To think WFH has gone too far now?

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I am very lucky to have a fully flexible role in a very understanding organisation. My colleagues come from a range of backgrounds and have various reasons for appreciating the level of flexibility we have - not all are parents.

We are now almost entirely home based, which in principle is fine but in practise becoming frustrating. Our work is desk based and requires quite a lot of collaboration.

My issue is that people are becoming so much harder to talk to in the day because it’s as if work fits in around their home life when it suits. Almost everything has to be booked in as a meeting, rarely is anyone available for a spontaneous call / chat on teams as you would have done in the office. We are supposed to be available core hours 10-4 for a 35 hr week, and either side of that as you see best.

Recent examples when I’ve sent a message to ask if people have five mins for a chat - sorry I’m making bread / feeding the horses / talking to the plumber etc etc. I’ve also noticed people are booking in more and more non-work appts in the working day yet still expect to clock off by 4.30. They are things which could easily be done before / after work day. We have a colleague (who does some important work for me) coming back from mat leave in summer who is planning to have her baby at home with her on at least a couple of her work days because flexibility.

AIBU to think that people are becoming less and less available and that it’s affecting our work and working relationships? I’m quite a collaborative person and I like exchanging ideas with colleagues (but I don’t overdepend on them before anyone starts!).

Starting to wonder if this is the right place for me but before I decide what to do I wanted to see what other peoples experiences are. This is not a large corporate company, it’s a small design firm where we work to super tight deadlines but we do lots of client facing work too eg pitches.

Or just by not parking like a twat

Lots of client calls - would be completely unprofessional for them to hear washing machine going.

Weirdly, I was being paid for doing my job not my housework. Strange concept eh!

But you aren’t doing the housework, the washing machine it!

Clients are just normal humans, why would they find it unprofessional to hear an appliance in the background? Unless you’re pretending to work from an office.
If I’m on a client call in the office they might hear the coffee machine, definitely the air con and a lot of other people chatting in the background, even talking directly to me if they don’t see the headphones, why is that
more professional?

I'd have to get up and walk into the bedroom to see out the window so I may as well open the door.

If work expect me to use my home as an office they have to expect that life goes on as normal here. If the washing needs doing then it's done (by DH), if DH is sitting in the living room when I have a call then tough. If the doorbell rings and DH can't get it then I'll go.

@luxxlisbon because for our clients it would definitely be seen as unprofessional. And because if I was in the office I wouldn’t have had the background noise you’re describing.

Totally fair point. We just moved house and in the previous house my choice was working in the bedroom (impacted my sleep and made me miserable), or the kitchen (had to clear up breakfast to create my office, got interrupted by DP’s 10,000 tea breaks, had to clear up my office for dinner then eat dinner at my work spot – awful). We’ve now moved and I have an office in the spare room – glorious and if I’m editing copy I can take a screen break, print it, and lol around in bed with my red pen and paper while still technically working.

The difference in my brain and body from having that space is remarkable so I can see how, if you don’t have space, you wouldn’t enjoy WFH the same way. I think companies need to offer combinations that suit, which mine does – I’m fully remote, others are hybrid, one or two are fully in the office and have been from the minute restrictions lifted.

Even so, my company is having a hard time persuading lots of The Youth to come in enough times per week to truly learn the ropes – despite that their wfh spaces are bedrooms or shared flat sitting rooms. I think the cats are a huge draw to stay at home. And also better snacks.

I have been on zoom calls with people working in an office. There is plenty of background noise from their end!

I hadn’t even thought of this but it’s so true. My organisation is really struggling to attract people right now and probably can’t afford to get rid of people who are kind of/sort of meeting their objectives but not really being as effective as they could be.

Also a lot of posters are saying “it’s a management issue” - in my place the managers are often just as bad. I’m not sure they feel the additional salary they’re paid (it’s not that much in my opinion) justifies the aggro they’d get if they had to start enforcing stricter core hours/availability for meetings. And then they themselves wouldn’t be able to leave teams calls early to take their kids to football practice or whatever.

Our company is global and about 75% WFH on any given day.

But we are expected to be available from 8-8, so we use out time as we need to. But all our meetings are fine through Google calendar. Quick chats we do through Slacks huddle feature. It works well.

yes, agree. The company I work for is in a tower block - typical office building. Builders repairing, maintenance, people, phones ringing, kettle boiling - was like Waterloo station at times.

I don't understand why office workers are expected to sit in the office building when they can use the room in the house and provide better work service. We have excellent communication which is important.

I am never late for work and start promptly at 8.30am from home.

Before, through commuting, it was 9.30am start and got home at 6.30pm. My day had just disappeared!
The importance is a life balance. We only have one life!

I’m a very relaxed manager and my team love me, but sometimes you have to ensure staff are adhering to the rules, what’s in their contract. We are flexible as long as staff do their contractual 40%, and don’t have babies at home when they are working. What’s old fashioned about that? It’s a safeguarding risk if nothing else

The loudest background noise on a video call come from those in an office who either by choice, or because they don’t have another private space to take the call so they just do it all their desk and it’s so loud! Sometimes I’ve had to ask people to mute themselves when not talking because it interferes with other people speaking, they should be able to
pick up on this themselves though!

If work expect me to use my home as an office they have to expect that life goes on as normal here. If the washing needs doing then it's done (by DH), if DH is sitting in the living room when I have a call then tough. If the doorbell rings and DH can't get it then I'll go.

But we're talking about people choosing to work from home and then having that attitude.

I hate blaming whoever. It was just a turning point in history and crises would continue Covid or no Covid. The financial crises was going to happen anyway before Covid.

This isn't my experience of WFH - sounds like it's your organisation that needs to be stricter. I'm very surprised someone is openly letting others know they plan to WFH with a child there, as a line manager I wouldn't be happy with someone doing this on a regular basis (fair enough for illness). I've always worked at international organisations so used to not meeting face-to-face

That sounds archaic and old fashioned that you say "Someone applied for home working as they had a baby, 15 months and didn’t want to use childcare. Well sorry but she should have considered that before getting pregnant".
Hopefully, that mum with a 15 month baby will find a nice place to work for that allows a life balance. We are not at school, being micromanaged, clique groups, is the worst nightmare for any office worker.

There's nothing the matter with WFH. The operative word being working.

Making bread etc means your colleagues are taking the piss and your management need to put their foot down.

I have no issue with caring duties ie family but horses??

Not being able reason and understand the aetiological factors that have given rise to current events is essentially why things don't improve and such circumstances are cyclical.

This experience isn't being shared globally, the UK is worse off than most G7 nations and Governance is a significant factor.

To dismiss that, is to simply bury one's head in the sands and make it irrelevant noise.

How is it confusing? I go to the office two days, and do all the in person meetings, the paperwork, the networking, the stuff that needs to be done in office. The other three days, I do all the work that can just as easily be done at home. Why would I go into the office 5 days a week, commuting 2 hours a day, for no reason? What for?

You're being ridiculous. You cannot work at home and look after a small child at home, by yourself. You would be doing neither properly. Failing at your job and at parenting is not a life balance, it's taking the piss entirely.

Working from home works really well when people are actually working. If you have sole charge of a 15 month old, you are not working at all.

I have not dismissed it, just don't think one can blame the governments entirely for the Covid pandemic who took advice from scientists. Some countries fared worse than UK.
Whereveer we stand according to other G7 nations has nothing to do with working from home and we have moved on.
With new technologies changing at speed, this is the way forward for most people who did go to work in another building called "the office".

I gave up work when my children were that age because I could not afford Childcare. It was almost as much as a mortgage.

So you should be well aware that one can't do both at the same time and that your comment was ridiculous?

This isn't what its like where i work.

Its normal 9-5, you are required to have childcare in place for kids etc. There are people who have formal part time contracts of course but that's no different from those same people working in the office.

We are all reasonable people so tolerate minor disturbances (why does the postman always ring the bell when you are on a call?!) - one chap's wife is on maternity leave and none of us are going to give him grief if once a month he has a sleeping baby in a bouncy chair in the background to give his wife a 30 min break. No one takes the piss with personal stuff during working hours although lots of us try fit in walks & runs over lunch.

I'm not blaming them for the pandemic occurring, but I am holding them to account for the response. Many foresaw the drawbacks of social restrictions and printing billions in currency.

And that has everything to do with where we stand as a G7 nation.

WFH is convenient for a host of reasons, and it's not the individual's fault for discovering this.