Why does it seem most are against WFH?

[user6776]

Just read an article that has said civil servants are now to work from the office at least 3 days a week. I'm not a civil servant, but my company adopts the same approach. WFH is generally frowned upon and they are all about being in the office as much as possible.

I prefer WFH. Less time commuting, more productive as no office distractions, can get stuff done on my lunch hour. It's a no brainer for me. I agree going in the office periodically to meet with the team and for important meetings but other than that I don't benefit much

What does everybody else think?

I have no problem with creating conversations or making people aware of facts, but this argument is regularly marshalled along with others that are explicitly anti-wfh. Often I feel the ‘it’s not good for women’ line is delivered with an unspoken ‘and that’s another reason it shouldn’t be allowed’.

In those cases, it’s clearly paternalistic. Let’s assume the worst and say wfh is always bad for every woman’s career; there are still women who would choose it for a variety of reasons.

All other things being equal, let those affected by the alleged risk make their own minds up as to whether it’s worth it or not.

I’m in same position in that I have do do 3 office days. No part of my job needs to be in office as covid proved as I didn’t stop work at any point throughout. Even got seconded to another department to assist with work load. I resent it as we are simply told we must spend at least 60% of our time in office…simply because. But guarantee if the situation presented itself where we were required to go fully remote again they would be praising WFH & how it’s benefitted business.

I think it should be a case that those who want to go in office can & those who want to be fully remote can as long as they are performing. I know for me WFH is easier as my office can be such a noisy & distracting environment. I’m happier WFH & can actually work more hours as I don’t have to factor in a 2 hours round trip.

in summary it’s BS that people NEED to be in office. Times have changed

New policy came out this week that all government departments should be working towards 60% office attendance over the next few months!

Same for most central goverment departments!

I'm WFH 2 days, 3 in the office. I hate my office days, even though I love my job and get on great with my colleagues. Before lockdown you could not get me out of the office - I was literally the last to leave, the MD practically had to throw me out. COVID meant changing our work patterns, no more paper trails, everything electronic, teams meetings etc and my computer became my best friend.
I know that I am more productive at home, if I have any complicated jobs to process I try to save them for the WFH days, as there are less distractions.
I totally get that some people abuse the privilege -I had a supplier tell me I couldn't contact customer services because they were 'bloody sitting in their bedrooms' (guess where I was working at the time?)
The people taking advantage at home are the ones normally chatting at the water cooler or nipping for a smoke break every hour in the office.

I love wfh. And I’m an adult and can be trusted not to be skiving in my pjs all day.

I could WFH 100% if I wanted to, but actually go into the office most days. I’ve “only” been doing my job for 8 months and feel a bit isolated when alone at home - I like having other people around me.

Is it better though for people who don't have office space at home? And stuck in a corner trying to make sure everyone else is quiet Or newcomers to the job that aren't getting support as they would in an office

It works for my partner who has over 40 years experience in the workplace. Might not work so well will someone new to the world of work

I'm not so sure it supports local businesses.

In the last couple of years, our village has lost ALL of it's remaining small shops/cafes etc. They managed to survive the covid lockdowns and restrictions, but despite people presumably being WFH, the village has basically been dead for the last couple of years - far quieter than it used to be. About a year ago, we lost our Spar shop, then six months ago, the post office closed, and a couple of weeks ago, the sandwich shop/bread shop closed down. So, we're left with nothing.

Same story with our nearest small town, which used to have a couple of cafes, a few shops, etc - the main street is now mostly boarded up.

So much for helping local businesses!

I suspect, the reality is that it's helping local businesses in London suburbs where they already had an active local business community. It's certainly not stopping the rot in regional towns and villages.

I have been trying to find a new job with mandated office days for a while now and no joy.

Agree it is lonely - especially if you have a new job / move to a new area / live alone / live in a flatshare / have a bad manager / have a bereavement / spend your evenings and weekends studying for professional exams.

I also have a worse work/life balance now and would say it seems everyone is working longer hours.

Saying “just go into the office” isn’t helpful because more often than not there’s nobody there!

It seems to work if you have family though. And the WFH brigade are very quick with the “BuT wHaT aBoUt My ChIlDrEn” if you dare say you don’t like it..!

Jealousy

Lack of control (and therefore bad management)

Blaming WFH for poor customer service (when it's simply a lack of staff, and well trained staff).

I'm much more productive wfh and much happier too.

I feel really sad for people who can't meet their own emotional needs except through the office. There but for the grace of God etc.

But they need to move with the times. The office was a blip in human history and we are never going back to 2019 ways.

How is it a lack of staff when you ring someone for help and they specifically tell you they cannot help you BECAUSE they are working from home.
An IT person told me they could not access what they needed to to fix my problem because they were working from home and could only do it later in the week when they were back in the office. How is that due to lack of staff? Even if there was 100 staff at home they could not help me if what they needed was in the office. But 1 staff member in the office could have helped me. Its not always a staffing issue. It's that some jobs cannot be fully done from home. That's just a fact. Not jealousy. I had no idea the guy was working from home until he told me. So if the job had been done and he had fixed my problem I'd have been none the wiser that he was even at home. I couldn't care less where someone is working. As long as the job can actually be done from wherever they are!

Some professions cant be done in isolation.

I learnt so much by overhearing senior colleagues on the phone when junior. Always someone to ask.

I can't imagine how I'd manage now when none of the senior partners can be arsed to come in and juniors have the option of empty offices or home.

You're alright Jack though?

I feel it is sad for women especially to want no life away from home.

Centralised offices, mostly in London WERE a blip, but offices in general weren't.

It's only a few decades ago that there were offices in every town, insurance offices, tax offices, banks/building societies, solicitors, accountants, etc etc. Some towns and small cities even had head offices of national firms, such as Provincial who had their head office in the small Cumbrian town of Kendal, plus lots of local building societies had head offices in small towns.

It was the 80s and 90s where "local" offices were closed and centralised in a handful of big cities, but mostly London. Then Brown in the noughties started the closure of local town centre tax offices!

The centralisation into London is partly what caused London to overheat in terms of housing shortages, transport costs/congestion, higher wages needed, etc etc.

At least when there were lots of offices in town centres, it helped "spread" the workers across the country and fuelled local spending in High Street shops etc., not just lunches, but "proper" shopping for groceries, clothes, household goods, etc.

Agreed, I learned so much by osmosis when I was in the office, in terms of technical knowledge and professional skills. That just doesn’t happen anymore! You can train up new starts on processes but it’s not possible for a partner/senior manager to impart years of knowledge by email or Teams message. It’s a shame.

Also agree it’s women being disadvantaged by WFH. Men go into the office now “for a break” and I bet if you asked them the pros of working from home they would never say being able to do washing or hoovering!

Yep, my son has just started a professional training contract in a top 10 UK firm. He already has to spend time in his flat doing his own training etc for exams in evenings and weekends. He only needs to go into the office 2.5 days per week, but he goes in every day in the hope of actually meeting some of the other staff and getting some on the job training/mentoring. He despairs that most days, he's the only one there in his department and that he has almost to plead with some of his colleagues who are WFH to actually give him some work and/or some training. He had to move to a new city because there are no jobs/employers in his chosen profession within commuting distance of home. So he's in a new city, no local friends, barely seeing any of his new work colleagues - it's a pretty miserable existence for him really. His only "friend" as such is an intern on his Uni "year in industry placement" who works in a different dept - they've only got together because they kept seeing each other wandering around the virtually empty floor of their office building, looking lost, depressed, but "hopeful" that they may each find someone to talk to!! The intern is in the same position, a couple of hundred miles away from home and Uni and his friends, and also pretty miserable.

Well like we keep saying it depends on the profession and the role. Most of my jobs, including around 80% of my current role, absolutely can be done in isolation (and are better for it). (The other 20% involves collaboration, which is perfectly possible via messaging and video calls, and travel.) On the other hand DP's profession can be done from home at a push but no one would ever say it was ideal.

And the other thing I keep saying is that WFH enables people to have a life away from home - instead of the work-commute-home-sleep-commute-work hamster wheel draining all your energy, you actually free up so much more time to socialise with friends and do hobbies.

(An industry where you get ahead by eavesdropping on other people's phone conversations sounds bizarrely inefficient. If I don't know how to do something I ask directly... which is more efficient to do via email anyway.)

@enchantedsquirrelwood

Blaming WFH for poor customer service (when it's simply a lack of staff, and well trained staff).

No, that doesn't wash when I have no problem in getting to speak with customer service staff, but when you do, they can't help with your problem. That's not lack of staff. I get frustrated because they nearly always have a reason why they can't help, usually being "the internet's just gone down", or "my laptop has crashed", or they cut you off when you hear the doorbell ring, or the dog bark, or the child cry. There are major problems in terms of technology and "family" interruptions.

Not only tech failures either, I often get the response that they don't know how to do something and there's no-one there to show them how to do it. At least in an office, if they can't do something, they could call someone over to do it.

It's far too easy to blame staff shortages, but in many cases, that's not the issue at all!

I can see that some roles don't lend themselves to remote working but lots do. In my experience, the managers/directors who are most vocally against WFH (and reduced hours/part time working etc) are those that are very disorganised and bad at delegation. If staff spend most of their time at a desk in the office it's pretty easy to drop tasks on someone at the last minute and expect them to stay late to complete the work, rearrange internal meetings with no notice etc. If people work remotely or part time hours you have to delegate properly and give people a sensible amount of notice.

I would encourage him to meet friends outside of work. There are plenty of ways. Sports clubs. Hobbies. Local community events. Parties.

I actively didn't want my colleagues to be my friends when I started out in my 20s. Definitely wanted to keep my professional life separate from what I got up to at the weekends.

Ironic that you're alright jacking when you fail to acknowledge the way that the office based model, though it benefitted you, fucked over other people. It works both ways!

And really, conflating working away from home with life away from home is asking for trouble. People are different. No doubt you'd chafe if someone said it was tragic that you placed such value on spending time with people merely because you happened to do your wage labour at the same organisation as them. As adults, we should really be able to not find it sad that someone doesn't want to order their life the same way as we do.

But was anyone truly fucked over by being in the office 5x a week? Or was it just annoyances and bad employers?

Yes. Full time office work as the normal standard excluded and discriminated against whole cohorts of people. It meant people who couldn't do that because of their neurodiversity, caring responsibilities, geographical location away from job markets, disability... they all miss out. These are structural reasons, going well beyond mere annoyance.

You're not alone in not having clocked this, though. Barely anyone bothered talking about it until pretty recently. Those people weren't noticed because they were never there in the first place. Luckily, the availability of more fully remote options now means they have more opportunities.