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

It's a great phrase!

Lead lines were tied with different types of fabric/leather/cloth to mark different depths, iirc.

I suggested something similar on the first page!

It has been entertaining to see how many people leapt onto their hobby horses!

I think your comment shows how many people can’t understand English. My post is not about people who deal with the public but actually learning how to do your job.
You might not deal with the public but how did you learn systems, processes procedures in your organisation stuck in your bedroom? Yes you can learn some of it by online training, zoom, phone chats etc. However there must be some of every job you learn through hearing other people; someone showing you something in passing. If staff are missing out on say 10% of their job this will filter through the organisation which will become less efficient and this will affect customers.

You'll be asked to do more days in the office min 1/2 per week.

Some people are taking the piss. I know someone who wfh all summer with three boys at home. The eldest is 10, youngest is 3. How the fuck is she supposed to do her job properly? So annoying for those of us who pay for childcare and pick up the slack

No children, no pets, no housework during working hours.

No don't get rid of the pets, always lightens the mood when a cat wonders past someone's camera on a teams call!

I first began WFH when I became an academic (WFH 2-3 days weekly) and that was long before the pandemic. However having been a postgrad I was completely used to working without supervision and setting my own schedule. Deadlines and meetings were set with my boss and so long as those were met there was no problem with when the work was done. I would often take half a day off to go shopping and complete work at evenings or weekends. I know that my boss worked in a similar fashion.

However this style of work organization requires self discipline and not everyone is suited to it.

Me included! But yeah, bet it's some deathly boring update to the accounting software that has everyone snoring within moments.

I also think you'll need to be in the office more. We're on 50% of your working time every fortnight. So a full time employees do 3 days one week and then 2 days the following.

Although, one would imagine that those who partake in swinging of the sexual variety would prefer to do it in the comfort of their own homes and that would indeed be inappropriate while WFH.

I do hope they keep their cameras turned off ......

They will set out expectations and say you will be hybrid working with an expectation to be in the office x number of days per week

It's really possible to learn your job without ever being in the office @Fairyliz my last role was fully online and when we finally had an in person meeting there were very few surprises..

Hmmm I must disgaree with this. I find it much easier to train or be trained over Teams now we can share screens over it. Gone are the days we all tried desparately huddling around a screen in the office. I also don't train people in passing on the way to the loo. Thankfully WFH also means people don't disrupt me making chit chat and so discussion over Teams is mainly about work, not about what people got up to the weekend or what they're having for dinner.

It is. I started a new job in lockdown and did well. I was desperately lonely and isolated however and went back to the office as soon as we were allowed.

What is harder to gain remotely, and this does impact early careers colleagues, is the more intangible competancies.

It will be a you need to be in the office 60% of your time

At what time is this meeting??

Council staff all working from home, not actually doing a lot but raking in massive salaries, are now wondering why the organisations they are employed by are all becoming bankrupt. No accountability for any of them. Take the money but not following through on anything. The moneys gone into peoples pockets but not in services. Big issues in lots of places with the same problems. WFH has become the biggest con/ scam ever imo!

Bit mean to send out the invite late at night.

The benefits of being in an office can be gained I think in only one or two days a week being there.

YANBU I'm guessing they want people back into the office more - at least 2/3 days per week.

I'd probably start looking for something else if my job said that. I really don't want to go back to office-based work + commute. It's so much calmer and more productive WFH.

@BarbaraofSeville
Thank you for the definition, I had heard the phrase ‘swinging the lead’ (from a Scottish man, incidentally) but never known from which source it came!

@WomanStanleyWoman2 If someone who was planning on training to be a nurse suddenly decides to chuck it in because they could work from home as an accounting assistant, I’m glad they’re not going to be a nurse

Nursing is a job, like any other. Candidates will weigh up the pros and cons of entering any job role before they apply. It's not fair or right to expect people to be Florence Nightingale. When the work culture in the UK has now swung towards flexibility, WFH, late starts to walk the kids to school, why would anyone get up at 5.45am, work nightshifts, weekends, Christmas etc? People will drop nursing for more flexible roles, and it is not your place to be making moral judgements about that. You are right that they need to make these roles more attractive to recruit but that's just not going to happen - they're getting worse as staff realise the above and leave in droves.

@iamwhatiam23 I don't agree! I don't think its anything to do with wfh! It's because the pay and working conditions in these jobs are shit! Im an ex NHS worker.

WFH would come under working conditions... I am current NHS staff and fully agree with the PP you quoted. Nursing pay is not 'shit', but it is unacceptable remuneration for the responsibility and conditions.

Also here to say that full-time WFH is likely having a negative social impact - yes someone will be along to tell me how they have so much energy to throw dinner parties now that they don't have to commute, but in general I notice people are becoming very insular and reluctant to go out, and I think WFH has a role in that. People get too used to being in their own space all the time. I know 'office culture' is much mocked, but learning to get along with and work alongside people you wouldn't normally socialise with is really important.

Or it could be because their employers have massive equal pay claims to meet...

Once every 2 weeks is ridiculous unless it's a WFH role. Most places in my industry are 2/3 days a week in the office minimum.

I think 2 days in the office as long as one of them is a day everyone is in/a whole team are in is a good minimum