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 wouldn't have met my partner if my job was full time wfh, nor some brilliant friends.

But why should people have to work between 9-5. Core hours for meetings sure, but around that flexi working. A lot of organisations have this now (including mine thankfully).

Me also. It is clear when on calls that large numbers of supposed professionals working from home have distractions, being children or pets. None of which are what I want to hear on a professional call. Sadly mostly women. I don't believe most of the self-identified efficiencies and improvements. We only have to look at any govt agency during lock down - DVLA, Passport etc or banks to know that none of these organisations could deliver any service. Those customer standards have not improved 2 years on from lock down. This is not OK.

Nah they just want people in front of them so they can people manage. They were absolutely freaking out during covid when their output was quantifiable.

Poor managers are two a penny unfortunately.

But surely again that depends on the job? If your job can be done whenever you want then that's great. Some jobs can only be done 9-5. If I ring the IT department with an issue at 8.30am but they're off doing the school run or washing up the breakfast stuff that isn't helpful to me who now can't see my patients because my computer isn't working! The hours I'm treating patients is 8-5. So I need IT available 8-5. Not 6-7am then 10am-2pm then 6-8pm so they can sort their kids out.
If a job can be done in flexible hours then that's great. But some just cannot. So in those cases those people are being paid 9-5.

@Blackandwhitemakesgrey you snorted when you heard some people work longer hours when at home? Are you genuinely incapable of understanding that's a thing?

I work in a safeguarding role, it's very common for the workload to be unmanageable and for employees to feel the pressure to do more and burn themselves out. Managers always escalate about the need for more staff but with council budgets as they are, there's never enough. When staff WFH the boundaries of work and home can become very blurred. They may feel that responding to emails while sat on the sofa in an evening isn't too bad, but their kids notice... For some (or in particular roles) a boundary between work and home is a good thing.

I have, genuinely, confiscated staff laptops before, and locked them away overnight!

Just to pick up on this from the first page...in my team, we have four senior developers (spread across four countries...) and two apprentices. The apprentices work from the office, everybody else works from home (apart from the lead, who pops into the office an average of one day a week).

The apprentices don't struggle at all - we're always available for pair sessions when they're stuck, and we each take it in turns teaching them. They work for us four days a week, and have the option of working from home for two of those (but they rarely do).

We all effectively extend the working day to include at least the half hour at either end when we'd normally be commuting if we worked in the office, and if it wasn't for that extra hour+ we wouldn't be able to assist the apprentices anywhere near as much and get our own work done.

Well yes obviously

I would presume the reason many people are "chained to a desk" (why is working in an office setting always described as that, I've never heard of anyone being "chained" to anything else, and plenty of other people work eight hour days, five days a week?)

You are effectively tethered to your desk in many office jobs, I think, whether that desk is in an office or at home. In my first office job there was literally no reason to leave your desk unless it was to get a drink or go to the toilet. I felt privileged because I had a role that involved printing things off and filing them - I used to save that up for a treat. The downside of a job that doesn’t need to be done in person is that it’s rare I need to travel to a customer site or other office, so yes, I do often feel ‘chained’ to the desk even if things have improved since that first job.

It’s the main reason I like hybrid. Even if there is no travel on the horizon, I’m not stuck in the same working environment five days a week.

@ntmdino that's fair enough, I imagine it depends a lot on the type of job. My area is safeguarding and involves a lot of people skills/dealing with difficult phone calls/going out to see the public. For example, an inexperienced colleague might not realise they need to ask for help, but in the office we might overhear a conversation and need to go and intervene or subtly steer them in another direction. Our work has a lot of grey areas so being able to bounce ideas off each other is really important. And for lots of staff WFH isn't actually fully WFH, it means basing themselves at home in-between traveling to see the public, which means many of the benefits of WFH are lost anyway (eg we still have to dress smart enough, still have to deal with traffic)

Our management are ok with people WFH occasionally if it works for them, but because of what we do most people want to be in the office. We don't struggle to get them through the door, we struggle with a lack of office space!

I lose so much time to distractions in the office. But at the same time, we have new staff who are learning and need help so it's best for now to be available for them.

In my experience, people/ companies against WFH are because a not insignificant number of employees are using it as an excuse not to have childcare. You cannot (generally) commit to being productive at a company AND at the same time, in the same day, have messy play, and/or play dates and/or simply do a jigsaw.

Must depend on the sector. The managers where I am are people who do their core job and have management responsibility on top- certainly not a full time manager although they're responsible for delivery etc.

The apprentices work from the office, everybody else works from home (apart from the lead, who pops into the office an average of one day a week).

Wow sounds great for the apprentices.

For me personally, I had low morale, more stress, increased executive dysfunction and was micromanaged to a detriment.

I had none of that when I switched to a company that allows me to work from home.

This is why some people are "chained to their desk" though and why those people can't be doing the school run/ going to the gym/ cleaning the house. You say working 9-5 every day isn't natural for humans etc. But occasionally it just needs to be done. Because some jobs (healthcare etc) need other departments be to available when they are needed. So yes there are set hours that people do need to be at their desk/available whether they are at the office or at home. And unfortunately lots of people in those jobs think they should have the same freedoms working from home as those people who have task/workload type jobs when it doesn't matter when it gets done as long as it does.

@Blackandwhitemakesgrey - yes it was funny. And I am a manager. Eventually I just cut out the shit management and found you can call someone better direct. Career opening, that was. I think a lot of people found out who was good at the job and who was not!

Bridgertonned I snorted at the idea that employers want staff back in the office so they don't work from home. It really is not the reason.

Social work (or whatever area you are in) is hugely understaffed. However I would be seriously unimpressed if you 'confiscated' my work laptop. How dare you lock else' laptop away from them.
This heavy handedness is exactly why the public service 'work to rule'/join unions.

I have seen both the research and the data collected by my own employer(s) on this. I've analysed some of it myself. It is, at best, a very mixed picture.

People think they're more productive WFH, but they aren't. The early studies suggesting higher productivity at home haven't held up to ongoing scrutiny. What people do do at home is work longer hours. And a lot of not-very-visible, but very important, stuff gets lost when people are physically isolated from each other. Collaboration and innovation stall, silos get worse, feedback and development drop a lot, people are a lot less connected to and within the organisation. Nobody works alone; we all need relationships to get the job done and fully remote work is not great for them.

I like WFH too. I don't want to be in the office five days. But time in the office really does matter.

From someone who works in that environment

Our systems are the same as in the office so I would still be waiting for it to do something it's shit

If you ring me you will hear no background noise, but if you get my colleagues in the office it will be LOUD and you will hear people talking

We aren't allowed to have children audible at home when we WFH and it would be a disciplinary

Complex stuff I can just ring my manager. And no skiving as our screens, time on lunch/break etc is all recorded. I can't move from my desk unless it's recorded

@ntmdino that might work in your place of work but many young people are horribly isolated wfh all the time - and often don’t live in properties that have the space to wfh either. I would have bloody hated wfh in my 20s!

Should add for me I prefer it because
Immunocompromised and I have less time off sick and with fatigue it helps to be able to get up later
Quieter - I can't hear myself think in the office with everyone talking
Comfort - clothes, temperature, not having to wait for the kettle or microwave or being pestered with questions

Productivity soared for many simply due to the lack of commute. An hour each way is average for London I think. And most trains and buses will be too busy to do anything productive.

I regained a couple of hours a day. I spent some of it on exercise and some of it working. I benefitted and so did my employer (and the environment).

I've been able to WFH for about 6 years and I prefer working in the office. I get slowly disengaged from work when WFH the whole time. I really need the social interaction. DH on the other hand loves WFH.

Things I don't get WFH:
The chats that happen at work when you overhear a colleague talking about an issue and can join in with your experience.
Having lunch with work friends where you build relationships.
The ad hoc meeting that happens as you walk out of a formal meeting when a member of my team says 'can I have a quick chat' and then you end up having a useful discussion that they didn't want to have in front of the entire team.
Being visible and accessible to younger members of the team who tend to be on site every day.
Overhearing a more junior member of staff making the wrong decision or being indecisive because they're not sure and being able to butt in there and then and help them.
Being easily able to have a quick chat with my boss to sanity check an issue.
Being able to quickly get people together if needed when there's an issue that needs sorting quickly.
Not having to look at screens all the time and being in different rooms and buildings during the day.
Having a definite end to the working day, when WFH I tend to work late into the evening not very efficiently.

@Blackandwhitemakesgrey I'm a manager and I want my newly qualified staff in with the support that brings. I don't want them working excessive hours because they'll burn out and leave after six months. Not sure why that's so hard to understand.

It's very rare for us to have the issue of wanting staff in to keep an eye on skivers, it'd be obvious very quickly if someone wasn't pulling their weight and the consequences would be much more than an irritated manager.

I have kept laptops in the office when requests not to work over have been ignored. Sometimes a break needs to be enforced so people can get a sense of perspective back. Why you think that's a union issue I have no idea. Your posts are rather strange.

I understand the benefits of WFH and I don't think in our department that it has had a major impact on productivity- positive or otherwise. Certainly there has been a much weaker sense of team connection though.

I do think informal collaboration has diminished, and a couple of new starters have been thrilled at our hybrid policy as in their previous roles they onboarded remotely and it was disastrous. We have a policy of being in the office 3 days a week; two of those days must be Mondays and Tuesdays. It helps create a critical mass of having the team there, so it's a great opportunity for meetings, etc. Also, unlike many people on MN, my colleagues and I are not misanthropes 😂 We have a standing "team lunch" on Mondays - come if you want, no expectations at all - and about 90% of the department were present for the last one. We like each other!

FWIW, I go into the office 5 days a week even though only 3 are mandated. I have a 20 minute commute, routine of listening to public radio in the morning and true crime podcasts in the evening which gears me up and winds me down. It also maintains some separation between home and work. I would never apply for a remote-only position.