To think WFH has gone too far now?

[FlairBand]

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.

It’s unfair for some employees to have the option to wfh and others not.

I think if we had a hybrid eg 1 / 2 days in the office it would be much better as we’d naturally talk through things that are would mean being at home we could just get on with stuff.

problem is since Covid several colleagues have moved a long way away because of wfh and now never come into office even when we have “office days”

My experience of working from home, especially with Teams, has been that I have increased contact with colleagues and see people, albeit remotely, far more than before. The ability to see when people are available and drop them a quick line has made us a more cohesive workforce. I know of no one who is piss taker, there will be some, but no one I work with, and it's a global organisation.

Wouldn’t dream of putting a wash on (because risk of spin cycle when taking a phone call).

sorry but this is absolutely bonkers 😂 unless you are sitting right in front of your machine or it’s going constantly all day this is literally a non issue.

We have a very flexible hybrid working arrangement. 40% in office, rest at home.

When I'm at home i sometimes go for a walk at 11 because that's when I've got time in my diary due to people thinking lunch time is the best time to have meetings. I put on a wash, clean the bathroom, get some life admin done - and still manage to be available enough and get my work done! I have one of those jobs where my contacted hours are a work of fiction and whatever i do I'm always working a longer week anyway.

What I hate about hybrid working is how people feel so free to put a meeting in the one tiny gap you've got in your diary - so often people do that and say "ooh well I saw you had a gap..." it's so inconsiderate. Most of the time the meeting was unnecessary too, they just like to say they've had a meeting with a senior leader. I've annoyed a fair few people by declining meetings regularly if they don't ask first or at certain times of the day eg first and last thing.

What I do now is block out most of my diary with large and mysterious private appointments so everyone things I'm really busy and people almost always ask now about meetings now.

I hate this idea that you have to be chained to your desk if you're at home. While I think people should be generally available, think about when you're in the office - i spend most of my time chatting and drinking tea with people, which my boss assures me is an essential part of my role 🤷🏽‍♀️😂

Depends on the kids and the ages I guess. Pre-covid I had a manager who worked from home one day a week (the one day his wife worked out of the home, she wfh the rest of the days) and his calendar included school drop off and pick up. But outside of that he was absolutely available, had meetings, answered chat messages etc. I only worked there a year and his kids were older primary (9&11) so I think for a couple of hours they just needed an adult in the house, but not constant supervision. Certainly as someone he managed, I never noticed an absence from him on those days.

As others have said, this is a line management/organisational issue. I have a significant degree of flexibility when wfh but that also applies in the office as we are trusted to get on with our jobs.

This.

What I do now is block out most of my diary with large and mysterious private appointments so everyone things I'm really busy and people almost always ask now about meetings now.

My DH and I book lunch together every few weeks when both WFH - after a lot of issues with people scheduling clashing meetings, we now book it in as "strategy meeting" and that works a lot better 😂

It sounds like you were used to just turning up at people’s offices and having spontaneous conversations, but now you can’t do the online equivalent. If you need that to be productive or fulfilled at work, you might need to make a change, but do you really need people to drop what they’re doing according to your schedule with no notice?

If you’re working remotely, asking for a “chat for 5 minutes” is always going to be less successful than asking “to discuss the design requirements for project A before 3pm if possible”. Describe clearly what you hope to get out of the meeting and give people a time range with some notice and you’re more likely to get the conversations that you need. You may also find that texting specific questions rather than having to align your schedules for a voice or face chat gets you the info you need faster.

You sound very passive. Complaining. You know these things are wrong, but not prepared to do anything about it.

Generally we don't wfh regularly here, as it doesn't work particularly well for us. But it is available to these who need to for whatever reason.

But I agree with the op, for us, it doesn't help as if you need to ask a question, said members of staff are difficult to get hold of, as they (against policy) choose to work later into the night (they say it's much quieter, can get more done) but the knock in effect of them not being around to answer a query is the member of the staff with the query cannot finish that job until the next day etc.

Yes, it's a people problem, and yes management are aware and are dealing with it. But to hear these who have been pulled up for it speak, they cannot see there is a problem

That sounds like piss taking tbh. Are they employees or self employed?

I can't imagine any organisation putting up with making bread etc for long

That means she knows she shouldn't be doing it

It really depends on the job
My desk is in my living room which is open plan to the kitchen and I work in a contact centre, so no I can't have washing going

This is my experience. As a new starter in lockdown, in a new line of work for me, it’s been especially shit. No one to ask simple questions too. You feel like you are really intruding to pick up a phone to ask, and as responses on this thread show, people feel you are intruding! In a way, that a quick conversation n person in the office would not be.

But in previous roles, yes, a lot of my ideas, and innovations, and just energy, as well as actual knowledge and learning, came from conversations at work,.

As well as being able to quickly resolve arising tensions by just going to someone’s desk to sort things out.

I’ve been looking around for other jobs but everywhere seems the same. One place said they meet as a team in person every six weeks!

Honestly, I feel I do the core essential work but all the ‘extra over’, all the creativity, has gone with wfh.

@sausage767 So, your colleague is effectively extending your working day quite substantially by emailing you at 10 o'clock at night, just because it suits her routine?

Same here but the washing still gets done (by DH before I'm accused of skiving)! Work have to accept it's my home before it's a workplace.

I work at the dining table as there's nowhere else for me to sit and it took a long time before DH felt he could walk through without asking. I've made it clear to him that it's our home first and foremost so if he wants to sit in the living room or put the washing on just do it (he's retired so is a 'house husband). Work know I have no spare room so they have to accept that life goes on as normal.

We were also told to divert our work phones to our mobiles at the beginning. I thought that was a cheek and didn't do it. If they want that they can provide me with a work phone!

Its bad management rather than working from home being the issue. We can both work from home if we want to, I go into the office as I’m the only one there, I really enjoy that I don’t have people trying to talk at me while I’m working. For the companies my husband and I work for those who WFH must work their usual contracted hours, personal tasks must not be undertaken and any late starts or early finishes must be booked in advance with annual leave, just as they were when we were in the office.

Not where I work, no. The morning school run isn’t our concern because staff have flexi but with core hours 10 - 4 so they would drop dc off and then start work, just as they did when we were fully office based. Some people need to do the afternoon pick up but they take a shorter lunch to make up for that (and we have to log in and out so it’s not easy to abuse that though I suppose not completely impossible if someone put their mind to it).

We’re expected to have proper childcare arrangements in place, it’s not acceptable to be caring for young dc while working. That said I don’t have a problem with someone having their 8 year old in the next room doing homework or watching tv for an hour or two after school. On the other hand if said 8 year old is interrupting meetings or I can see that persons productivity drops from 3pm every day then I’d raise it.

Despite some of the stories I read on MN about piss takers who seemingly don’t actually need their salary since they’re prepared to risk being fired, my experience and that of friends I’ve discussed it with in RL is that people who like wfh are very invested in making it work. They already know they can’t mind infants while doing their FT job, they appreciate not having the commute in stop start traffic on a rainy December morning and they like being home as soon as they’ve logged off. They want that to last so they don’t do stupid shit that would jeopardise it.

I'm back in the office a bit more recently. My base is being refurbished so I'm hotdesking across a couple of sites.

Last week I had to go home at lunchtime because the constant yakking at this particular site was doing my head in. Constant "popping over for a chat" (not about work), endless catch ups (not about work), and then everyone disappeared for 45 minutes for a team "huddle" (where they talked about the office christmas night out and the progress of the world cup sweep), and I end up picking up other people's calls.

Still, I don't think Working In The Office has gone too far, just this particular office is badly managed and a pain in the arse. Luckily I can plan not to be back.

It's not a one off for them - they're notorious for it (or lovely super-social people as long as you don't have actual work to finish) but I'd forgotten how disruptive it was. I'm looking forward to getting back to my actual base a couple of days a week though - the balance of office/home is good for me.

Yep, exactly this.

So on the one hand you don't want to rock the boat because the flexibility hugely suits you but on the other hand you don't like the way your colleagues are doing it? I think you even need to accept the way the others are working or you need to go to management and explain why it is negatively affecting the company/team.

You cannot have it both ways.

either not even*

Sounds like a management issue not wfh one. I wfh 2 days a week, if someone messaged me to speak, I’m there or tell them I’ll call back in 10. No way would I say I was doing something non work related and could not speak.

I think the exact opposite. I think paying for that level of office space when it's staff who could work remotely is going to be something organisations are increasingly likely to have to justify, particularly public sector. There's a reason some compulsory wfh was a big part of the cost cutting measures the Tories imposed in the early 2010s, because physical workplace space is bloody expensive.