Meeting: 'Working from home' - your vote needed!

[coxesorangepippin]

Got a meeting invite late tonight titled simply: Working from home'. Scheduled for half an hour. No additional info.

What are they gonna say?

Return to the office full time? Full time WFH???

Your guess is as good as mine. We're currently in once every two weeks.

Results posted in here tomorrow once the meeting has been held.

Yanbu = back to office
Yabu = WFH

We've been five days back in the office since the end of the first lockdown! And I only wfh then because we were "vulnerable".

(I got shitloads done working at home but a poor colleague in the office had to do the physical side of my job that couldn't be done remotely. I hated wfh but I do understand if people prefer it.)

I think it depends on what you're used to. It will be a bit of a shock to those who WFH completely (and prefer it) and can understand why they aren't happy. However for myself I work from the office three days a week and going down to two would be amazing! I'd be happy with that

My team work a 5 day fortnight. 3 days in the office one week, 2 the next. Works well for us. A lot of the team are still training, so massively benefit from the 1:1 time they get with the manager.

On the flip side, my friend has to go in one day a week where she sits at a hot desk and still had the same Zoom calls with her team as she does when she's at home because she works for their London office and the rest of her team are either in Scotland or India! Her manager isn't in the office on the same day as her either, so she has to pay for commuting costs to get in to the office and do the same as she does at home. The only benefit she's had from it in the last week has been the air conditioning! That kind of arrangement seems totally pointless!

Wfh is not just one solid concept.

It means different things in different departments of organisations, never mind organisations themselves.

At the end of the day , if a hybrid or predominantly wfh policy works for both department and employee, it's nobody else's business.

When WFH I do my job differently, but equally effectively. I also get 2 .5 hrs of commuting time back. It is a brilliant addition to the workplace, and it is narrow mindness and ignorance to call it 'nonsense' .

That kind of arrangement seems totally pointless!

Not if you look at how half of MN sees "working" from home.

There's a lot of 'just' putting a wash on, 'just' walking the dog, 'just' looking after a child that should be in nursery and isn't.

This is full of generalisations. If you're going to make claims like vast majority, that needs backing up.

You appear to be arguing that if an employer changes the terms and the employee quits as a consequence, the employee still has to go into work until they work their notice? This is wrong. People can and do take accrued annual leave, call in sick or simply not work the notice. The employer at best might be able to pursue them for damages if they do the latter, which is difficult, but what they cannot do is oblige the employee to adhere to the new conditions. The employee's wish not to work in the office in that scenario overrides the employer's wish to have them there. There is no ultimate decision. Your post is wrong.

All contracts are mutually acceptable agreements on working conditions, otherwise there is no employment contract.

It's not necessarily about suiting all employees either, because some people have no choice but to take work and accept conditions that do not suit them. Just as some employers have no choice but to take employees and accept conditions that do not suit them. Whether something suits a person or organisation and whether they accept it are not the same question.

I'm over long commutes, lack of trains and generally so much time tied up in commuting. I'm over working in an office and all that entails...used to be debates about blinds up, blinds down, too cold, too hot etc etc...at stage in my career where I've been there done that and happy to WFH. Collaborative working is the buzzword trotted out but sorry a lot of the time that is nonsense....just a handy buzzword to throw it! Last time I was in the office I sat opposite my boss he was either in meetings or headphones on he did not collaborate with anyone! 🙄

Totally agree with being less productive in the office! We've also been recently told to return 2 or 3 days minimum to be office based (depends if pt or ft). We've since been told that additionally on our agreed WFH days we have to either start or finish our day in the office

Conditions get changed and improved all the time. If you take the approach of some on here, no one should be able to bring an equal pay claim as they knew the salary when taking the job.

Perfectly reasonable. I'd suggest all going in for the same day for one of those days. Otherwise its pointless.

They will expect productivity to drop but it will help improve team work

That's just weird

You can tell the go ahead firms. Those stuck in old fashioned ways will be getting people back into the office, beca6that is how it has always been done.

The only negative in my place from wfh is that new young people in more senior posts than me do flounder a bit more. This is because the managers who are supposed to train and supervise them don't do it properly. So they come to low paid office staff like me for help with things that I am not even expected to know. I have helped because I feel sorry for them. Since wfh I no longer do this.

I wonder sometimes if this is what meant by the learning in the office I.e. passing on your responsibility for training to much lower paid staff.

Innit tho?! Hoping that one will disappear..

I am old enough to remember the introduction of computers to offices. We had the same old fashioned firms complain about that and resist it.
Wfh does not work well if you don't invest in setting it up and managing it properly. But done well it can work well.

I have been WFH for 8 years or so.

I don't tend to speak to other people when I'm in front of the screen; my work is mostly solitary and I need to focus. I've had 2 hours of (zoom) meetings in the last 2 days with cameras on so we could see each other.

Outside of work I've swum (to be fair, that's not the first thing you'd think of if you want human interaction, but it's exercise and a change of scenery). I've talked to the Click and Collect woman who I see every week. I've been to a circuits class where I have lots of friends.
Today I went for a walk with a friend at lunch time and am meeting friends this evening, after I've been for a solo walk and cleaned up after dinner.
The flexibility and the lack of commute means I can enable my son going to the gym because I can collect him from town (10 min drive away) rather than him having to get the bus home. He can also be spontaneous to a degree if he wants to stay out later.

I do have to be active in ensuring I do see people, and this was harder when my son was younger and I couldn't leave him (lone parent), but right now it's perfect for me.

Well before covid and everyone wfh I acknowledged that it worked for me because I was senior in my position, didn't need daily affirmation, that my kids were older and I was able to work independently.

@fafairyfluf teamwork is very relevant for some jobs and not others. My job is specialised but everyone seems to think they can do it, like being a teacher. In my last job a lot f money was wasted on a team devised project that would normally be my responsibility to do. I kept pointing out the problems but was just seen as negative. It did not work, because in my job detail matters, but no one was willing to look at the detail.
A similar example would be a team planning a wedding by only looking at the fun things like who to have as a band and amazing decorations, but no one wanted to look at details like what food to have and dismissed any of my attempts to get these decisions made.
Teamwork can work well in some jobs. In other cases it is just people with no understanding of your job making idiotic suggestions.

From a management perspective, we be also always focused on business need, when explaining rationale for decisions

A balanced way of handling it, and that's why I'm surprised OP hasn't mentioned what they said about reasons

It would after all be the obvious thing to do - unless WFH has caused major productivity issues, in which case it might be understandable if she doesn't want to say

Every business in my field of employment that does not allow wfh, seems to be struggling to recruit. Again and again on industry online groups someone posts an advert and asks for advice about why they are getting no applicants. I have never seen this with a wfh role.
If you are old fashioned and don't move with the times, you will in many areas of the country struggle to recruit.
My husband hates wfh but also hates office work. There are lots of jobs around for the type of work where you can't work from home.

Well my job has spent the last 3 years recruiting on a full time WFH basis (after saying anyone who didn’t like full time WFH could leave and losing literally half the staff).

If they changed to two days in the office each week then if the two full days were, for example Monday and Tuesday, people would have to fly / drive to the office Sunday night, stay over two nights and probably get home at around midnight on Tuesday.

How could that possibly not be an imposition?

@CrabbiesGingerBeer i agree that you can’t change the goal posts if someone has been employed on a wfh contract

I don’t know who you think you are to tell me it’s “not my place” to make these judgements, but in any case, you’re wrong about nursing being like any other job. It simply isn’t, and anyone going into that profession has to accept that.

The idea that more people WFH will cause a mass exodus from the nursing profession is absurd. You make it sound as if current and potential nurses will have only twigged in the last three years that their chosen job means shifts and more unsociable hours. It’s always been like this. Office jobs were always fixed hours as standard, Monday to Friday. Why are legions of nurses suddenly going to be up in arms about this now that the commute factor has been removed for some? Office jobs have always had more flexibility than nursing, yet people have continued to train to do it for longer than living memory.

In any case, what’s your actual point? Are you suggesting that we have to falsely maintain a downside to other jobs just in case someone who MIGHT have considered nursing decides they’d rather do that job instead?

I have never worked anywhere with enough meeting rooms to do private zoom calls.
Last place I worked introduced hot decking so you were often sat next to people you didn't really know and whose work was irrelevant to yours.
My current job before covid, a good chunk of my work time was spent listening to my bosses gossip and useless meetings. Every time I go back into the office I can't believe how little work I actually get done even though I am not doing anything I should not be.

You appear to be arguing that if an employer changes the terms

But they aren't changing the terms! For most organisations, the contract of employment hasn't changed since pre-Covid. The place of work is still the office, but WFH was facilitated. It's entirely the employer's prerogative if & when they want to revert.

(If an employee has a specific contract to WFH, that would of course be different)

the employee still has to go into work until they work their notice? This is wrong. People can and do take accrued annual leave, call in sick or simply not work the notice

Rare, and not germane to my point (which, yet again, was that there is not an equivalence between the employer & employees positions, as you seem determined to argue).

The employee's wish not to work in the office in that scenario overrides the employer's wish to have them there.I

😂😂😂

Nope! Sadly you're still wrong.

The employer's decision stands. As it's employment not slavery, if the employee doesn't like it, they can leave, with all the change that means to the employee. Some employees will be fine with this. Many would be deeply upset (read many MN posts along this line!). Either way the employer is not changing & will recruit a replacement as needed. The employee is the one that needs to agree or make the changes that will affect them.

All contracts are mutually acceptable agreements on working conditions, otherwise there is no employment contract.

God I really hope you don't work in HR or employment law

The initial contract is offered, and perhaps can be negotiated (not commonly) & then accepted.

Thereafter specific working arrangements (which is what we are discussing) are at the discretion of the employer.

It's not necessarily about suiting all employees either, because some people have no choice but to take work and accept conditions that do not suit them

That's the exact point! You can't suit all employees. So the employer decides, ultimately.