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?

The way I arranged it at my last work was like this:

• Fortnightly rota mandatory for everyone
• Tuesdays and Wednesdays once a fortnight in the office so people could get a start on their week
• All proper project meetings scheduled during those two days
• Enforced half hour breaks every two hours, because everyone had to be in, but not everyone was in every meeting, so good to have a forced break to catch up on notes/inbox
• Team lunch time (normally staggered)
• Coffee and cake van booked to arrive mid morning (company paid first time)
• No external meetings those days - only on other days
• Smaller catch ups over teams, and people welcome to attend the office in groups otherwise
• A quick scrum catch up on the alternate Monday

It worked brilliantly. Really great collaborative meetings, and social time too.

I think you need to raise your standards re what a “great” employer is op

how long have you been there?

It'll work both ways and I imagine there'll be a lot of job changing over the next few years as those who want to WFH will move to firms who embrace it and those who don't will move to firms who prefer the office culture. In, say, 5 years, the job market will have settled down with employees matched to employers.

Many of them don’t want to come into the office any day, unless it’s busy and has a buzz and liveliness and they can see other teams too.

There’s a couple of us who come in on a semi-regular basis and try to line up days but it’s a few of us in a sea of empty desks, so I really can’t claim there’s any buzz to it apart from the lonely bluebottles in the printer corner.

Our role cant be done completely from home (healthcare related, we were hybrid even in lockdown). We now have a rota allowing everyone 1-2 days WFH per week. In lockdown we had the bare minimum in, and that was stressful for the people in. I think we've now got the balance about right. Our offices were a bit overcrowded before the pandemic with everyone in full time. Meetings are still mostly online, as hybrid doesn't really work unless you've got a meeting room designed for this. Some small informal meetings can be done in person if everyone is in. I prefer to be in the office so only take a homeworking day if i want to focus on something with no distractions, or if Ive got a heavy cold i dont want to pass on.

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.

This is what concerns me. I feel our new starters (graduate schemes) are missing out so much basic know-how from their colleagues.

We have set days for each team which works well

I think this thread really highlights how poor management is in a lot of companies rather than that hybrid working itself is shit. Businesses need to design and implement proper hybrid working policies but from many of these responses it’s pretty clear that a lot haven’t got their heads around this and have some vague notion that at some point things will just “go back to normal”.

The demand for hybrid working is not going to go away though. Millions of people stepped up when COVID hit and they had to wfh in less than ideal circumstances (to say the least!). After more than two years many of these people have found ways to make it work for them as well as for their employer and understandably don’t want to go back to long commutes and office politics 5 days a week when they’ve learned they don’t actually need to do this to work effectively.

It’s not all that difficult for a company to work with their employees to design and agree a process that works for the majority but it seems from this thread too many managers lack the imagination and will to do it.

I manage a large organisation and see this from both sides. On a personal level I love WFH - time to pop to the supermarket quickly at lunch or walk the dog an hour earlier in the evening. It gives a lovely balance when needed.

BUT a hybrid solution presents the issues mentioned here. It works better for secure mature people who don’t need coaching or training. Our juniors were leaving to work in places with more F2F interactions - they miss the team part of the workplace.
The biggest issue is that while workers measure personal productivity as improving (though I think this has decreased since the Covid restrictions ended and other distractions become paramount), the overall productivity of the collective has dropped. Not spending time together means we don’t innovate or pool ideas as effectively and get stuck in the same ways of doing things. It’s a real issue for firms now.
Finally it’s clear some people are juggling childcare/elderly care/renovations during business hours. It’s not enough to catch up later unless you’re in a single contributor, process driven job.
We’ve now insisting on teams being in on the same days - bar exceptional circumstances or a need to work with other teams. We’ve recently found the tipping point where there’s so much buzz in the office that people are willingly coming in.

Bear in mind that the grads of today are very very used to and familiar with virtual relationships and generally engagement with people.

I think you and I definitely work in the same place. This is all so familiar. I like going in to the office and do it over 50 percent of the week but it is soul destroying when no one else is in.

I think this is one of those “only on Mumsnet” situations where people are basically stomping their feet because they want to dictate what others do. I really like going to the office once or twice a week, but it has to be on days that work for me. I’d rather be at home full time than have to fit with someone else’s idea of “flexible”.

I think this thread really highlights how poor management is in a lot of companies rather than that hybrid working itself is shit.

I am seeing what some are describing and shaking my head in disbelief (although does explain the number of businesses that go out of business!)

For those of you who WFH show are you feeling about the cost of energy rise with respect to heating your home in winter ?

We are similar at my work OP, very half hearted attempts by senior management to get people to go back in (while they are 'working' from Spain or the South of France) but offices still mostly empty.

I have wfh since before Covid but went in the odd day just to catch up and have some face to face meetings etc. I went in a few weeks ago and it was creepy. There were only another 2 or 3 people on the (huge) floor I was on and not much more in the rest of the building. I am happy to just keep wfh for the foreseeable future.

By the way, our head office is in London and the local cafe chain told me they’re back to stocking the same amount as pre-Covid so I wonder if London is ahead of the curve on this one, signalling a new stricter approach to working. If this looming recession takes hold and jobs are lost, we may see a less accommodating view of WFH.

Works great for us, we wfh 90% of the time - and then each team given a week when they come in, we do more ‘social stuff’ that week (picnic lunch, ice cream van, earlier start/earlier finish and incentives etc).

However, I think more people will choose to come into the office in the winter if it saves their electricity/gas bills (commute costs taken into consideration of course).

Sounds like you have a colleagues/management problem rather than a hybrid working problem.

Hybrid working is genuinely (IMO) a revolution in ways of working. It’s the first time many of us have had overall choice about where we work (pre-covid it would have been office and at home by exception, and during covid it was stuck at home). I don’t think we have got to a point where people are getting the most out of hybrid just yet, that will only happen when people start thinking holistically and not just of themselves when deciding where to work, but if we get it right it’s going to be amazing. Hybrid means that I can work FT in a leadership role with much more home life balance than before. I don’t feel like I’m constantly drowning in household stuff the minute I walk through the door. But at the same time to get the most out of being in the office I have to be very deliberate about calls etc and sometimes bump things if I’m in the office and make the most of being with the people around me.

Re @ScarlettOHaraHamiltonKennedyButler point about management “working” from somewhere sunny while telling others to go into the officer I find this surprising. Most firms I know have banned working outside the permanent place of residence as there can be issues with security and foreign tax payable to that country.

My job doesn't enable wfh, but my dh does hybrid working and it works well. He's happy with it. Everyone works in the office on Mondays, so that's when team meetings are held and plan for the week established. Then everyone has two other set days that they work in the office and two set days that they work from home. If needed, you can swap your day in the office (eg to make a doctor's appt etc). The days have been organised so the people who work together the closest are in on the same days. It's been thoughtfully done and works well. DH likes the mix of the two. But we do have a home office, so that helps.

I think a lot of people are becoming ridiculously spoilt and precious about working life.

Hissy fits because they don’t want to wfh, or don’t want to go into an office, or only want to go in if it’s busy etc etc. Get a grip, people!

If you have some flexibility in your job, count yourself lucky. Lots of others don’t have it. Nurses, doctors, teachers just get in to work and do their job.

Yet there they are on teams calls happily flaunting it and telling you where they are. "Oh goodness you think it's hot there, you should try being here in France!"

We have 'rules' about it but they only seem to apply if you are not very senior management (director level) who I suppose can do whatever they want.

Hybrid is the only way I can manage FT work with other committments or I'd have to be PT. I went in to the office three days a week before the pandemic.