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 am civil servant with a long commute - as a manager I do find it easier to get things done and ensure quality when I am in office, I haven't found that Teams and Sharepoint have improved the collaborative working experience.

I think that depends on your working culture though, I left a job predominantly working from home where I had very little contact with my team because everyone was busy getting on with the job. That did feel isolating and I missed having people to bounce ideas off of. It was a team that moved to remote working for Covid but never really changed the way we worked.

My new role there’s a culture of working remotely, people use Teams very effectively to chat, if Teams shows you being available the assumption is they can call you as hoc, the culture is to speak rather than sending endless emails. It feels much more connected than previous roles with lots of informal collaboration - lots of quick check ins about ideas etc.

I think part of the mistake is thinking that teamwork should look the same regardless of the change in working environment and practices.

I really like the flexibility of choice the WFH option gives. I'm in most days because I live near, I like the facilities and atmosphere at work and am a bit cramped at home. But if I've got a cold, or it's snowing - or I overslept!! - it's brilliant to be able to have that option.

Many of my colleagues were recruited and trained online during lockdown and began on a WFH basis. Some live a fair distance away, allowing for a wider talent pool. And we include several with disabilities that make travel, being away from their own bathrooms and not having their home set ups etc difficult.

Some of my colleagues I've hardly ever met and don't really know. Others I frequently see are mates. The social piece matters and is a key drive to bring people back.

Our youngest recruits spent a chunk of their schooling at home and missed out on that in many ways, so they do benefit from getting into office life, networking, sitting with Nellie, observing, informal coaching and mentoring opportunities etc. And in some cases, sadly, learning how to socialise.

Yes, there are some piss takers. I always ensure I'm on the ball with Teams messages and calls and emails, being there and available when needed, not mysteriously uncontactable. That's what winds me up - when you know the person you're sharing a task with is actually taking the dog out, occupied with children, or just slowing down because nobody's there.

I'm easily distracted and when there's the garden, the bathroom needs cleaning, partner suggesting a quick nip out for coffee, the TV etc etc etc - well, it's more of an effort to stay focussed!

I do think there is an element of hierarchy going on, too - the kings want their courts back around them, and the queen bees want their hives ...

Every word of this.

The problem is that people think their experiences and those of people they know are the default. So wfh is bad for young workers because the person making the claim would've hated it or knows someone who does, meanwhile no thought at all for young workers who have more opportunities now due to the greater availability of fully remote working.

The answer is always, it depends.

I could've written this.

I'm in the Civil Service, and the announcement of 60% office attendance has caused havoc.

I've worked in a few CS department now, started at this one in August this year. Since then, at the office I have spoken to one lady on my wider programme, twice, for less than 5 minutes. No one I actually work with is based in my (absolutely huge) office. This is true for the majority of my team.

So what value is there to coming in? All my meetings are still online, because my team are based across the UK.

My job advert clearly stated an expectation of 40% office attendance (so 2 days when you're full time) so before I applied, I made sure I calculated finances and that I could afford the train travel.

Now the goalposts have been moved, again, and the extra day's travel will wipe out the still-way-under-inflation pay rise they just finally agreed to after years of negotiations. Meanehile, our rent climbs again in Jan. It's just constant instability.

And yet, their Expenses policy still encourages those who are arranging and travelling further for in-person meetings, to 'consider whether the event/meeting could be done virtually to save carbon impact'. The hypocrisy and irony really is ridiculous.

I was always dead against wfh (for myself not others) as I wanted to keep work and home separate. Obviously Covid changed that and I realised that I would never choose to work for a company that insisted on frequent office attendance again.

We have a hybrid work environment and go in on the days we have to e.g. team meetings are much better face to face, but I get absolutely nothing done when I'm there. At home, unless I'm in meetings, I tend to work in hour blocks where I am completely focused, and take a break in between to run the hoover round or prep dinner.

But that's fine because I'm saving the best part of 3 hours a day on the commute so even with breaks during the day work actually get more time out of me. It also means that evenings and weekends are now proper downtime as the chores are done. It works so much better

People are different and so are jobs (obviously 😃)

my office request everyone in one day a week, some jobs mean that some people are in every day, some have to work 2 days for the needs of the business, some people like to come into the office everyday and they do

i work 1 day in the office and two at home and i am more productive at home. I like going to the office as its a really lovely team. I do work an hours commute from home and if they wanted me in 3 days a week I would leave as I don’t want to do that every day

we use the same equipment to work from home as we do in the offices and funnily enough noise wise my house is silent but i do have the occasional customer complain about noise when I am in the office

i do agree that some things are lost, its weird to me that i can’t just ring or pop to another department but i have been out of office work for 24 years and we have hundreds of employees so maybe that would have been different anyway

and i also agree that wfh doesn’t work with newbies, i feel my son has missed out with the whole office experience

I agree with both points, especially the second one. In the office, my line manager can see if I’m just having a work related catch up with someone and that’s why I’m away from my desk. However, if the ‘away’ sign is on too long and I’m working from home I feel self conscious that they might think I’m skiving. Generally, I’m doing something like research so I’m reading through things and it’s still work related but I worry it looks as though I’m slacking off.

I also think people take more breaks than they realise in the office. It’s when you pop over to ask a colleague a quick question and 30 minutes later you’re still talking about cruises and grandkids. 4 coffee breaks and a lunch break definitely adds up too.

All of this is bang on the money. All the faux-concern for younger people WFH in cramped house shares, instead of coming up with some fresh ideas to solve the housing crisis. But no, let's let them carry on being drained by their landlords and COL crisis, and expect them to blow whatever's leftover on even more travel.

They seem to forget that they've hired people even within the same teams from all over the country. So instead of forcing them all to spend their time and money travelling to an office 3/5 days a week to sit alone in the same teams calls, it would be far more beneficial to encourage less travel, but more 'valuable' attendance. For example more whole-team events and away days.

Like you @gannett I've networked most effectively at conferences and collaboration days. Not sat at a desk surrounded by people that have nothing to do with my work, while I'm struggling to hear in my Teams calls, and panic about my train home being cancelled yet again.

Absolutely hated it when I was forced to do two weeks during Covid when I had to quarantine.

A simple enquiry to a colleague that would be a ten second exchange at work became 10 minutes of small talk on the phone, every single time.
Never left the house. Obviously I was quarantining so couldn’t, but DH works from home and some (most in winter) days he never sets foot out of the front door.
Didnt take proper breaks because it was too easy to just grab a drink or sandwich and keep working.
Often worked later because didn’t realise the time.
Too many interruptions from the phone ringing, window cleaners, parcel deliveries etc.
No real human interaction with colleagues, again, quarantine was an issue, but DH sees his colleagues maybe one every couple of months, some days the only other human he sees, is me.
People assuming because you’re at home you can do xyz for them. DH gets this all the time.
No sense of walking away on Friday evening and leaving it all behind till Monday. The work was sat in the office and the temptation to just nip in and do this before I forget was huge.
Massive guilt if I was t constantly working. Right now I’m at work, mumsnetting. Don’t feel guilty because I’m here, and available if anyone needs me. At home I felt I had to be at it all the time, not so at work.

Nope, not for me at all. Thank god I’m in an industry that went into work during Covid. I’d have gone stark staring bonkers if I couldn’t.

This point comes up quite a lot on here, but the thing is that wanting a particular type of service doesn't actually mean you can have it, especially not for the price you want to pay.

Phone based customer service type roles usually aren't that well paid, and they're also inflexible in that set hours need to be covered. In our tight labour market, it's more difficult to recruit for roles like that than it used to be, and employers aren't necessarily in a position to be able to make their staff work in person. That sort of role doesn't pay enough and isn't cushy enough for the sector to be able to make staff incur travelling and childcare costs any more. A lot of places will also be shorter staffed than they were before remote working became so commonplace, which is of course going to make a difference to service quality.

There's a whole bunch of reasons people don't like it:1. I can't do it so no-one should2. Micromanagement (if I can't actually see people working they might not be doing much3. Extroverts (thrive on company)4. People do need human contact - not all the time but at least some of the time to help improve morale, wellbeing and a sense of belonging to the organisation 5. People who are new and/or on a development scheme learn better when they can see and hear how others around them interact and workI think a balance is important - 100% WFH or 100% office-based both have downsides - all bit of both, taking estates capacity into account, is generally best for the majority.

DH is CS and I work for a foreign multi national, so in many respects opposites, but also a lot of similarities. We both follow a hybrid pattern, which we feel fortunate about because without commuting time, we can better share the pick ups and drop offs. DH would prefer to be in the office 100% but that would put a lot of pressure on family life. I prefer hybrid because it give the best of both, IMHO.

We've been discussing the recent CS dictat. He's a team leader and much as it's always been known at some point, people may be required to travel to an office, about half his team have been hired under the current situation and he doesn't think the good ones will stay. Mores the point, his department has six or seven locations, and people have always, even pre-Covid, been able to work from any of them (something at which I always rolled my eyes in comparison to my much more regimented workplace background!). So even if they go into "the office" it might not even be the same office as team mates. Meeting will still be done on Teams. Which begs the question, what's the point?

And they definitely don't have enough desks, they've ditched a whole building just in one city alone.

The one thing we do agree on, and which I think was due to be enforced, is that those in receipt of London allowance, absolutely should be into London. You can't have it both ways. As a taxpayer, I was pretty narked post covid when they were given a huge glide path of time to get back there.

Absolutely this. I don’t work in customer service, but I work with them a reasonable amount. The company I work for has had enormous problems recruiting and retaining contact centre staff since the pandemic. Nobody feels that wfh is great for that role, but the staff want it, and would probably have to be paid unsustainable amounts more to be 100% in the office, so it’s accepted and they try and make it work.

What I don’t understand, when it comes to non-customer facing roles, is why anyone thinks wfh makes a difference to individuals’ productivity. I remember in the old office days, people spending hours playing stupid games, organising “team building” competitions, sweepstakes, browsing the web, wandering around chatting. Remember the old ruse of carrying a clipboard around so you looked busy? Those who actually sat at their desks, did eight hours of work and then went home were in quite the minority. I suspect if you’d carried out large scale time and motion studies at the time, 6 hours of actual productive work in a day would have been above average.

Being charitable, I think some of it is people having noticed that lots of things generally work less effectively than they did pre-pandemic, not limited to customer facing roles, and assuming wfh is the cause because that's the easiest to spot difference between now and 2019. They don't factor in all the other things that have happened since then.

In particular I think a lot of people are still stuck in the get someone else, employer has the power mindset. A lot of people can't get their heads round what happens if there is no 'someone else' and how lots of employers have been made to understand that after multiple rounds of unsuccessful recruitment. As a society we really got very used to being able to rely on a class of poorly paid service workers who are nowhere near as easy to push around now.

They may also not realise how some workers simply can't go into workplaces much/at all any more because the supporting infrastructure, ie public transport and childcare, no longer allows them to do it. If you don't require either of those things, you don't necessarily notice.

Then also some of it is just people being blinkered and refusing to think. I'm always amazed at the number of MN posters who don't seem to have ever encountered anyone taking the piss, doing nothing and actively making others less productive in workplaces before March 2020.

I think you’re right, @TrashedSofa. And I 100% think it’s a positive thing if the workforce as a whole takes back some of its power. If the days of people’s working lives being crappy just to prove that they’re worthy of being paid are over, good. About time. We shouldn’t be grateful for being allowed to exist as long as we slog ourselves to death for the tiny minority at the top.

Trouble is that the ones in the office are the ones who get all the "extras" to do, i.e. train the younger staff, deal with whatever needs doing quickly, etc.

@RufustheFactualReindeer

and i also agree that wfh doesn’t work with newbies, i feel my son has missed out with the whole office experience

My son would agree. He started 3 months ago after graduating and is hybrid 3 days in the office. He hates the 2 days WFH. What's worse is that it's a training contract for professional qualifications where he's given extra days "off" for studying, but those have to be at home too, and come out of the 3 days in the office, so, he's actually only in the office 2 days per week. For some crazy reason he can't use his official WFH days for studying. He says his "on the job" training is very slow as there's often no one in the office (in his dept) to train him on his days in, and they're not easily approachable on his WFH days. He spends a lot of his WFH days doing nothing because there's no work he's been trained to do and no one to train him how to do it!

That's not my experience. For us, work is still shared out evenly between the team.

That sounds not a million miles away from my first graduate job. Nobody was remote working, but they were often elsewhere meeting clients and doing stuff I didn't get taken to, and the availability and willingness of people to actually train me was limited. Quite often I had nothing to do either, and everyone was too busy with their own stuff to give me anything or involve me. On occasions I met outright resentment from people who'd been roped into helping me. The place was wildly understaffed, so I don't even blame my co-workers that much.

So I think it's as much a crap organisation thing as a remote working thing, really. It was awful and depressing though, so I do have a lot of sympathy.

That covers a lot of individual complaints about it.

The micromanagers, bullies, toadys, slackers, incompetents, all thrive in office environments.

With WFH they were forced to produce rather than just walk around being visible at the office while doing very little actual work.

Incompetents couldn't just pass their work off to someone else and schmooze with the boss for promotions. It eliminated the often sexist after work drink and sport sessions.

Men couldn't hide out in their offices and leave late knowing their wives had already put their kids to bed, skipping home life but getting the kudos for putting in such long hours for the family.

I hate WFH for a lot (a lot!) of reasons but for me the worst thing is the isolation. I was signed off for 2 months with anxiety/depression earlier this year and I am completely confident my MH would never have been that bad if not for WFH. It’s not a healthy way to live.

So I’ll likely have to throw away a good career to find something more suitable, it’s annoying.

It's not a healthy way to live....for you.

For me, it's a requirement to allow me to work at all. Yes, I'm autistic, but there are a non-trivial number of people who aren't but still find office environments intolerable - in fact, the majority of people in my career (software developer) find WFH vastly preferable to working in the office because interruptions are both frequent and incredibly costly in terms of productivity.

One company I worked at a number of years ago had all of the IT employment contracts specifying a minimum of 3 days WFH per week, and for some of us it was 5 days with a maximum of two days in the office per month. Then they sold the company and a new CEO came on board who unilaterally decided that WFH was terrible for productivity, and that the old contracts were to be changed. We tried to push back, and tried to warn him about the consequences of doing that, but he just insisted that we were all slacking because he couldn't walk around and see us working.

We all spent a week working in the office (which itself caused problems, because there weren't enough desks), and productivity was around 40% of normal due to both interruptions and environmental factors (he also banned headphones in the office, so there was no way to isolate ourselves to concentrate). Even that didn't convince him - like most people who believe you must be in the office to work properly, he just accused us of slacking on the job to fake it.

Almost the entirety of IT (apart from desktop support) resigned in the three weeks running up to his deadline for the "voluntary" contract changes. They had to outsource, which caused even more problems, and business tanked so hard that they've had three rounds of layoffs since.

My point? Yes, office presence is necessary for some jobs, and for some people, but it's actively harmful for others - both to productivity and to the individuals. Hard rules for all are not helpful.

Speak for yourself.

I am very social and have a busy family life. The ‘isolation’ of WFH 3 days a week does wonders for my mental health.

@Pinkitydrinkity0 your feelings are why I believe everyone who wants to go to an office five days a week should have the option. That is, if it is better for them, not that everyone should be forced to.

I agree with the person who observed about some wanting to be in an office to dodge as many domestic responsibilities as possible.

I never hear men saying this. The men in my office with kids can be seen here loads.

One in particular spends his lunch hour at the pub drinking a pint and having a smoke after. Bet his wife is wfh worrying about the domestic life.

I honestly never hear men shirking office days for the good of the family and chores.

Wfh isn't progressive in that sense