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.

Depends on the work. Individuals are more productive at home (in general) in out work but it's not really a team based role. People have their own work to do and get on with it. The difficulties are around getting hold of people when you need help though and not having the ability to ask the person next to you a question if you're in the office.

Team based stuff is difficult remotely.

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Whenever I see complaints about productivity/slackers WFH it just sounds like a management problem. If people are managed properly they're generally productive.

I always think people who slack off that much WFH probably manage to do so in the office too: but instead of laundry and dog walking and yoga it’s Facebook and online shopping and Mumsnet.

Though FWIW I’m far more productive at home – I’m a copywriter and I need to get my head down and actually write stuff, not listen to the office juniors’ bants. And it’s proven productivity because my hours are billable – and my clients are happy! But I also think sticking a wash on or answering the door or even going for a brief walk isn’t bad practice when WFH – in the office people move around, their hands aren’t glued to their keyboards. I’m perfectly capable of writing, then hanging out a wash, then returning to my desk and still meeting a deadline. Certainly if that’s too difficult for people they should be in the office; but it’s not one size fits all.

Well, it depends on your situation really. My work uses MS Teams, so you can tell if someone is available as they can set their status to “busy”, but not lie about being in a real meeting.
I also work mainly in an international team, so I can be available for team members in Eastern Europe as well as those in the US and India (even occasionally Australia).
So WFH works great for me and my employer, as I can be available for meetings that are outside of 9-5 and I rarely collaborate with people who are in my Office. But for those collaborating with a team that was, pre-pandemic, office-based, it must be more difficult.
However, my company does have “core hours” where you are expected to be “working” - and what you are describing would not be tolerated: looking after a horse, appointments or baking are not acceptable reasons for being unavailable during core hours…

I've always worked from home, but also always made sure I was available, answered calls, and behaved as if I were in the office. Now, people work totally differently. What used to be a chat about a project on the phone is now a scheduled teams call, what used to be a quick chat to sort something now has to be done over multiple emails.

It's made work so much harder to manage and ironically made me less flexible because there are so many teams calls whereas before I could take a call while on the school run etc (I'm part time across five days but always made myself available in office hours) but now I need to be at my desk to do it because it's on teams (doesn't work on my phone).

YANBU but it's because traditional office workers don't know how to do WFH well.

This. I can’t believe how many people on this thread do not understand this.

Most my colleagues always were highly unavailable. WFH didn't make it any worse, tbf.

I did not know the green light thing (!)
Doesn't matter because no one uses it like that, anyway.
I have tried hard to get colleagues to move casual conversations to TEAMS channels: doesn't work. They all revert to email.

TEAMS auto fires up when we login which is super annoying (have to wait for it before I can do other things).

I shut down TEAMS immediately (regain CPU & screen real estate) but it lurks half-running in background so I can still get calls, which are very rare anyway.

I think it also depends on the company. Are entire company is largely WFH. Some areas have an office or funding to work in an office space. But literally no one is not bums on seats. All calendars are available. Most work long hours. If we need to take appointments during working hours it's definitely the exception not the rule.