To think that employers will have to pay more for working in the office roles?

[MrsMarieMopps]

Following on from the poster who is annoyed she will have to come back into the office two days a week, I honestly think this argument will come up again and again.
I have never been able to work from home, apart from the odd day when I had COVID. Worked through the pandemic in an office. I am an NHS employee and need to be in the hospital even if not necessarily clinical.
My trust is now fully back to pre covid 'everyone must come in every day'. I don't disagree with this. We should be in supporting the clinical staff and patients!
This means spending on

• transport (£12 a day for me)
• parking
• childcare including wraparound and school holidays
• food which can be transported. Milk for work, butter for work etc. I was home I could just make something out of what I had at the back of the cupboards
• some have cleaners as they are out the house more.
• some gym memberships are cheaper if you can go off peak. Which I can't.
• contributions to leaving presents, maternity leave, big birthdays. These contributions are presumably are less pressured if not in person.
• sickness. There's many days when you can't pull yourself in to the office, or when you're contagious, but you probably could log in from home. I have defo noticed my friends are rarely 'calling in sick' anymore for their children or themselves but WFH instead.

So whilst I appreciate that not all jobs require an office presence, if I was a job seeker why would I choose one that's not hybrid or working from home, especially nowadays. I feel there is going to have to be some sort of reimbursement for taking on a job which requires you to make all the sacrifices in order to do it. Also can't help noticing that it is generally the lower paid who are having to keep paying all these necessary costs. We don't have people falling over themselves to do jobs in care, retail, hospitality as it is and I think this would really help with adding an incentive. Otherwise why would anyone become an NHS band 2 admin or a cook in a nursing home? Also I'm aware heating costs may be more but that's just one thing and most just put another jumper, my workplace is freezing anyway!

I’m Scottish too actually and I still think you are neglectful.

My place has home worker contracts and hybrid worker contracts. So yes we can differentiate on pay if we chose to.

And please stop with the bullshit generalisations about what “we” do in an entire country.

@Businessflake so do they get paid less?

Who said anything about them being "ignored all day"?

The people saying that it is neglectful are also generalising though. It depends very much on where people live. Some places are be safe for 8 year olds to play with an adult checking in every now.

I don’t let my 8yo out on her own. She only has one day in the whole of summer with both DH and I working. We can swap weekdays and weekends. We use it so we don’t have to pay for holiday clubs anymore. It does mean less family time together. We aim to swap one day a week so there is at least one day a week we do things as a family. And we also take family holidays a couple of times a year.

it really isn’t that everyone don’t have flexible WFH work patterns

The context of this discussion is having children at home while you work. If you are giving sufficient attention to your job then you cannot be doing much more for your children than providing basic food, maybe eating lunch with them, and looking in /out once or twice an hour to see that they are safe. They should be told not to bother you. Anything else and you are taking your employer for a ride.

And how can you ensure that a child stays in the “safe” area if they are outside unsupervised?

@ChocChipHandbag

You must live in a rough are then. Sorry about that.

Grow up.

@ChocChipHandbag

ah bless.

Also DH work has team members permanently working Saturdays because his wife works Saturdays. He takes Sundays and Mondays as his weekends.

@Twatalert You’re right, of course, and having thought about it, it’s the rigidity of teaching that I struggle with rather than having to carry it out in a particular place - if I have to teach at 10am on Tuesday and that’s when my children’s play is, I’d still have to miss it whether I was teaching them online or at school. I agree the main advantage of wfh is the time and money saved on commuting - this must be huge for many people. (I actually love my commute (unless it’s raining - I cycle) as it’s the only part of my day when I don’t have to think too hard…!)

Well yes, I gave them and their friends drinks and snacks if they asked plus lunch and looked out the window every 20 minutes or so etc. That didn't stop me doing my job but neither is it ignoring them all day. When I say the area was safe I mean there weren't any cars apart from the occasional very slow one turning around.

@carduelis same, sports day, school play, dentists, I can't usually make it. Also being unsure of when I will finish, if there's a patient who wants to open up to you, you can't just say 'hold that thought, Jack, I know you're really emotionally vulnerable right now and it's taken you a long time to get to trust me but it's ten to three'.

I love the way people who can’t work from home are piling in to list all the many ways in which people who wfh are lazy, dishonest and easily replaced, and then shaking their heads sadly and saying how divisive it all is. What you mean is, if you get to make everyone’s working life as uncomfortable as yours, you’ll be slightly less bitter.

I also love the way most of the wfh haters have so little understanding of private sector professional/managerial roles that they can’t even list any beyond admin and contact centre, and yet think their opinions on how we work should carry some weight.

@LoobyDop but our problems become your problems when you need something. How many threads on MN are there about that?

Well I’ll happily take a pay increase for going in the office! I don’t have kids but it seems that WFH “allows” parents the flexibility to cover their childcare / dog walking / housework needs etc yet if I said I going to the gym or for a run at 3pm and wasn’t available for meetings it would be frowned upon. Also, I really love hanging around waiting for people to get back to me mid afternoon while they’ve just popped out to pick their precious moppets up from school!

I'm envious of the people working from home because they can focus on what they are doing without 5 separate conversations going on around them, deliveries, walk-ins and all the other stuff that goes on in an office. And a manager on site who observes every interaction and how often you get up from your desk.

A few things here- “playing out” is letting kids go off to the park or otherwise out of sight of the house and telling them what time to come back, but not knowing exactly where they are at any given time. It sounds like you are talking about kids playing outside the house in a cul de sac.

However I would not be happy with someone who worked for me supervising not only their own kids but also their kids’ friends while they were supposed to be working.

And I accept that ignoring is not the right description for what you are doing, but I still think it falls below the appropriate level of interaction with a primary-aged child if they spend the whole working week just being handed food and briefly checked on every 20 minutes.

Oh, and fish in the microwave!

This is batshit. Teaching isn't crap because teachers have to go into school to teach. Its crap because the workload is daft, the politics are a hindrance, the pressure is heavy and the pay is shit.

And for people who have 8-9yr olds who can look after themselves. That's marvellous, but also means they spend the school holidays just staying at home watching TV or on devices every day which is a bit shit.

Many 8 year olds play with friends or find things to do that don’t involve watching television such as reading books (shock horror).

Maybe you have an admin or contact centre job but mine is a professional and very project based. If I finish it on time and clients are happy my employer wouldn't be that interested in whether I had looked out of the window or occasionally given children snacks/drinks.