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?

I am not going to disagree with you.

On the other hand maybe PR is the sort of job whereby the job is only suitable for those for whom 2 or 3 big nights a week or month, where you are "kinda working" is a great part of a great work / life balance?

As I say, I fully support people's right to get paid when they are where their boss requires them to be... but I can see how occasionally it is a little more complex.

For eg... staff goes to event as required... you pay them until 11 when the show's over. They end up going back to the stars hotel and partying until 6am and demand another 7 hours pay. What do you do? You had no expectation that they would, and they got drunk and had amazing fun, but on the other hand they were tired and promise they did it solely for the businesses' benefit. The client's manager calls up the next day and says what a wonderful new junior you have and that they've been considering switching agencies but the star is now certain he wants to stay with you.

Defying your manager is kinda part of negotiation if you don't believe she is going to discipline you!

TrashedSofa
I take your point in general, but then complaining, refusing to attend, and being awkward about doing the job you're employed is trying to change things after accepting.

That last paragraph is half right.

NO, we negotiate before accepting and after accepting. If someone wants to WFH they have two choices... get a WFH job or get and non-WFH job and try to negotiate it into a WFH job any which legal way you can.
The key words there are TRY and LEGAL. They're not entitled to accept a hybrid role and then be awkward and refuse to work a hybrid work pattern because they'd rather work from home.

If they want to put a flexible working request in and do things by the book they can, but in the meantime they have to do the job they've actually accepted until such a time they have a WFH role. Aka if they want a WFH role they need to have a WFH role, not a hybrid role that they're refusing to do.

We have set days on a rota and they are sent out to us
If we don't attend (excluding stuff like train issues/emergencies) then we are added to the rota for the additional days the following week
And that's a min wage job!

@AnonnyMouseDave that is absolutely the case. It's not something you have to be doing all the time - in our case it's maybe 4 or 5 times a year. As you rightly said , don't go into PR or indeed any of the creative industries if you are a timesheet clock watcher. You might get the job but you won't get on in it. That simply is the nature of the game. I have a friend who is a sound engineer- he will charge for specific studio time but spends many many un chargeable hours tinkering with things out of choice and pleasure.

The same is true of this thread in general- do not apply for hybrid jobs if your sole intention is to WFH and you have made your family arrangements if it was. You are messing businesses around - apply for WFH jobs or at least discuss at interview if 1 day a fortnight etc would work for them.

It's all very well someone who is say an accountant or a lawyer saying they can fully do their job from home and bill for every minute but many many industries and even public service
simply do not work that way.

Even many many years ago when I worked in HR/recruitment I was occasionally interviewing people who could only come in 'after work in their current job' - I didn't claim time in lieu or overtime- it was simply accepted that occasionally it was part of the job .

Don't think anyone has discussed discretionary labour yet? People typically trade flexibilities?

The NHS would grind to a complete halt tomorrow morning if nobody worked “for free”. It runs on goodwill and people working over and above their contracted hours.

That’s because the NHS is under resourced. That is not a good thing. I would like doctors and nurses to be able to go home and be with their families when their shift is over and to have a good work life balance, to be well-rested and happy instead of stressed and tired and overworked.

Even the NHS does not in practice operate with a single monolithic set of standards. As before, it is mediated by the relative scarcity of skills, and the relative power of different groups, whether employees or contractors. Perhaps the persistence of telephone appointments is a sort of parallel?

@Rabiz I agree with that, actually. It's a balance, and can depend.

Ask anyone who works in any part of the NHS if it runs on goodwill and they’ll tell you exactly the same thing. There’s a scarcity of just about any skill you could name. According to pp on this thread this means that people in areas of scarce skills can dictate their own terms - odd that clinicians and other healthcare workers do so altruistically. It’s almost as if their motivation isn’t primarily financial.

We're all just trading different things with varying degrees of leverage, wether personal or collective. Could be wages, could be job security, could be intrinsic meaning and satisfaction, could be flexibility, could be pension terms, could be social standing/kudos, could be progression prospects.

Before Covid it was employers who took the piss so at least it’s balanced now.

Ah, another old chestnut trotted out.

Call centre and customer service workers can work remotely, and we hear frequent complaints on MN that they have the temerity to do so. Dentists and NHS consultants can't. Presumably you know which ones get paid more, but perhaps it's the call centre workers who are being elitist.

It's evidently ok for people who have leverage to use it to get higher pay and pensions though, but if they want to use it to have a say in where they work then all of a sudden that becomes a problem.

When thinking about low paid workers who are the greatest benefit to society call centre and customer service workers wouldn’t be the first thing to spring to most people’s mind. I was thinking of health and social care workers, supermarket staff, delivery drivers - those low paid people who have no choice but to go out to work and without whom we’d be stuffed.

You just meant those low paid workers who were convenient to your argument, yes. That much was clear. Hence you also ignored all the jobs that have to be done in person and are much better paid than average.

And you've some cheek posting that after you called others elitist. Call centre and customer service workers are an essential part of keeping basic services and systems functioning. If your water, gas, internet or electric goes off, it'll be a customer services worker who you speak to as you try and get it resolved. If there's a problem with your bank account, customer service. If you have to deal with the estate of a loved one after they die, customer service. We'd be stuffed without them, even though some of them do commit the cardinal sin of doing their jobs in their homes.

You just meant those low paid workers who were convenient to your argument

Of course I did! And you did exactly the same. I was talking about people who have to leave home to work. I didn’t say call centre workers aren’t important, just that they wouldn’t be the first most people would think of in a debate about low paid essential workers. Just about all the examples you give are dealt with online these days by the way - speaking to a human is virtually impossible.

we have similar massive recruitment drive a few years ago
I work for one of the utilities weekend work part of rota and we can only safely work in daylight
Endless request for compressed hours and not to work weekends
many admit they had no intention of working weekends or 5 day weeks thought once they had the foot in the door and company had trained them the company would bend on this

Nah, I didn't. Because your argument is a (poor) generalisation whereas my argument is that we shouldn't generalise in the first place. And really, hiding what you think behind vague claims you can't possibly back up about 'most people' holding a view won't wash either. Also, do you think customer service staff don't work online?

Ultimately, what you wrote was nonsensical, and reads like an extended, cloud shouting whinge about workers having leverage.

Goodness you are taking this incredibly personally @TrashedSofa. What I said wasn’t remotely nonsensical or whinging, you just don’t agree with me.

And yet you haven't actually been able to counter it, hence the swerve to ooh you're taking it personally. So transparent.

It was you who turned it personal with Ultimately, what you wrote was nonsensical, and reads like an extended, cloud shouting whinge about workers having leverage.
There’s nothing there to counter. We disagree and always will, it’s pointless continuing now.

@rwalker I don't know which utility you refer to, but I see no evidence of weekend working, especially anything needing a road to be dug up. Though the wish to avoid weekend working and the requests only coming after training do not surprise me one bit.

That's not personal. It relates only to what you wrote, which is more than can be said for some of the comments you've made in the thread. To that end, it's quite obvious why you chose this particular point to try this particular tactic.

Again, do you pay double time on the weekends? If people are reluctant to work antisocial shifts, it’s a sign that you are not adequately incentivising them.

It’s perfectly normal that people would rather be with their families at the weekend.

Again, do you pay double time on the weekends? If people are reluctant to work antisocial shifts, it’s a sign that you are not adequately incentivising them.
That would make sense at the recruitment stage or situations where an organisation might need to fill gaps in weekend staffing from people who currently work Monday-Friday.

But they're talking about people applying for AND ACCEPTING a job with weekend working and then once they're in the door being awkward about it because they never intended to work weekends. If they don't want to work weekends, they shouldn't have applied for a job that has weekend working!

Saying "but do you pay enough, do you incentivise them" is silly because they knew what they were applying for. Even college students in their first job seem to work out that applying for a Saturday job with advertised weekend hours will mean working weekends, or students working in bars understand that when they accept evening shifts it will involve working evenings. It's not a difficult concept to grasp but some adults are either too stupid to realise weekend working means they'll work on weekends, or for some reason seem to think they're entitled to behave like petulant children to try and get what they want.