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.

Sounds like you need to discuss with your manager and let them try some strategies to help collaborative working (for example having "chat hours" or similar).

However, it does sound a bit like you are someone who likes to talk things through rather than using messaging apps or other types of connectivity. Remote working does require using different approaches as well and so if you are over reliant on being able to grab someone for a quick chat I suggest you look at ways you can adjust yourself as well.

I've found that some of the colleagues who are most frustrated with WFH or hybrid are those that use their office charisma to make up for a lack of planning ability. They are able to convince colleagues to work on short deadlines when face to face, but that doesn't work remotely. Not saying that that is you OP, but it isn't all on everyone else to try and make working from home as close to your office experience as possible.

My job involves elements that require both close collaborative working and deep individual concentration. I find that being in the office is good for the former and bad for the latter. When I at home reviewing a report or design I am not in the right space for a "chat" so usually either don't respond straightaway or put someone off until I am finished.

Sounds like a management problem. I WFH most of the time, if I used an excuse like that to dodge a meeting, I’d get a bollocking. I’m at my kitchen ‘desk’ 9-5 with the exception of lunch & toilet breaks, or to occasionally walk over to the kettle or front door. I can confidently say I’m more focused at home because I don’t have colleagues in my ear every 10 minutes asking if anyone else’s computer has frozen or discussing what Maude’s daughter’s birth was like.
If WFH is presenting problems like this for your company, it’s the companies fault. People will get away with whatever they’re allowed to get away with.

I remember a study done a few years back found the average person in an office spends about 3 hours actually doing something productive. (socapglobal.com/2019/09/the-average-worker-is-only-productive-for-about-3-hours-a-day/)

The rest of the time is 'wasted' with non work tasks. I wonder if we're seeing rose tinted views of what office working was like or if the lack of visibility is making us more suspcious of those other 5+ hours in a way we wouldn't be if someone was in the office with us (albeit, not actually working).

Your work culture does sound very annoying, but please don't leap to "everyone has to get back to the office" because that was awful too in many ways.
I really identify with the poster who says the whole business of commuting and being physically present in an office contributed to burn out and very low productivity.

In my case for various historical cultural reasons to do with my role there was an ingrained need for people who do my job to appear incredibly agreeable. This meant that it got to the point where I almost thought "fuck them, if they just want me to be nice, I'll be as nice as they like and if the work doesn't get done it's not my fault." I would always smile, always show up to people's bullshit meetings for no reason and look supportive, always look up when they approached my desk with some bullshit suggestion or request. My core work really suffered because I just didn't have the incentive, credibility or personal wherewithal honestly (at the end) to say "Please can we discuss this after 3 because I've blocked this time out to do [x]" (which was what I was supposedly contracted to do).

In that case, as much as the case that the OP describes, there is a work culture that actively works against productivity. Which ultimately leads to low work satisfaction too - we're all happier doing a good job, and knowing it. There is no one way to fix all work place problems - get everyone into the office! Send everyone home! - both aren 't magic bullets.

In my opinion, nearly all work should be measured by output, not hours.

And work places should be places where you go to resource your work, not places you go to be policed. You go there to meet, to use facilities, not to show you are "working" (when you are just showing up at a moment's notice to another bullshit meeting because some boss thinks that what "flexible" "agile" and "engaged" or whatever looks like)

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 feel this! There were so many reasons being in the office made me resentful and miserable (from temperature control to office politics) and I reacted by doing the bare minimum. Being able to manage my own time and work how I wanted was revolutionary.

I dont think wfh has gone too far. In my work the culture is if you get a missed call from your team you call them back as soon as you can or text them if you can't (and that would normally be to say you're in a meeting). Someone walking the dog or going to the school run or whatever would usually accept the call. When you have decent colleagues, it works well.

In your original post I wouldnt have any issue with someone saying they needed to speak to the plumber. If theyd been in work they would likely have had to take holiday. But feeding horses or making bread or whatever they should definitely be accepting the call as they carry out the activity or saying 'yes I'll call you in 10' not a flat 'no'.

And colleagues saying they will work with a baby after mat leave are deluded, this isn't something you can fit into a day and work on top, both are full time jobs. And if I was an employer I would make this clear in contracts that you can't provide childcare to a child under (whatever age...8 maybe?) during working hours except for emergencies

If their contract says they should be available in core hours then they should be available in core hours (or a call back within a reasonable time frame)

Do not get me started on people leaving Teams meetings before the end to do the school run! Yet I'm sure if I fancied going to a gym class at 3:30 it would be frowned upon.
Also, if people were sitting next to each other more often they might not need a meeting in the first place. I am so done with working from home, the benefits of being in the office and people talking without having to make an appointment of pick up the phone are so essential to the business.

No, they’re not things that require an immediate response and I usually don’t answer until the next day.

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 think this is what sums it up for me and appreciate all the responses. I’ll have a think about how to delicately raise it but will have to go a couple of lines up since my direct line managers is one of the ones I find most difficult.

To answer a question above - no it hasn’t stopped people completing their work but it has absolutely impacted the quality of work. I’ve noticed an increase in things coming back rushed and often with errors which adds up - and it’s definitely got worse. Problem is again my manager is one of these people - it’s not an easy one to address (in response to the person who said I’m passive and complaining).

I'm a disabled parent so for me it's been brilliant. I get my head down get my work done and am not in severe pain/fatigue. What I do find annoying is situations like today I logged on and found someone emailed me at 730pm Friday night with a full on crisis situation, emailed me again at 730 this morning asking why I'd not taken any action to resolve it.

Being able to manage my own time and work how I wanted was revolutionary

I agree - I just don’t want us to have all the benefits taken away because some people are taking the piss

I think you have to accept that your preference for spontaneous chats isn’t everyone’s preference. Personally I see no problem in colleagues asking to speak to you at another time, as long as it’s timely. You wouldn’t go up to someone in an office and just start speaking regardless of what they were doing.
stop policing your colleagues (how much time are you spending working out when people are logged in etc?). You’re not a line manager, that’s not your job. If something is making your job more difficult then speak to your manager. Or consider going for a management job if you want to change the culture, but currently it’s not your job

Also one of the biggest fans of back to the office at my place annoys the crap out of me because she’s almost always in external meetings so has her office door shut anyway, and then if people are chatting via teams or in person when her door is open gets pissy about the noise. Yet will swear blind wfh is worse for everyone - when in reality she just doesn’t like wfh with her husband in the house. Fine, but don’t pretend otherwise then get annoyed at the noise in the office! Pisses me right off, as it was nothing to do with team stuff in the office, most of the time she’s on her own NOT doing team meetings or talking to anyone anyway. Yet she was one of the loudest voices saying we should all be in at least x amount of days because ‘team collaboration’.

"sorry I’m making bread / feeding the horses / talking to the plumber etc etc."
This is where your problem lies, not work from home of itself.
If management allow people to overtly and blatantly do this type of thing during working hours then control has been lost. Sure do something like that during your lunch hour (or purposefully book the time out as a personal meeting once in a while) but work still needs to get done. I think it is your particular work place

I am a massive wfh fan and now do it 95% if my time after years of 50%.
However, in order to maintain that I make sure I’m available for my colleagues, often working through lunch or taking calls out of hours.

However, I’ve noticed a lot of colleagues who were never wfh pre pandemic, are showing as available but never answer calls or instant messages. Their calendars are littered with school runs, Busy, and non work appointments.

I get what you mean. I had an issue last week with something that could have been sorted with a 10 minute chat in the office. Yet I have to wait 2 days for a meeting about it. So frustrating.

I think the real answer is family life is just so expensive and full on, people are forced to take these shortcuts.

@BungleandGeorge you haven’t read my answers. It’s not just about being available, quality of output is dropping and my line manager is most definitely one of the worst (and getting worse the less people say).

Also our org is v small (less than 20 people) so it’s not just a case of move into a mgmt role. If it’s not my job to police then why is it my job to pick up the pieces to improve outputs because people are taking the piss? Because that’s what is really happening and I’ve had enough of it.

However, I’ve noticed a lot of colleagues who were never wfh pre pandemic, are showing as available but never answer calls or instant messages.

I might be showing as available but I'll ignore a call or message if I'm in the middle of something else.

You're not describing WFH culture - you're describing your work's culture. Management should be pulling people up if they're taking the piss.

Yes - this is my experience

Piss-taking is subjective though, and it's also between them and their line manager.

I happily arrange appointments, go for runs, do errands and even meet friends during what are technically my contracted hours. But like I said my actual job doesn't really work like that. Some days/weeks are full-on, some days/weeks are very chilled. In the chilled weeks I use my downtime how I please, and it's understood that this enables me to recharge for the full-on weeks. I'm also happy to hop on to meetings in different time zones, so meeting a friend for coffee on a slow day will be balanced out by dialling in at 9pm, or finishing up a report later at night when my brain is working better.

You think baking bread is taking the piss because that colleague wasn't available for a spontaneous chat. But baking bread may well have been perfectly compatible with the work she actually needed to get done that day, as agreed with her actual manager. (I'm crap at bread, but have often baked cakes in the work day while keeping an eye on my emails. It gets the creative juices flowing.)

Fair challenge that I had anticipated. Tbh - if a five min question once or twice a week is an interruption and I’m expected to email it or book a meeting just to talk to someone

Do you have set catch ups where as a team you can all chat?

We have an all team meeting once a fortnight, but we also have Monday and Friday catch ups in our sub team.

I must admit I hate being called for a quick question that could have been a teams message/email.

I have a colleague who prefers to chat, I prefer to message. Sometimes he'll call me and it's a question that would have been a 10 second email. I hate that when I'm working on something fiddly, I'd rather not have my concentration interrupted for a call that could have been an email.

Although this does sound cultural I do have to question some of the things said here. I am one of the people who doesn't have Skype open at all times because actually I want to concentrate and not have interruptions constantly. If it's super urgent email or call me. Otherwise, it actually can wait even if you don't want it to. I am also one of those people who will take the dogs for a walk in the middle of the day so take a long lunch break. What you don't (but my manager does) see is that I log on early, I'm still working at 9/10/11pm and often do hours at the weekend. We should be working to live, not living to work and anything that helps that balance is fine by me.

Here's your actual problem: a crap line manager.

A crap line manager would 100% be as crap in the office as WFH. Maybe in different ways but a potato is a potato. Sadly not an easily resolvable problem and you have my sympathy for that, I have been there.