To be losing the will to live with staff who chosen a job with a long commute & then complain about it

[Benibidibici]

I work in a well paid industry - think 6 figure salaries.

We've made really clear through hiring processes that roles are hybrid, not remote, we as a team really get a lot from collaborative working so we expect 2 days a week in the central office. There's flex about which days but we ask that people try to mostly hit the core days of tues/weds/thurs. As a line manager I'm not watching the clock and we are happy to play around with what time people start & finish - eg. One guy leaves at 4.30 to collect his kids by 5.30 & this is fine.

We've hired 3 people this year and made all this clear and they're all grumbling about their commutes and regularly asking to come in less. We offer what we can in terms of flexibility but when we insist we need them in 2 days, they are basically sulking. Its clear one of them in particular never had any intention of coming to the office more than a day or so every 2-3 weeks and expected to get away with remote working.

Its really frustrating. We were honest about what we needed and people just seem to think they can insist.

Why do people do this? One lady has moved 2 hours from our city 3 years ago, and during that time consistently keeps applying for and taking jobs here rather than in the large city where she now lives. Her husband also works in our industry and between them they'll have an income of £200k plus, so they aren't forced to live in a cheaper area.

Its really shit for me to have to go through the unpleasant process of monitoring people's attendance & imposing formal consequences etc (I'm not that kind of manager at all) because they took a job they don't want to turn up for.

What can I do to stop people doing this?

The wisdom of this entirely depends on how replaceable staff are. If OP's business depends on highly skilled labour they may be better off amending their policies😂

It's a labour market - clue is in the name. It's ALL negotiable.

I can believe it's true in your job, as there are vast disparities in what employers are able to do. But you really can't be assuming it's the norm. Which is essentially what you're doing when you suggest it to OP with no caveats about whether the staff would actually tolerate it, and when you say managers who aren't able to get away with that must be bad at their roles. The fact is that lots of us would regard that kind of brass neck from a manager with amusement, and would be laughing our way into a new, remote job.

I don't think he's stuck working it... he's happy to work it because they backed down on their "get in the office" demands because they knew they couldn't replace him, and because the job is very well paid. I'll have to ask him if he's had a pay-rise or not. If he's not being paid the market rate he'll go find another job, and if the market goes massively south he'll take a year or two off work like he did a few years ago. If you are incredibly well paid due to being highly skilled you can do that.

@Benibidibici this is just a little point, but if your job advertisements only use the term "hybrid" then quite a lot of people won't know what you mean by that term. Yes you are combining two different elements, but I am sure that there must be some reasonably intelling people who don't use that description themseves, so they just unconsciously dismiss it.

For those who do understand that the two different elements in this case refer to both working in the office sometimes, and working from wherever (including from their own home), unless you stipulate that the working in the office has to happen on two days every week, then they might not realise that is compulsary to do so - maybe you could actually* use the word compulsary and every week in your future adverts? Lastly, I agree with a pp when they advised that you actually choose the two days * it needs to be, and stick to it.

Agree @Itwasafterallallaboutme I think part of the problem is that hybrid can cover a really wide spectrum of arrangements.

I'm a SP and I LOVE the office 3 days a week. I usually WFH Thursday and Fridays but could WFH all week if I wanted. I get so much from being in the office (and I'm glad I'm sat at my desk with a lovely canteen downstairs). l need the structure and routine of getting up, putting office clothes on and going in. I usually leave at 3 and sign back on at home for a couple of hours to avoid the traffic.

I don't do household or childcare tasks whilst WFH. I do get a lunchtime walk in some of the time but my job is quite full on.

I know my job very well but it's nice to listen to what others do differently/have lunch together/joke about things. The ones that work in the office feel much more part of a team than the ones at home all day every day in their dressing gowns.

I think WFH disadvantages women and ND people. I struggled so badly at home with dc and my adhd during lockdown.

how is that collaboration can only happen in person? May be you need to look at upskilling ? Plenty of collaboration tools available. Going by your narrative, it appears like a tech company. I work in tech and we are a very flexible, remote first organisation. Our design teams are top notch (design led org) and have no issues collaborating, they run design workshops, ux research etc online and its great!

I see your point though, if they signed up to 2 days in office and then sulk, you need to have a chat and lay out consequences on the table.

Teams training is shite. And meetings. I can't concentrate or take that information in, I see so many people in meetings with their cameras off and not joining in. Hosting training online is also difficult as you're not able to move around, ice breakers etc aren't the same.

Working together and being part of team, socialising and all that relationship building that goes on in person cannot be replaced by a screen. Staring at screens all day without social breaks, in person meetings, in person training, coffee breaks with people etc is draining and not productive for lots of people. It's nothing to do with buildings needing to be kept heated. Don't you think all the bankrupt LAs would close their buildings to save money if working from home actually worked long term for the majority?

You are missing the point. When we are learning about work a great deal of what we learn is by observation.

Juniors watch how seniors interact or behave with other team members and with clients. They watch and hear how we communicate with them and learn about the clients and interactions.

They don't see IM conversations I have with a client or other leads or the Teams based one to one chats. They do see and hear them when we are colocated.

Key relationships at work are not build on documented conversations with an agenda they are built on the casual conversations and learning which are accelerated by being able to see a great many of them and participate in them whilst working.

The idea that every casual "water cooler" type conversation should be documented and circulated is for the birds. Even if we tried to do this (apart from the privacy issues) they would not see the "how" of it.

Our juniors are some of the most technically able on the market but the speed they learn in groups rather than solo with IM is staggering.

I have found the opposite. Younger people are actively rejecting home working roles as they want the social side of being in the office. I know mid 20’s DD and many of her friends are job hunting as working from home is too isolating.

I’m not missing the point, I’m telling you
that isn’t what the world I work in is like.

Every meeting we have at my work is hybrid. In the 21st century office everyone has to learn how to deal with that. Last week I have a presentation to the board and some of the board members were remote. When we have client meetings they are hybrid.

I speak to my team continuously whether at home or in the office because if something occurs to us we can put it in an IM just as easily as saying it out loud. If you aren’t looping in your junior staff members in these conversations that’s a you problem, not a WFH problem.

@Titicacacandle my LA is repurposing part of their offices as a community centre since they don’t need the office space any more. And scheduling virtual coffee catch-ups is a thing.

You say ‘we as a team get a lot from collaborative working’. What do you mean by this? Are you equating collaboration with being face to face? And are you sure your team actually feel they are getting a lot out of meeting in person because it sounds, from their actions as if they actually don’t value this. Can you be more specific about who values face to face and why collaboration can only take place this way?

I guess what you do about this depends on a) how much power/flex you have wrt the organisations approach to wfh and b) how much you need these people. If these are skilled people, who are doing a good job, then you would be wise to be as flexible as possible in your approach. They may have other options available to them and recruitment is expensive! I would focus more on the outcome of people’s work rather than the way they work.

OP, is it worth having a group meeting and discussing the issues and the expectation that 2 days a week is non negotiable? And there may be consequences if people do not adhere to what they need to do?

This is UNDOUBTEDLY the biggest problem with WFH... but surely it's kind of irrelevant?

Or rather what I mean it is irrelevant other than the fact that your business' junior staff want and need as many older colleagues in the office as possible, as often as possible... and therefore, other things being equal, you need to increase the pay of senior staff to ensure that they are willing to come into the office more than they would ideally do.

Maybe WFH is teaching companies that they can no longer treat training as something that senior staff have to do constantly, even if it is not a specific part of their job and even if it means them staying late to do work they didn't doing before 5pm because they were talking a junior through a complex issue. Maybe WFH is teaching companies that they need to specifically go out of their way to find the money to train junior staff members (whether that is much more classroom based training, or by bribing senior staff whatever it takes to given up 3 hours a day to a horrid expensive commute.)

I feel your pain OP, it gets so boring doesn't it!

The people I have issues with in my team actually live really close to the office! Also having had to have a lot of conversations with people over their lack of office attendance over the last couple of years I have found there is a high correlation with poorer performance, bad attitudes and other areas of misconduct eg mysteriously not being available for long periods of the day - not many are model employees in every other respect at all, and the idea that they're more productive at home is generally false in my experience.

We have set days each month as required by the policy which we agreed as a team. We tell people before they start. They all agree to come in those days - they still try not to. Result - I have a lot of really boring conversations with them and have to spend my time monitoring their attendance. We use our team days to do collaborative in person things, the won't come to the office people join virtually.... and then complain it's not the same as being in the room with everyone! And we sometimes go out to lunch together or eat our lunches together/have a set team tea break (on work time).... they complain they're being left out and they feel isolated 🤷🏽‍♀️

There were people like this even back in the day when you were in at least 4 days a week because of the time and expense for trains.

If the role is hybrid and they take issue then surely they don't pass probation?

That's just plain empirically wrong. There's a shitload of sociological data coming in demonstrating how women have been negatively impacted by the wfh craze. In a nutshell, men have gone back to the office to a much higher extent than women. As a result, domestic workloads end up permanently skewed compared to pre-Covid times, and women lose out on crucial networking opportunities and hence, professional advancement.

OP you're completely in the right here. You need to crack down consistently and actually sanction absentees. Agree on fixing specific days in rhe office, both for ease of enforcement and also to maximize collaborative benefits. There may also be other things you can do to optimize the environment. Creativity is fostered if colleagues have a chance to interact informally - the famous watercooler effect. Also, sorry, hotdesking pretty much universally has a negative effect, and if you're moving to fixed days may not be sustainable anyway.

I WFH. A 12% pay rise still wouldn’t cover my commuting costs. So no, I doubt he has lost out. If salaries for in office jobs rise enough I’m sure people will go back. I’d need way way way way more than 12% to get me back to the office. My husband has also had a bigger pay rise than that and he also WFH so this just doesn’t compute in any case.

I find it interesting that so many office workers believe they know more about productivity than their employers ?

As to WFH or its variations is the future of work ? it seems noone including software engineers have heard of AI ? or the impact this will have in the next one or two years on all these jobs, especially software engineering ? I fear that many of the commentators on this thread will be finding out non-WFH jobs such as Police, delivery and taxi drivers will be all that is available !

Sorry but I really hate when I hear "WFH benefit women and the office benefit men"

Men need to share caregiving responsibilities!!!! Women are part of the workforce. Men need to do their share at home/ parenting etc.
We are in the 21st century

My friend is leaving a hybrid position like this after six months. She drives 120 miles one day a week because the employer arranges all meetings that day everyone is expected to attend. It never happens, her team dodge it again and again. Its really not good practice but her employers let it slide then complain about productivity.

Covid has changed things

I think the problem is that fully remote roles tend to pay less than roles that are hybrid or require full time office attendance. In my industry you take a 20% pay cut for a fully remote role. So accepting a hybrid role with a higher salary and then refusing to come in as directed is trying to play the system.

I don't think this is just about WFH. In my experience people tend to say whatever they think is needed to get the job, hoping that they can change the job to fit their criteria once we've got it.

In my line of work we have two kinds of jobs:

• apples - this is the standard job that most people want and have trained for
• oranges - this has a different balance of work, without some of the elements that many people find attractive.

Both jobs have equal ts and cs opportunities to progress, in fact it is marginally easier to progress on the oranges route.

When we advertise oranges jobs, it is very clear what the balance of work is. We really spell out what the expectations are as part of the interview process. People apply for them, swear blind it is their dream job, do brilliant interviews where they give a million examples of how committed they are to oranges.

80% of people ask to transfer to apples (which is not possible) within a month or two of starting. They then spend the rest of their time with us complaining that they are not apples. It's very frustrating.

We are being pushed to go in three days a week, with this same suggestion start late/finish early.
I've a commute of an hour, so it means I have to shorten my working hours during the day, just to travel to the office.
I have a global role, so to liaise with the US etc , Then I end up having to work most evenings to catch up on the work /calls in the evening. So I end up working more evenings than before because of commuting to the office.

Im still going in two days, even though all my direct reports are remote/in different offices, so still spend all day on Teams calls, just so I can be seen in the office!