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

I get sod all done in the office because I need to work in silence. I can tell DH not to speak for 2 hours but not a bunch of work colleagues!

Exactly@TrashedSofa
Parents want a full time, always present, classroom teacher for their primary child. I heard a parent complain that her Year Two child has three separate part time teachers for their class. These parents of course cosily wfh.
If society is changing to demand the right to wfh, you have to extend that right to other professions
I wonder how much the new telephone appointment system for GPS
is to accommodate a more flexible approach for those who work in general practice.

Give me your reasons why wfh is nonsense?

What do you do exactly apart from being a professional Debbie Downer on MN?!

Give me your reasons why wfh is nonsense?

What do you do exactly apart from being a professional Debbie Downer on MN?!

Well, some roles obviously don't allow that flexibility. But that's why we'll have to pay for them.

We're in a time of flux now in that lots of workers who need or at least prioritise flexibility now have many more ways to get it. Difficulty recruiting ancillary school staff is one of the more visible options, but it's elsewhere too. My old employer was office based but incredibly flexible, even pre covid. The wages weren't great but they basically compensated for that with the flexibility. And so they never had any problems recruiting. Now they do, because other organisations have caught up.

I know I’m going to regret asking, but… why?

Some people work in offices.
Some people work in shops.
Some people work in hospitals or other health/social care institutions.
Some people work in schools or other educational institutions.
Some people work in warehouses
Some people work in pubs or hospitality industry
Some people work from home!

Does it really matter?

It matters if you cannot recruit key workers.

My last 4 jobs since 2013 have been wfh.

I'm with you @dressedforcomfort

People who are working from home are also spending more money locally. We're not starving ourselves because we don't walk past a Prêt on the way to work.

I’m guessing hybrid working.

If you work for a govt department, I hope it's back to the office 5 days. I say this because I have to deal with them daily for work not because I'm JRM!

If you work for JP Morgan, it's definitely 5 days back in the office.

I would guess it’s either to set ground rules about WFH or some sort of discussion to see how it’s working.

If the arrangement was to end, I would expect that to be notified by email with a likely date and the meeting to be about the transition process.

They're going to say once a fortnight is nowhere near enough to support new talent coming through and to build/maintain the team. They probably also have concerns about productivity but might not make that the "reason". They might even discuss the fact that for many people (even those who like the extra time and claim to be more efficient) its not actually very healthy.

There'll probably still be some hybrid working but in the office more than out.

Let us know OP!

It will be about going in to office more often

Do these people saying "it's high time wfh ended" honestly believe that companies have just been paying leases, utility bills, keeping the lights on, and watering the plants in empty office blocks for three years? Every place I've worked (and I've changed job 3 times since Covid) has massively scaled back their estates costs. They're all too cheapskate to give us permanent desks now. Several organisations in my sector have gone fully remote.

I don't think most of them have managed anything like that nuanced a thought process.

In c. 2010 I was working for a large bank that saw an opportunity to save money by having people wfh and reducing office space, so only "hot desks" were available.

It was a disaster, really stressful and not at all good for MH. By 2015 they'd pretty much gone back to the way they were. Yes companies have disposed of office space, but that will start to be reversed.

Fortunately my employers don't agree with this.
Head office is in Hong Kong. I was employed 6 years ago as a full time remote worker. There are some people in the HK office, but most of the staff work remotely from all over the world.
We are very productive and successful.
I think you need to look outside your own experience and recognise that many models of working exist.

I'm sure that makes sense for a large bank but I mostly work for small charities and nonprofits who are being crippled by estates and utilities costs and are trying to stay afloat. Among other reasons - there's also the critical mass of everyone else is also working from home. When I do go in I spend half the day on Zoom anyway.

Everyone has to stop wearing holey, cereal smeared pyjama tops for work meetings maybe.

@CharlotteBog People are allowed to have another view, wfh doesn't work for us all. I wish people would stop getting so defensive about it and beating the rest of us over the head if we dare say we don't really like it.

@Colourfulponderings If you have a job that requires total silence then you should have your own office.

I was responding to the poster who simply said "this nonsense needs to stop", not "I think" or "it doesn't work for me". I was explained to them that it isn't nonsense for everyone.

Yes, if someone says my model of working is nonsense I do get defensive.

You make such an important point here re critical mass. The world of remote working has totally changed in the last decade. Even experiences from just four or five years ago were garnered in a a completely different working landscape.