard to train up new people to do anything other than very process-based work. We have lost some newer recruits because they felt like they weren’t getting to meet people or learn from them, and because they didn’t like the choice between working from home and working from a near-empty office on their own.

• There is ENDLESS whining, on and on and on and on, from some of the people who want to WFH full-time and feel like they’re being ‘pressured’ to go back in. “But I am more productive from home!”, says the person who just emailed a distribution list of 40 of us to complain yet again at length about how much he hates offices.

• Endless amounts of time trying to work out “hybrid ways of working” which all just end up the worst of both worlds. Like meetings - the rule is now that we encourage meetings to be in-person, but everyone in person should have their laptops in front of them with cameras on and talk to the camera, so that the people joining from home don’t feel left out. Which is rubbish. So people don’t do it and just work from home, which the managers then complain about, which… etc etc etc.

I liked the idea of hybrid working, but in practice it feels like the worst of both worlds. All the bad points of WFH except with added faff and stress and whining and uncertainty.

Are there places which are making this work? (And by ‘making this work’ I do not mean ‘the office is open for people who want it i suppose but I personally don’t leave my house’, we already have that, I mean a proper mix of in-person and at-home.) Or is hybrid just inevitably shit?

works for DH & I, the vast majority go into the office on Tues, Wed or Thurs so it's busy then.

Pattern is defined in that 50% across the month but up to you when.

Senior staff do same.

We do have a separate office at home.

Roles are fairly autonomous though

I think they should come up with a rota system so there are a set number of people in on any given day. We've been told we have to spend 50% of our time in the office but, like you say, this isn't enforced and we get wishy-washy attempts to get people back in - they provide pastries to try and lure them, all a bit pathetic.

In my office if you do hybrid you have set in stone days to go in each week so you know who will be in as they also have their days set in stone.

I picked to work from home though as like you said the office is mostly deserted.

we both enjoy the mix though & wouldn't want 100% at home.

Sounds like bad management.
We have a rota at work. Some people are in full time because they want to. Some people have set regular days in due to childcare. The rest get scheduled for 3 days in a week such that there’s always at least 50% of each department present on any one day. It’s a relatively small company so this isn’t a huge admin burden.

That sounds crap OP

They need something more robust. Even one day a month of everyone going in or making it at least 2-3 days of one or other

We go into the office 2 days a week on a 3 line whip and get pulled up of we don't. This is driven by the MD, who is in every day from choice, and he drags the rest of the management in with him for at least 3 days a week each.

We're chatty in the office and get two or three days at home. I think it works well.

we are supposed to be in the office 2 days a week. our team is split geographically but i have 2 colleagues who also work out of the same office. we generally agree one day we will all come in together and the other day at your own convenience so others might be in might not. we also schedule a monthly team meeting face to face when you are expected to travel unless a valid reason. it’s not perfect and i am one of those people who would prefer to be at home 100% as i have a king commute (80miles) which really eats into my day but in the main it works ok. it just needs a bit of communication.

My situation is almost exactly as you described in your OP. With the addition of people needing to look after their dogs, and people wanting to save on petrol and parking costs.

Our office was hybrid pre covid and they run a rota. So different teams have different days. There are days some of the team won't be in if they have other stuff but generally you know you will see most of them
On those days.

We work it out amongst ourselves as a team, if we need a f2f meeting we organise it in advance. Recently I had to flex and ended up at home when everyone else was in the office, but it was fine. There's no whingeing, no issues, sometimes I go in the office and nobody else from the team is in, but hey ho. It's nice to get out of the house and not spend my own electricity on running the laptop, etc. I'm happy with the mix.

For me it has been great. I go in the office most days because it’s better for my metal well-being to be out of the house, but If i want to Wfh and not start till lunchtime because there’s something else else I want to do the. I can. As long as I get my work done literally no-one cares.

I do think it’s time the people who haven’t come in the office at all over the last 2.5 years we’re told to come back in a bit though. I feel like I don’t even know who I work with any more.

I’m public sector and we’ve spent over a year trialling Hybrid and are just now making solid arrangements and changes to people’s conditions under our flexible working policy.

There are an agreed number of office days and we are clear about whether coming in for a meeting constitutes one or not, and a pattern agreed for each individual so that when they are in, it’s at the same time as others with whom they need to work. Some flexibility to account for changing circumstances and priorities, but everyone has to commit to an agreed number of days per week, or per month if they are a full time homeworker. Senior managers tend to be in the office more frequently than anyone else so we don’t have an issue of do as I say, not as I do.

We have always had a proportion of permanent homeworkers, and travelling staff who are in the office between working off site, so we haven’t had issues with not being able to manage performance for remote workers, so we are starting from a high base in sorting all this out. There’s plenty of others like us so come and join in!

Sounds like set days would be an improved option

The admin staff are on a rota at my office and the professionals come in as and when. We used to have an 'anchor' day but now it is quite ad hoc. There is a general expectation that everyone will be in 2-3 days per week, and my team share what days we are planning at the beginning of the week.

It works well, but that is partly because we have reduced our office space so even if only half the staff are in it still feels quite buzzy

My setup sounds like yours OP. Encouraged to go in but painful when I do as only a handful of people there.

Our team decided that we would try to come in on Fridays if we could, so there's usually a nice cluster of us in then (and just so happens the company does pizza night Fridays, what a coincidence ).

I could have written this about my firm. It's a real problem and the resentment of the more senior staff by the juniors is real. I don't know what the solution is.

But the productivity problem is also a real thing. I'm in a similar "hybrid" situation and have to go in 2-3 days a week and the drop in output when I have to go in compared with the days I'm at home is really shocking. I get about 60% less work done when I'm in the office and things get missed and forgotten because of the endless wasted travel time. A 1.5 hour each way commute just to be in the office for two and a half hours poor quality work is quite hard to stomach when you're paying for it and also putting your kid in childcare and you know it has a hugely negative effect on your output. It's hard, as a senior person, to convince yourself that this is a positive way to work.

Personally I would far prefer not to go in at all. But the flip side is that it is having a very negative effect on work culture and the people who suffer most are junior staff who are losing the training, the mentorship and the support. So senior people do need to commit to going in if they care about training the next generation.

I think when people do hybrid they need to mandate firmly what days people go in and have a rota so its totally clear what is happening and who is in when.

I quite like it. We have to go in but can ask not to if got an appointment or something. I would hate to be at home all the time or in the office all the time. It gets quite busy on a Wednesday

I’d hate to have Friday as the day we have to come in. Same with Monday.
Mondays and Fridays I like to be left alone 😂

I would prefer the middle of the week.

Well because we are so rarely in it's actually fun going in and seeing everyone, so that's why Fridays. It's an easier work day than the rest of the week too as we all do much less work when we are actually in the office as there's much more chat, going across to Starbucks, etc. So it is a nice way to end the week!

Two of my DS’s work hybrid and love it. Each have a team day when the whole team goes in. I am so pleased they don’t have the Monday to Friday drudge of commuting, each day is fresh for them.

I think it needs a bit of thought to work:

-what does the employer want to get out of hybrid working?
-what’s the benefit of being in the office?

Thinking through those sorts of questions mean you can design a policy to achieve them.

Im currently WFH almost full time but left a job recently where I was managing a team. We wanted to come into the office to work together in person fairly regularly to help develop a good culture, to share ideas and to support each other.

So we agreed once a week we’d aim for the same day in the office - it was fairly relaxed so if it didn’t work for someone it was fine. But it meant most weeks the majority of the team were in on the same day. If you weren’t able to make the team day that week, you’d likely see everyone the following week so it meant you wouldn’t go weeks without seeing your immediate colleagues.

We planned meetings around the team day - so things like brainstorming sessions worked better when we were all together rather than remote. We had most 1:1s and training sessions on the team day. We also would usually go for a drink after work or go for lunch together so it was great for those that want a bit of a social life from work.

I think to make it work you need to plan hybrid working around what’s likely to achieve what you want to achieve. Just saying to people ‘ come in regularly’ with no idea why, when, what for doesn’t work.

It helps that most of us are friends outside of work too.

That does sound bad. Being badly handled.
I also laugh. I see this a lot. Senior management in their lovely huge office at home. Or in the garden. Less well off people sitting at a dinning room table. Being forced to go back into an office that a skeleton of the atmosphere it had before. Young people not getting the proper training and mentorship they would've had pre covid.
I do think this is an issue.