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.

What is your problem? Why take a swipe at me? I am showing that they have a recruitment problem for this particular role. Almost all of these type of roles in other organisations are offered in a hybrid or full remote basis.

@Ncncncworkywork I don't agree with your point about accommodation being too small.
We don't see anything wrong with expecting students to study and work in their rooms with optional trips to libraries etc if they want a change.
So for young people starting out in offices most of whom have been in uni, wfh is an easy transition.
In-office days need to add value, and be something that can't be done alone at a desk ( including calls and teams meetings).
if you're paying someone to do written tasks that require concentration you need to provide a quiet comfortable and distraction free environment- and wfh does that very effectively.

Yes yes to this. I frankly don’t want to use services or companies that use people wfh in ever more cramped housing with kids in the background because staff think they can save on childcare .I also don’t want my data in that environment.

What you have just written here stems from a place of privilege in itself.

Are you going to pay more in order to make it worth those staff's while to pay commuting and childcare costs, or perhaps even to allow them to move to less cramped accommodation since apparently having space for a laptop and headset isn't sufficient for you?

@Candl3Stix I can't even begin or be bothered to explain all the different jobs that exist in the world. They do not all service your needs.

It's because the example you provided was inconvenient.

I am replying to you thinking there is an issue because you didn’t take a job. Clearly they think they need and want somebody in the office. They are sticking out for that because they can and are not crumbling because they choose to do so. Companies and service a will decide if they need people onsite, like any job if you feel it’s not for you jog on by. For every person who thinks it’s a deal breaker there will eventually be others who don’t or who at the very least will take the job as it is because they want to pay their bills.

Setting people up at home has huge costs. Companies will not request people back in the office to make a loss or drive up their costs.

Not really comparable..

These discussions always seem to descend into vague, vehemently hopeful 'you'll see' schtick from people who don't like remote working.

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

🙄

Presumably that's a no to you paying more for what you feel entitled to then! What was that about privilege...

But to get back to our previous point, what are organisations supposed to do if they're not able to get the staff they need when they try and enforce office based working? We've already established that they're not supposed to be held to ransom, so what then?

It's not really good enough though to use a shared room at home, it's different in the office because everyone is working at the same company, people that have nothing to do with the company shouldn't be in the background. If it a permanent thing people must really make provision for office space which other family members don't use

I didn’t make it about myself. I was showing that they have a recruitment problem. They may think that they need someone in the office but it doesn’t mean they are right. They haven’t been able to get anyone to fill the role in 12 months. I’m unlikely to be the only person that applied during that 12 months and said no when they found out that is was almost 100 per cent office based.

Which takes us back to the question of how this is going to be practically achieved and who's going to pay for it.

Oh I see, only you can have mental health issues because of their working conditions. If I can accept that WFH is not suitable for everyone why can’t you accept that working from an office causes issues for some people?!

It’s almost like people have different personalities and find different things stressful…

One wonders if it’s one of these managerial roles that nobody actually needs. They are clearly sticking it out, want somebody in the office and can manage without the role filled.

I also work in HE. I find there's a split re. hybrid and home working - it's very beneficial for more senior people because of what you described, they're able to focus at home without people coming to talk to them. But it's less good for more junior staff, PhD students and support posts, as those are the people needing the more senior people's input and advice.

I'm currently job hunting after a surprise redundancy, I was job hunting only a year ago. There is a noticeable decrease in fully remote roles available in my profession. But some of them are still being advertised as flexible/hybrid when they actually have a rigid expectation of coming into the office with a global workforce, so you'd still be on teams calls most of the day.

I think organisations need to be more creative in their approach to hybrid or remote working, but I don't see much creativity at all really.

No it doesn’t. A huge number of offices now use hot desking so everyone has a laptop which they keep on their person and then move from available desk to available desk when they are in the office or use at home. Many businesses don’t even have enough desks for the number of employees. This allows them to save on rent in expensive city centres. It’s cheaper to buy each member a staff a monitor, chair and desk for their home than to pay the rent for a bigger building.

Oh, and to address another issue that you raised, your personal data isn’t being kept in people’s houses. Offices tend to be paperless nowadays so everything is stored electronically. The days of rows and rows of filing cabinets are long gone. The servers may well be in another country though!

Pay for what? Running both an office alongside setting up and running multiple people from home in multiple locations-and funding the reduction in productivity?

No, it’s not comparable because in a busy office you can find a quiet meeting room to work from, I can’t magic up someone to talk to 🤣

Unless you have felt the crushing loneliness of working from home and not having a face to face conversation with anyone for literally weeks on end you might not get it.

I have had to accept that working from home and remote working are the standard now - that’s just how it is and I have zero control over it. I have changed my whole life to accommodate it! It’s great to have flexibility but honestly in my opinion the negatives of wfh are far worse than the negatives of office working.

If they could manage they wouldn’t be advertising would they. It’s not managerial. It’s for a highly skilled professional. The reality is that the existing team will be working even longer hours to cover the vacant position.

You should ask the ones doing the tasks that this role would do how are they feeling , they might be over stretched doing their own role and the one that the company can’t fill