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?

I think I may work for OP's firm :)

In a recent survey 2/3 of people said they wanted to work in a hybrid way but the reality is that 90% of people are still wfh because of the reasons in OP. I think hybrid only works if it's more structured - my DH has to go in a set 1 day a week, when the whole of the rest of his team is in, and one day a month when his wider team has a big meeting, and this seems to work well.

Having 15 random people in the office at any given time (which is what we do) is not IMO hybrid working, but simply providing hot desk facilities. It has provided an unexpected plus that, as a person who often works in the office, i've got to know the others that also often work in the office, who I would never have ordinarily spoken to, but I don't think that benefit is outweighed by so many other things just working badly.

My DH is wfh with in person meetings around the country and I'm wfh and go into the office 1-2 a month.

It's great and suits us brilliantly.

My work place is personal choice between wfh and office with frequency your own choice.

Only requirement is to attend in person staff meetings.

So those who want to go into the office do and those who prefer wfh do that.

We've had similar issues in terms of benefit of hybrid working is in people being in the office together although actually senior mgt are definitely in the office regularly.
As a result we will now be trialling everyone being mandated to office on 2 specified days from Sept, although there isn't a register & we stopped clocking in & out years ago so if we need flexibility it will still be there.
Smart meeting rooms/team whiteboards/cameras on in meetings improve things but sometimes there is no replacement for f2f.

My organisation started this pre pandemic. You are not forced to go in but in reality you need to hand things in and use the office printer, as you can't use your own for information governance reasons. It doesn't work for me - I do see people, but my own team very rarely. We used to learn so much from each other through spontaneous chat during record keeping eg what would you do? have you come across this client before? I would hate to be a newly qualified.

I don’t like it as a trainee in my field. It’s isolating and I can’t get to know anyone, a teams chat is just not the same.

there are sensible ways to make it work

There are indeed, and when everyone does their bit it can work brilliantly

However it's also very workplace dependent, and problems can easily arise when either employer or employee demand something purely because they want it, without giving any proper thought to what works best for all

The problem of presenteeism is real, but then so is the entitlement of some who've grown rather too used to being paid to sit at home and do little, and who persuaded themselves this would go on for ever

I could have written exactly the same OP! In my previous role for one of our team it was his first ever role from graduating during Covid and he had never worked in the office! He was very resistant to coming in, quite happy getting up 5 mins before his first meeting and plodding on through the day. His performance was ok but surely that’s just not sustainable forever? I found it a bit sad about when I thought of the development and workplace relationships I’ve had over the years. Yes commute, juggling home and work is a challenge but there are massive benefits to meeting people even if it’s occasional.

Exactly the same experience here OP. If public transport wasn't so expensive I'd probably to go back into the office for the majority, but I just can't justify it.

I'm almost 2 years into a new company and I've never felt so disconnected from colleagues and employer. It's peaks and troughs in terms of productivity.

Mmm, yes, but you’re also happy with only going in once or twice a month for scheduled staff meetings yourself.

I think if that’s your preference, then you’re a lot more likely to find that a ‘come in whenever as long as you turn up for this particular meeting’ setup is working well. If it’s not, though, maybe not so much.

"Senior management in their lovely huge office at home."

Our senior management decided they were allowed to come into the office even during lockdown to perform 'essential management tasks'. They were the last people to do the tasks that need to be done physically. They've always been able to choose where they work from.
I had a colleague working from his bed in the first lockdown. Really awful for house sharers or adult children living with parents.

I was in the office completely on my own yesterday, apart from a couple of hours. Would far rather have been at home (hot, sweaty commute into London!).

I never seem some people, despite them supposedly coming into the office 80% of the time. We managed to knock on the head the people that were palming off parts of the their job that would need them to be in the office onto to those of us that are actually in the office, as that was really unfair.

It's not that well managed where I work, but I have a feeling they will be bringing back 100% office based soon.

see, not seem 🙄

Ours works well. It didn't to start with and sounds very much like yours, but then we co-ordinated in departments and you tend to find that each department has one day a week/ every other week where they all come in together, which is when we have team meetings etc

Some people come in more than that, but that's their choice. By far the busiest day in the office is a Tuesday, followed by Wednesday and then Thursday - we did a study which we published so people could see when they may want to come in (if they are only prepared to go in when it's busy)

I think the problem is that people who want to go into the office want to make sure other people are there, but they can't force that any more than people who want to wfh can force everyone to wfh

And I am much more productive from home than in the office, but I now just plan for office days to be around catching up with people and making connections and don't plan to do much actual work on those days

Also, does anyone feel like half their day is ‘catch ups’ I’m learning nothing because I spend half my day in these catch ups. I have nothing to say if I’m not learning anything or meeting anyone!!

Not from personal experience but DS2 started work in the first lockdown and his only experience of work is WFH.
not everyone has a dedicated office space particularly entry level colleagues who often house share so makes it tougher for the lower paid
This was his first six months. Living in a house share during lockdown. Working from bedroom. Now has a decent flat but those months were lonely.
Now his organanisation is officially permanent WFH with ad hoc days in office.
He moved to the city where he is based but probably didn't need to. At 23 you want to leave home and be independant. He has been in this week as the office is a fab modern building with aircon, roof top terrace and lots of facilities. No people though.
My observation is the lack of mentoring / shadowing /learning from colleagues and the general social side of work.

On teams I mean.

So yes as a trainee YANBU, it’s shit for me.

Dh goes in because he likes the interaction with colleagues and a bit of banter. He has a decent office at home and good broadband but he prefers the office. He only wfh on Fridays and I suspect he only does that to please his mother because he takes her to do her food shopping first thing while he’s on calls

They’ve not mandated anyone going in, so there are no set rules for people to follow. If there is a mandate it should apply to everyone, regardless of seniority, otherwise it breeds resentment.

My husbands work has mandated people attend set days a week. My work doesn’t mandate but we use a booking app through slack, so we can all see who is in when and then the days when most people are in tend to get booked as they can see other people are in. If it’s kept visible I find more people are inclined to come in, but we’ve kept attendance as voluntary.

Personally I love the days I am the only one in the office but I’m just a weirdo!

100 fucking percent OP. The only hope now is that the cost of energy crisis forces people back to the office when the days become cold and dark.

They've been trying to get us in one day per week for around 6 months. Had a huge restructure last year. Less than 20% have turned up so far, I like going in one day, would happily do two. The emails are a little more directive now. One issue is that new senior staff live 1.5 hours away, appointed during Covid when we were all WFH. They don't want to enforce this on themselves! Plus heavily unionised team, a lot of resistance from old staff who don't want to return and new staff who thought they'd landed a WFH job when contract is clearly based in an office. People have given up cars, childcare, pet care, all things that allowed them to work in the office.

Bit of a mess really and we need the face to face work to be more effective. Will see in September if our manager enforces it, in turn enforcing it on herself for 3 hours of driving in the freezing autumn rain.

I'm just coming to the end of a 6 month wfh contract and I can confidently say I never want to wfh full time again. It was isolating, the training was shit and it negatively affected my mental health and my productivity. I do think new starters need support in person and allowing complete freedom of choice to wfh or not is unhelpful because it generally disadvantages those with less space at home and who are more junior.

I'm starting a new job soon where I'm expected to be in the office 2-3 days a week on set days and can't wait to start.

I hate it. Because we’ve adopted it and not everyone is in all the time we’ve been forced to hot desk. I used to have my own office. Now I nominally have an office but I’m not allowed to keep stuff in there or on my desk because others might use my office. 4 people allocated to a 2 person office.

so I feel very baseless. I don’t do as many activities in my teaching sessions as it would involve printing out materials each session and then binning them as nowhere to keep them. I don’t have 30 mins per session to bother doing this. So the students can just have a didactic PowerPoint instead. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have just gone back to work after a few years out of the workforce. I have gone back three days a week and the the hybrid working policy is that full timers can work at home two days a week and I am allowed to work from home one day out of three but I haven’t so far. On the three days I work most of the rest of the team are in as well other than the odd day here and there. I don’t know if they all do their days at home the days I am not working. The office is not full though, there looks to be quite a lot of empty desks and I have been told that it used to be that every desk was taken.

My husband has also gone back to hybrid working after working from home since the start of the pandemic. He works out with his colleagues what days they will come in.

I think overall it really suits us, we can balance life better with appointments things we need to do at home. I used to like DH working at home as it meant we had lunch together and he was “home” from 5:30pm rather than gone 7pm when he was commuting. We don’t have that now though because he stays at home the days I am at work and goes to the office the days I am home (because of the dogs).

Whilst it suits us because we are older and established at work, I always thought it would have long term implications on the workforce, particularly new entrants who might not get the level of training and casual learning (e.g. through general chat with desk neighbour) as previously. Also not so much these days, but when I was younger, socialising with my colleagues was important to me and was how I made friends.