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

The point, as it so often is, is to satisfy a sense of presenteeism and force staff to prove their devotion by coming in even when it's pointless because nobody else is there.

I could see the point in set office days for all (two out of five doesn't seem draconian to me although every other Wednesday seemed to work fine for you) so you have a chance to meet up in person, build team relationships etc etc. When the rule is literally "doesn't matter when or who else is there, you just have to get your bum on an office seat", then it's clearly purely performative.

But senior management is largely performative. The people in charge have no idea what they're doing and they need to look busy and as if they're doing something, anything.

Too many managers and too many shit managers.

Completely agree with this. I’d accept a team day when the entire team is in, or dept. But that’s not usually what happens.

Employers insisting employees attend the office with no real justification other than 'bums on seats' are demonstrating to employees that they aren't valued as individuals. Some will vote with their feet.

That may not matter if there is a large pool of suitable potential employees to recruit from and the terms and conditions on offer are comparable with the market.

If the Ts&Cs lag behind the market (as they often do when employees have been in place for a while) then the employer can end up paying a high price for insisting on presenteeism.

Employers often undervalue current employees.

Perfectly reasonable to expect you in the office 2 days a week. More than reasonable in fact.

You're the one who mentioned changing terms and conditions, not me. You can't therefore say this isn't a case of changing them, especially as OP hasn't confirmed it either way. I specifically didn't say that because we don't have enough information, particularly not given the possibility of an implied change due to custom and practice. It doesn't much matter to my point anyway.

I’m glad someone has mentioned Custom and Practice. As another poster said, the OP’s employer has long since lost the chance to argue that this was a purely emergency situation. For over two years now there’s been the option to say “restrictions are over; get back to the office”. They haven’t taken that option - which to me suggests that WFH was adopted as a long-term “norm”, even if not specified in the contract.

“In order for an entitlement to become established by custom and practice, it must be long-standing, uninterrupted, automatically received, expected and well-known.”

From the TUC website. I’m no lawyer, but I’d argue that two years plus of uninterrupted majority WFH (discounting the prior period when restrictions were in place) with no expectation that this had to be specifically agreed or negotiated in advance would qualify…

Agree, and this is why people's individual barometers of what's reasonable, entitled etc just aren't much use here. Employers and employees can both have such wildly varying levels of leverage. Some people can demand much more than others, as can some employers. There's no point in generalising or making assumptions. The answer is that it depends.

We've since been told that additionally on our agreed WFH days we have to either start or finish our day in the office

What the hell @PortalooSunset (brilliant name!) is the point of that buggery bollocks? I'd be pushing back on that!

Absolutely 'it depends'. So far as I am aware there is no absolute definition of 'reasonable'. This is often tested in industrial tribunals.

Employers are often very definite that changes to custom and practice are reasonable when it suits them.

Aren't they just!

So if you're on a WFH day, you have to present yourself at 8.30am (just to say hello) and then drive back home and start working? Seriously?? Apologies if I've misunderstood, but it sounds mad.

Again, though, I have to wonder the reasons are for this - OP hasn't said, just as she hasn't said what reasons they've given for wanting employees back two days at all

They may or may not be good reasons - we simply don't know, despite the usual pile-on and assumptions - but it would be good to know what they are

Agree - that is just bonkers.

It's not quite as ridiculous as that it absolutely is - there's an expectation we meet with a certain number of clients a week and a lot of this needs to be face to face due to the nature of the role. So we go in, say hello, visit a client then head home.
We used to have much more autonomy with how we set out our days, and I'd often do a heap of client visits one day then the following day do all the paperwork/follow up. That's not allowed anymore.
There's been a fairly recent change of leadership so they're marking territory I assume. I'm kind of towing the line at the moment but I'm pretty certain given time things will go back to how they were.
But yep, I've colleagues who have contracted hours to start early or finish late, and have basically been told they have to come in to an empty office which is fucking nuts 😂

And thanks for the love for my name @BitOutOfPractice

That sounds utterly infuriating! I'm glad I work for myself! If this is the modern workplace, I think I'm unemployable!

We used to have much more autonomy with how we set out our days, and I'd often do a heap of client visits one day then the following day do all the paperwork/follow up. That's not allowed anymore.
There's been a fairly recent change of leadership so they're marking territory I assume. I'm kind of towing the line at the moment but I'm pretty certain given time things will go back to how they were.
But yep, I've colleagues who have contracted hours to start early or finish late, and have basically been told they have to come in to an empty office which is fucking nuts 😂

@PortalooSunset if this continues I expect your employer will struggle to retain staff. Your suggestion about lots of client meetings one day followed by a paperwork day sounds perfectly sensible, and a good use of time. My employer (public sector) also has one eye on green issues and unnecessary travelling is frowned upon, we’re not supposed to do part-days in the office. And pre-covid we had a massive car parking problem, and as we’re all doing 2 days per week in the office, this problem has now disappeared

In the office once a week minimum.

QUICK UPDATE

Just an update for anyone interested.

There's has been huge criticism of the twice per week return, so it has been reduced to once per week, to be reviewed.

We were in the office yesterday and it turns out that a lot of the (large 100+ people) teams we work with are now permanently WFH. But not us, were still on hybrid.

Boss has basically said if we can go in once a week, fine, if not he'll turn a blind eye.

Boss has basically said if we can go in once a week, fine, if not he'll turn a blind eye.

In other words, you're all back to full wfh so all this drama for nothing

Sounds like a result then!

Haha I thought that might happen!