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

Possibly a tightening up of the rules - or a reminder of those in place. Some people might have been taking the piss.
Could be something like you need to look professional in online meetings - smartly dressed, neutral background, pets out of the room so they aren't causing havoc on camera. Or a reminder that you need to have childcare in place while working - not suitable to have a toddler there with no one else to care for them if you are supposed to be wfh, or whatever else people have been doing which might have caused a problem.

Or, it could be you have to work in the office more.

My bet is something along the lines of a veiled threat to buck ideas up and be more productive or everyone will need to return to the office full time.

Totally agree. And a lot of people either think you're 100% "in" or 100% "out" when in reality many people do hybrid, so it's not all or nothing. You read headlines about companies 'calling people back in' but when you read the details, they're just asking for people to come in twice a week, for example

No idea what OPs meeting will be about.
Wanted to jump on to the WFH discussion though. There are clearly pros & cons, and they will differ for everybody. My main concern is for people who do WFH having the right environment to work in. Following first lockdown, I reopened my clinic and was met with neck stiffness / pain, lower back pain and/or sciatica. I literally treated nothing else for weeks, if not months. Most people had been WFH at the kitchen table, in their bed, on the sofa, in a crappy chair….point being, they didn’t have a suitable WFH space. I still see this even now, when people still haven’t got a dedicated adapted space to work in and we’re 3 years down the line. I know of some companies that invested in their staff by providing desks, office chairs etc, but I’m not sure if that’s been a widespread action? I’m waiting for the “were you mis-sold WFH, you could be due compensation” adverts to start in the coming years. There’s just not a one size fits all solution.

Why? Well before the pandemic I had often done particular pieces of work at home. Part of my role was to write training and presentations, I found that the peace and quiet of my home meant that I could fully focus on this aspect of my job. I got the work done in half the time without the distraction of the noise in a large and busy office.

I can't work in an office - no idea how I managed for as long as I did, and tbh, I struggled hugely with all the distractions. I am a journalist and I am MUCH more productive at home, getting on with my work in my own time, in blissful peace and quiet.

WFH enables women like me to be fully engaged in the workplace - and use their skills to earn decent money. I also couldn't go into London and work in an office f/t as I am a single mum and it's waaaay more expensive for me to do that. But why would I? Pointless.

If companies are worrying about losing (female) staff to firms offering WFH jobs then they need to improve their own offering, not just hope the workplace deteriorates so that women are forced back into roles that don't pay as well and are less convenient. FGS, what kind of an attitude is that, surprising (it isn't) how many employers aren't that keen on gender equality if it makes life harder or more expensive for them.

If it is anything like our place then it will be to increase the mandated days in the office. I like working from home too but after really careful monitoring of peoples productivity we found that people are less productive even if they feel more productive. I think people feel that way because they get more done personally i.e. putting washings on, a bit of housework, a workout, nipping out to pick up the kids and so on as well as doing their work but the quality and quantity of work itself is less and less.

There are also serious issues with more junior members of staff not having the day to day support and supervision of more experienced staff members even if the the junior staff are in as so many of the more senior staff prefer to work from home. Even with new recruits there are problems with them never quite feeling part of the team and so moving on much faster and then sometimes trying to come back a year later. Its as if they all feel like they are freelance as opposed to being a part of the team.

In our industry at large there is more and more use of "global teams" which does equate to work that used to be done in the UK being farmed out overseas, work that would previously have been done by well paid UK workers. Some of this is due to it being cheaper but the move to mostly remote working has removed much of the advantage of keeping the work here so it is easier to make the argument for it. I have heard recently that several firms in our industry have put large numbers of staff on notice of redundancy. These are well paid professional jobs / career paths that are going, possibly for good (we saw this in 2009). It is more complicated than WFH has caused this, there are other factors but it is a factor.

We are considering a move to a four day week with more days mandated in the office but staff are very resistant. FYI I am not the boss but have been involved in looking into all of this. Lots of unintended consequences in wfh too many to go into here.

WFH permanently for all those who wish to.

When they have those numbers they will downsize the office and reduce the direct rent costs by £150,000 a year. They will then open an 'office' in Spain funded with the remaining budget. Those that chose not to WFH permanently will be invited to business development meetings in Spain. Those who work from home permanently will attend via Zoom only.

Back to the office but not full time

This is my guess

This sort of generalisation is completely pointless. You can't possibly think millions of 'young people' can all be summed up like this? If you mean this is how it's been in your organisation, experience and circle, just say that.

I've found when dealing with some wfh individuals they complete much less work and are less focussed. Some individuals appear to go awol and consider having children around whilst working ok - it isn't since they are so distracted to be worthless as employees at times.

"we found that people are less productive even if they feel more productive. I think people feel that way because they get more done personally i.e. putting washings on, a bit of housework, a workout, nipping out to pick up the kids and so on as well as doing their work but the quality and quantity of work itself is less and less."

Totally this. Employees 'feel' they work hard but we find that less is actually completed since they are doing house chores/child minding/watching tv etc.

Fully agree. Literally every single time I have to phone an organisation, such as HMRC, an insurance or utility firm, a council, etc., it's a nightmare with poor phone connection, background noise (children, dogs barking, door bell ringing etc), the CS assistant clearly not listening/concentrating, etc.

It may be fine for clerical/professional roles who are mostly doing independent work, but it just doesn't work for "call centre" workers who are on the phone all day.

Just yesterday, trying to talk to a specialist in HMRC who sounded more like she was in a swimming pool with "gurgling" sounds on the phone (she said it was her mobile!), which meant we were both constantly having to repeat everything we were saying, then her dog started barking hysterically which made hearing her impossible until she went away to lock it in another room! Then she started moaning about how slow her internet was! After an hour I gave up.

Following out of pure nosiness

Interesting. I could WFH but choose to go the office and so do my team. My DH has been in his WFH office ever since lock down and there is no change to that on the horizon. Horses for courses.

The problem there is that lots of those roles don't pay enough to get sufficient good, reliable staff who are willing and able to be office based. The organisations are also frequently short staffed too.

@hamfat That is a good observation. I do hybrid - 3 days in the office as a lot of my job works better face to face (and I would go mad at home all the time).

I recently looked at engaging a company for a service and all of their admin and support staff were in South Africa - they clearly figured if the job could be done well remotely then it could be done just as well in a cheaper country that is broadly the same time zone and English is widely spoken.

Be careful what you wish for if you argue you job can be done anywhere!

if it was to increase office working the meeting should be titled office working not WFH.

Hopefully it’s more home working. It has changed my entire life and I have to much more energy to give to my job that I’m not giving to my commute. Fuck the office it makes me so unproductive and sluggish.

Mmm, I'm not sure that's an ongoing risk now really. The last three and a half years have provided ample evidence of which roles can and can't be done remotely. It's done. Even if everyone went back in full time tomorrow, organisations still know. The ones that haven't been offshored likely haven't for a reason.

Maybe it’s status quo but reiterating/reinforcing rules. I have found people really take the piss post Covid, mainly with childcare.

My organisation makes people sign a declaration that they have childcare in place if wfh. People sign it but then it’s obvious they don’t. Many try and weasel around it by saying their spouse at home is carer so they have ‘childcare’, but problem is generally the spouse is also wfh full time so neither parent is working a full day and they are usually camera and microphone off, never participate in a meeting and if you ‘force’ them to participate you can clearly hear they have a baby/child with them.

Then comes the cry of ‘but it’s after school hours/school holidays’ like that overrides the requirement for childcare to be in place. Then they get put out when you point out they need before/after school care or vacation care like it’s unreasonable even though that’s what everyone automatically did pre-Covid.

Ditto to the people who say productivity has dropped especially with call centres and public sector.

If I am honest my view is that people have got used to no travelling costs, doing household tasks, 'nipping' out to collect kids etc and are conning themselves that they are working just as hard. In my previous role there wre certain women (sadly it was only women) who were never available after 1500 via email and almost always not immediately. I was customer facing in a senior role and when our clients needed us to respond we were unable to do so quickly. One particular lady had so many dentist appointments it got to be a stadning joke because we all knew she was collecting her two small children from nursery and couldnt take any live calls.

I appreciate that, but in the HMRC case, she was a specialist who'll be on a pretty decent wage, not a customer service assistant on minimum wage. It took me weeks to actually get to be able to contact her directly in the first place as the call centre staff couldn't deal with such a specialist matter, so it had to be referred to a technical team,

@Tracker1234 Oh god I had a manager like that (pre covid). She was "WFH" on Fridays but you could not get hold of her to do anything after lunchtime. I remember well the frustration when one day we needed her comments urgently so a document could be submitted to the CEO by 5pm.

When I called her out on it she apparently had "connectivity issues" 🙄

I think they will bring you back 1 day a week.

I work 2 days in the office, 3 from home. I am 62. I couldn't do a full time senior role if I had to commute every day. So the hybrid model keeps me longer in the workforce.

If it was working and productivity and trusting people to work properly was working then why would companies want people back in the office. Having no offices would save a fortune for companies!

The trust issue has gone. A large % of people are now just fitting in a bit of work amongst the many many household tasks they are now undertaking. Having worked with many many large companies and in particular the public sector it is extremely easy to fudge the process and the system. Blame other parts of the organisation or IT issues. Or that you were on another call. There are many many ways to do it and I have honestly heard most of them.