To think most office jobs don’t need to be 9-6

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And it’s just a way to convince a work force “you’re lucky to have a job”.

NC as I’m looking at moving jobs- currently in a typical 9-5 London office job, looking at roles they are ALL 9-6, or worse 8-6. Certainly over the last 20yrs I’ve been employed I’ve seen the odd job advertised to 6pm but now it seems the norm, despite the fact anyone I know who works in an office works more random adhoc hours thanks to work mobiles.
Most of these companies don’t need to operate past 5pm- and I can’t help but think that extra squeezed hour is to make sure we the workforce get the message we’re lucky to have a job.
Kids or no kids finishing at 6pm- with an hour London commute seriously ruins your day, your evening is entirely scarpered and it’s made me thoroughly depressed.
rant over !

The 8-6 basic admin office jobs always come across as greedy employers trying to squeeze as much as they can out of someone. I’d alway avoid a job insisting on 8am starts, I don’t mind staying behind if a deadline was looming but I’d always avoid a job that has a 6pm finish.

I wouldn't accept an 8-6 job as that's a 45h week excluding lunch breaks, work out the hourly salary equivalent and see if it's worth jt

I think wfh will faze out- I don’t mind 3 days in personally, 4 would really push it for me

*phase out

I'm in a full time job. I can complete the work in 4 hours a day and then have to find myself other stuff/ personal development to do if I want to keep working (manager isn't bothered).

This has been pretty standard for me tbh, I've only had one job where there was actually enough meaningful work to fill an entire week. I'm in a professional job.

I can see why people feel demotivated being asked to work 9-6 in the office if the work doesn't fill the time and they have to stay for the sake of it.

Nah it's taking the piss. They just don't want to employ enough people required to do the work so instead everyone else gets shat on with a bigger workload and longer hours.

Standard FT used to be 35 hrs pw years ago. You got a full lunch hour and often scheduled morning tea breaks too in a lot of places, if you were customer facing. That has been done away with gradually, despite there being MORE work to do and fewer staff. FT is now mostly 37.5 hrs per week with a half hour lunch break. Yet even then lots of people are working through lunch, and staying late to try and get through the work. But they shouldn't expect that routinely, people are not robots and need to be able to make appts etc in their lunch breaks, as well as eat.

I think wfh is awful for young people starting out. Both my DDs are in hybrid roles and while it can be handy and easier sometimes, they miss out in learning how to work with others and learn from others. Staying in the house or bedroom all day isn’t healthy and most young people don’t have office space..

The amount of time wasting which goes on in my workplace is so frustrating and one of the main culprits is a male whose colleagues all say doesn’t like to be at home and tries to get as much overtime as possible . So we try doing things virtually and he ensures they don’t run properly or run way over schedule so he can say to his bosses that it’s not working and go back to the old even more time consuming ways .
the full hour between 9 and 10 in my workplace is a complete waste of time whether wfh or in office . Unfortunately I don’t think we will see workplace cultures change until the younger employees move into management positions . At the moment in my workplace there seems to be a steady pool of dinosaurs .

Where do you work that has money to burn to pay a full time salary for part time hours?!

Is it the type of thing where not everyone understands what you do, so don't realise how little you do? I don't mean to sound goady at all, I just can't comprehend a working situation where you can earn a ft salary for only 4 hours a day or so. I can understand there being roles which only NEED 4 hours work a day, but they would be part time roles, and the salary part-time too.

I'm coming at this from a low wage job in a school office where I work my socks off for 9 hours a day, often working through lunch, and staying late and STILL don't get through the work.

I’ve been working for over 4 decades, only one job was 9-6 and it was horrendous. I lasted less than a year (not helped by the fact it was Central London and I lived in a small town in Kent).
I now work 8-4 (with a 30 min unpaid lunch) from home.
Life changing.

My "office job" is 24x7x365
12 hour shifts

Some other departments work less hours

I work 7:30 am to 8pm 3 days a week its knackering but I appreciate the 4 days off. I can't do 9-5 I wonder how people have doctors appointments , dentist. It's so much easier to fit everything in.

My DH does sod all most of the day. He's a senior data manager but he doesn't really do much programming, he troubleshoots and fixes other codes very quickly. I think for some jobs you are paid for your brain and ability to fix stuff not for tasks/time done if that makes sense. He's on 130k and probably works 3 hours a day in total.

Depends on the work - but even remotely we need to engage with stakeholders across the business - so while they have some flexibility (eg doctors, kids appointments, sorting life bits occasionally, we need to generally be in core hours - if everyone kept random hours then it would limit availability for calls etc - especially where there are multiple stakeholders.

I’m really shocked that companies advertise this, the (admittedly public sector) roles I’ve done for the last 20 years or so have all been really flexible with no fixed hours. Obviously you need to be around for the majority of the day, but you have flexibility over start and finish times. I have quieter weeks where I work slightly less than my FTE hours and then busier periods where I work more. I record my hours so I can keep track and generally am a few hours over but no-one ever asks to see my record and I have freedom in how I manage this as long as I’m delivering.

Try the Civil Service, I worked flexi time with no core time, started St 7.00am & finished at 4.00pm Monday to Thursday, built up an hour a day flexi credit & either had a half day on a Friday or finished at 2.30pm.

It was 12-15 hours in my day, and so many of them wasted. Horrendous presenteeism and totally inefficient. Anyone putting in ‘only’ 9 hours would be seen as a total waster so I hope that is now more normal, it would be a move in the right direction.

I’m glad I’m not alone in this but it really sucks. Our days are 8.30-5 but we rarely take a lunch break, we usually work over, and we are expecting to do meetings out of office hours but then get told off when we claim for them. Meant to be allowed wfh but also get frowned at when we do and they play all manner of games to get us into the office for things we really don’t need to be in for. We have way too many employees whose jobs are very light/consist of multiple meetings for no reason, and have hardly anyone whose job is output. Presenteeism is absolutely rife.

I have vast experience in the sector so I’m currently looking elsewhere.

I agree 6pm makes a big difference in annoyance factor but not much more work is done