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.

I absolutely loathe wfh and totally recognise the description OP. I do a very stressful job with v little support because I can never get hold of anyone. It’s bloody lonely too.

I miss the chat and buzz of the office so much, but looks like wfh is here to stay 😢.

Also meant to add though, I work much better at home. Can focus more and no chatting or interfering from other people. WFH is great.

Tbh this is one of the reasons I don’t say too much - as none of want to recreate the office world at home to this degree. I’m not “passive or complaining”… I’m not a line manager (by choice) and actually one of the worst ones is one of our managers, but it is cultural now.

like I said I’m a huge beneficiary of the flexibility but I’m also one of the grafters who does whatever it takes to make sure I’m available and accessible if people need me and I’m not at my desk, and making up for any lost hours on evenings or weekends. And I schedule any emails I send in that time to go in working hours.

I also respect that people have different ways of working and those who need contact and interaction are just as important as those who need space and quiet. It shouldn’t be one over the other.

When I was working in an office 5 days a week I started to suffer burnout, for various reasons I won’t go into. I became a “shirker”. I’d browse the web, take multiple smoking breaks, make coffee and chat. Whole days would go by where I did nothing. No one noticed! Well certainly not from a management perspective. Being “forced” to sit at a desk for 8/9 hours was too much for me in the end.

I then heard about a wfh job, a while before covid. So I went for that role and got it. It basically reversed my burnout as I no longer had a stressful commute, the work was task based rather than time based, so very flexible. And my home environment was so much nicer than the office environment had been. I very quickly realised that if I wasted time, it was now my own time I was wasting!

My productivity now is sky high. We are a small team but I consistently outperform everyone else. Without stress and interruptions I can do in one hour, what would have taken me 3 in an office. I do have time to do other things during my day. Surely if your colleagues aren’t performing, that will be picked up by management? If their work is getting done then really your gripe is that they aren’t available for you.

@isthisamistakeornot I totally agree- a great many women in particular will defend it because it massively suits them to have far more flexibility especially with children- and I've been there. Do some take the piss- absolutely - a fair chunk (men and women) have taken to treating it as if they are self employed - this is all fine and dandy if it truly is a role that requires no cooperation but is intensely annoying if you work 9.30 to say 6pm and have a colleague who only answers emails at 11.30pm. It works much better for some than others depending on the role and personality and home set up and commitment to a role/company. It's very easy when you aren't that motivated/interested to find better things to do at home and get away with it

Colleagues "spontaneously" interrupting my workflow for me to solve their problems was one of the things I most loathed about working in an office. I'm more productive WFH precisely because I can get my head down and get on with things rather than have to deal with "spontaneous" chats.

Anyway, this is obviously a management problem and/or a problem with your specific workplace culture. Blaming WFH as a format shows up why tbh - it's a lazy and unimaginative thing to blame. I WFH in an international team and I don't recognise any of your issues.

Meetings should be booked in advance, I can't believe I have to say something so basic. You can't expect people to be available to talk to you immediately. This wasn't the case in offices either - people are always away from their desk for all sorts of reasons, work-related and not. When colleagues drop me a line I'll often say "give me 15 minutes" because I'm in the middle of actual work that requires concentration. And it's fine.

If the problem should only take 5 minutes to resolve it almost certainly doesn't need to be a conversation anyway. Send an email. No one needs to rearrange their schedule for that.

And getting away from "core hours" has also made me more productive and happier. In an international role with very variable work flows, a strict 9 to 5 makes no sense anyway. And it's partly creative, so getting away from my desk to think or take a break is crucial - as is being able to work whenever inspiration does strike. That two-hour run I went on in core hours, or the time I spent in the kitchen and not online, was probably when I had my best ideas.

You also don't say whether your colleagues are actually completing the work they need to, just that they're clocking off when they want. If they're doing their work to a good standard within core hours and have time to bake bread, more power to them.

Talking to the plumber is a weird criticism because that takes, what 10 minutes?

Everything has pros and cons.

I agree that the cost of physical offices is likely to be a big con for businesses. Especially as existing premises come to EOL/lease renewal etc.

When combined with lower wages that generally go with wfh (no commute costs, able to source people from anywhere in the country etc) I think it's going to be awfully tempting to just do away with those costs, or shrink them considerably down to a smaller, more occasional office.

Personally, my ideal would be a hybrid approach: 2 days in an office, 3 from home. But as I live 300+ miles away from the nearest office I am almost permanently wfh.

I knew you were going to say agency. Are you account management or owner?

They don't work remotely at all, I run one, and if I was you I'd move company to one with a culture and buzz, and some flexible working.

We need to collaborate and be in the studio.

TBH I’d also say some people aren’t suited to it. I think you need to have really strong self discipline to work successfully at home and not be distracted, or to take time out to empty the washing machine/play with the dog/surf the net for a bit etc just because you can.

Surely there should be core hours when people are available for meeetings etc. Why on earth are people doing their home tasks in work time?

As someone who has just asked if I can take my DD to the walk in with suspected Strep, and my boss has said yes immediately I kind of agree, however I would have asked the same if working in the office, I dont book appointments during my core hours but sometimes its unavoidable when medical. I was diagnosed with diabetes this year and the appointments for eyes, feet and Lipid cinic etc come through regularly and are all in office hours, but on the other end of the scale I work late sometimes until the early hours to get reports and work completed, WFH is good if it means both sides get the result.

OP's problem is her organisation's 'understanding' culture.

My co wfh four days a week, but most people are on line at 8am and are generally available unless they are on a call or in a meeting. Our systems show on screen, who is on the phone, or at lunch (where there is a 60 minute timer) and we can all see each others' diaries.

Wfh isn't the problem, poor management is.

Whenever this topic comes up, quite a few of these problems tend to be related to the current labour shortage as much as anything else. There is a shortage of people in many jobs, so employers often have to tolerate a lot more now because they can't be assured of a suitable replacement if they boot someone who's slacking off. If everyone were back in offices in the numbers they were this time 3 years ago, people would still have more autonomy than they did in 2019 and employers have fewer options, so piss taking would still be a possibility. It would just look different.

Exactly this, it is a management issue not a WFH issue

Not having people drop by your desk for a quick 5 minute catch up which is always anything but is the best part of wfh imo! That stuff needs to be scheduled in so I know how much time I've got to work on my own priorities. I don't do non-work stuff in work hours when wfh though.

It’s the exact opposite where I work. We are hybrid now and everything takes longer in the office, we have a couple of constantly outside for a cigarette pisstakers when our manager isn’t in, as well as the same never being at their desks because they are always off chatting especially some are in the office and others at home. On the days when no one is in the office it’s way easier to get hold of those people. Even in the office you have to go and chase down people who have been away from their desks for half an hour on x or y task (which is really having a chat and hang out with people in another part of the office).

It’s also nosier for the most part but we have a lot of individual meetings with outside people so a lot of the time people are in their offices anyway with closed doors. The noise levels fluctuate a lot which means more interruptions. At least three people also leave early to travel (have a shorter lunch break) or get in late and stay later while others are leaving at 5pm (train issues or school run then traffic issues).

I waste a good two hours commuting due to traffic on office days as well. Not to mention the costs to the business of renting our office space and the heating etc, which is one reason our pay rises this year were far less than inflation. I’d much rather we went fully remote - for a start a lot of us are also out and about anyway for events or meetings.

My department has worked successfully from home for about ten years. Yes we do take advantage of the flexibility to do school runs, washing etc but we absolutely would be expected to attend meetings etc and if something clashed with breadmaking or whatever we'd have to rearrange the bread, not the meeting!

I end up working from about 8.30-6.30 when WFH. I do feed horses or tend to other things sometimes during the day, but it takes about 30 minutes. I don't otherwise take a lunch break or even breaks throughout the day sometimes - I'm often back to back on calls. I'm doing well over my contracted hours and if someone were to pull me up on feeding the horses they would get short shrift from me.

Like you wouldn't just walk up to someone in an office and interrupt them when they were concentrating or on another call, just plan a conversation in advance. It's not that hard?

As a manager (who also works in a complex technical role) wfh has brought nothing but annoyance for me, and significant extra workload. We have a hybrid system that started during covid and we as a management team spend far far more time having to navigate around people's entitlement around wfh than we ever did when everyone was in front of us. Yes we have good strong written principles in place that everyone has signed, but people like to sneak round them (kid at home on inset day, can't come in to office urgently as booked workman/no longer book breakfast club on that day, not taking calls etc etc etc). It's all minor stuff from about half the team and it's wearying having to 'manage' it all the time. So everyone saying it's a management issue - yes and no. I have no extra time to manage this rubbish. What happened to people's sense of responsibility, doing the right thing. It's a classic case of give an inch and take a mile and I am fed up of it. I'd like to pull the plug on it altogether to be honest but I can't because the world isn't like that any more so we keep on having to make the best of it.

I am fully home-based and this would never fly in my role.

I have to announce in a group chat when I'm going on lunch and on my 2 other breaks during the day.

I can of course leave the desk briefly to go to the toilet or to make a cup of coffee but other than that my company expects me to be at my desk during my working hours.

I am generally available when a colleague or manager calls me for a 5 minute chat.

Maybe it is that your company has to learn how to manage wfh better.

Definitely a management issue. I've worked for a global company for 6 years and every team I've worked on has been spread across 2-3 timezones, with a mixture of remote and in-office working, and collaboration has always worked fine. We have core hours we need to be available and outside of those, it doesn't matter when we get the work done as long as it's done on time.

People stopping by my desk randomly during the day is why I hate my days in the office. So distracting.

I think it depends on your manager. No way would I get away with any of this and nor would I try. Kids are expected to be in childcare. Work time is for work. I can go for a hospital appointment in the day but I work the time back. I find I work far more when WFH as I end up back at my desk after the kids are in bed. But having said that, I would much prefer to go into the office, at least 50% of the time. We don't have an office anymore. I will be looking for a new job within 2 years which is site based. I miss people!

Sounds more like the people you work with are the problem not WFH. My team are all WFH across the country and we all manage to do our work and not take the piss

Dp brought everyone back into the office in May 2021 for just the reasons you describe. Wfh doesn't work for jobs that require collaboration

I can see both sides. I do think people should be available during core hours unless it’s something genuinely urgent. But I do also benefit from shoving a quick load of washing in / walking the dogs midway through the day / stopping a bit early to cook kids tea and then logging on again for an hour later to make up the time (not all every day or on the same day!)