To think that Boots move to 5 days a week is a step back for workplace equality

[Vistada]

Boots HQ, a predominantly female workforce - has been told they are to be back in the office five days a week from September with no debate and no real solid reasoning (in my view)

https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/boots-to-end-hybrid-working-for-office-workers/

I think the move to hybrid working is amazing for everyone, not just women, in terms of helping to achieve the work/life/parenting balance that has eluded us for so long, but we can't deny women shoulder this juggling act more.

I think this move, and any move back to 5 days in the office (where its really not needed) is a huge step back for workplace equality - and for a male CEO to enforce this just shows how out of touch he is.

You are just showing that you have zero knowledge of what a high level high responsibility role entails

You know nothing about me. And more bragging....really?!

Don’t think that will be an issue long term and across the general population.. If people want to pay their bills they will need to do what is required in the world of work. Only a few very privileged will be able to insist on wfh and risk not working.

Oh, and of course, no one stands around the water cooler chatting, goes on a coffee run to Pret, Starbucks etc, takes a longer lunch on occasion, runs down to the nearest shops for a last minute birthday present etc when they are in the office

Also loving how the wfh crowd are making out that the people who make the effort to go in to work every day are the lazy ones!

Ah, blind faith with nothing to back it up.

But meanwhile, it's evidently happening sometimes now. So what should those organisations do, if they shouldn't be 'held to ransom' but they can't staff the place otherwise? Just manage without workers until this bright new future you speak of comes into being?

Yep, my MH nosedives if I’m not in the office regularly. Sitting in your spare room on your own all day is not normal!

Not seeing this epidemic in the world of work re companies and services unable to fill roles because people want to work from home and would rather be out of work and unable to pay bills than leave the house for work. That doesn’t sound mentally sound which is again an issue aside from WFH.

It’s almost like we want people to be miserable. If waiting for a bus (or, in my case, cycling in the pissing rain) makes someone’s day that bit harder, but they could avoid doing it and still get as much work done, why would you make them do it?

If I were able to work from home, I'd have abs.

Err no, I’m showing that people take time out of their working day in the office to do other things. It’s the same in both environments. I never said that anyone was lazy.

It's so weird reading this as I've been freelance for over a decade and me and my other SE friends have all been massively into our coworking spaces... Anything to avoid the dreaded solo WFH slumps. It's strange to read employees actively want what we spent years trying to mitigate.
It isn't healthy to live, work and sleep under one roof.
If you're at the stage where you would rather lose your job than step outside your house, its time to see a doctor

Bragging?!! Because I said that I won two awards (as evidence of my quality of work and responsiveness). Bragging because I said that I worked 17 hours in a day (as evidence that I am not lazy and that my job needs a lot of flexibility). You seem quite happy to form an opinion about me and everyone else that WFH without knowing anything about us.

But they’re not sorting the problem!

I'm not sure how sitting in an office is more normal than wfh, in the scheme of things. For most of human history people have actually worked from home in some way, as farmers or creating things in a workshop attached to their home. We haven't had mass "offices " for more than about 150 years. It's a factory model which assumes that true work is only done under strict supervision and paid by the amount of time an employee is present. At best it treats employees like dependent children and relies on perks and good salaries to make it worthwhile.
If you think that this is a better model than working as a trusted and independent artisan creating a product that you sell to the highest bidder, you'll love being in offices.

There are people who've talked about it in this thread. It doesn't matter whether you personally have seen it. None of us can possibly have sufficiently wide experience to know what's going on in every aspect of recruitment.

So again, what should a company do if they're faced with this situation? You clearly thought it was a realistic enough scenario to speak about what organisations should do.

But that’s you. I had a very competent colleague in a former workplace that gave up her job because she couldn’t stand working in a noisy open plan office. She was working on highly complex documents for hours on end and the background noise and constant interruption from those around her was too much and destroyed her concentration. It was seriously affecting her mental health so she handed her notice in.

Very much so. Most working humans going into a physical workplace away from their home to do their work is a pretty new development in the grand scheme of things. It didn't come about because its an inherently wonderful or superior model, it came about as more and more work required equipment and setups that couldn't fit in people's homes. There's no particular reason for it to continue to be the default when that's not the case.

I quite understand that some people have a preference for it and find they work better, which is fair enough. But far too many of the claims people are making go way beyond that. And honestly, a lot of this comes down to people not being happy that they're less able to buy other people's labour than they were 5 years ago because of significant structural changes.

There may not be an epidemic but I applied for a role last year which was advertised as hybrid. In reality it was an option to work one day from home per week. They are still advertising for that role almost a year later.

Your privilege is showing, with all this talk of working from the farmstead or work spaces attached to ones (presumably sprawling) house.
Back in reality, most people today live in accommodation that is too small.

Doesn’t necessarily work for the consumer though, you getting the work done when it suits you.

But @Dibblydoodahdah has said nothing to indicate that she’s in a consumer-facing role. I get that if you’re in a role where you need to be available for customers and clients during set hours, it’s not practical to say “Yes, I know I wasn’t there at 4 when needed, but I did some filing at 7 to make up for for it”. But if you’re working on a project with a deadline, does it matter if you do the work to meet that deadline at 9am or 9pm - as long as you do it and meet it?

There's a difference between catching, reliable and regular public transport , and waiting on a whim and a prayer for a bus in a crumbling public transport era and not knowing whether you are going to get to work on time or not. Regular and consistent public transport can be quite pleasant, time to read or do a puzzle or chat with an aquaintance.

However, Yes, people do regularly wait an hour for a bus that never turns up..workplace is too far to walk and driving isn't an option either.. I am that person. If I left for work any earlier than I do now I might as well just camp there overnight.

It does cause stress and anxiety - mental health issues .

Public transport is just another part of our infrastructure that has collapsed over the last 10 years.

If I can have just 2 days a week respite from this stress then my health improves enormously.

In my freelance work I've worked evenings/nights to hit a deadline the next morning, because I didn't want to work during the day. It is a massive risk though as if something goes wrong that prevents you progressing (someone's sent the wrong file, the system is inaccessible, you have a crucial question for the end client), there is nobody available to help and you can look like a dick

And the company is clearly not crumbling without you.

Exactly. I don’t have anything to do with consumers. My contract is for a number of hours per week. I don’t have fixed working hours in my contract because it requires flexibility working across multiple time zones. Some people on this thread seem to assume that working in an office equals working in a call centre speaking to members of the public all day. The rest of my core team are based in another continent. It’s not physically possible for me to
commute to them everyday!

Yes, yes, subsistence farmers and people working in factories during the Industrial Revolution were profoundly privileged, and I fall into both of those categories apparently.

But your claim about most people living in accommodation that's too small to work remotely is the sort of thing that needs proving.

But they’re understaffed and the people currently working there have to pick up the work load of this role that has been available for a year