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 amazes me in these debates is the non acknowledgement of our country's housing problems and logistical mess. We've priced nearly everyone in a normal job with a family out of London, but all the jobs are in London, and the train services get worse every year. Then we start crazy white elephant infrastructure projects like HS2 that make Euston into an absolute shitshow, and then instead of seeing home working as part of the answer, at least for now, it's cast as this terrible aberration that saps productivity. What saps my productivity is the 4 hours I spend commuting each day. Like fuck am I going to put any extra hours in at work like I did when I was WFH.

The women of Boots should work in the office 5 days a week otherwise we won’t be able to recruit enough doctors? This is nonsense. The reason for the change as PP have said is boots is now owned by a US company, importing their toxic culture of presenteeism in the process. WFH keeps women in work, is therefore good for the economy (backed by recent research). Retrograde misogynist step backwards to roll this back now.

But, I think it’s to do with empty office space as posters upthread have said. Why pay for office space that’s only being used 2-3 days a week?

My employers have sublet 25% of the office space. On midweek days, you can't get a room for a meeting and there have been times when people have rocked up only to find they can't get a desk. I've seen people working in the staff kitchen as a result.

They'd have to have a desk booking system if they enforced the 70% rule.

Women did manage to work 5 days per week in an office, or indeed, other work places before Covid

And I've been promoted twice since Covid due to the ease in which I have been able to move jobs and increase responsibility as a result of the flexibility has given me. No that absolutely would NOT have happened to me pre covid.

WFH keeps women in work, is therefore good for the economy

we have a men problem.

My employer can’t sublet office space for security reasons. (Crown estate.)

I have noticed with friends that wfh they are now starting to spend more time in the work place but with flexitime.

I've always had flexitime. Yes it's useful, but flexitime and WFH works better for me...

I am sorry he is like that. I worked on the wards during Covid and my husband took over all the cooking. I would not have tolerated less.

Ex Boots employee here! .... I was store based so obviously no option for hybrid or WFH BUT I stand in solidarity with you! .... Boots is honestly a shit show of a company and after 20 years service I skipped out of there. Good luck with your new job search

Fully WFH is detrimental in most jobs for most people as far as actual work is concerned.

I don't think thats accurate, are you basing this on any data? Because what I have seen is that it hasn't overall reduced productivity and in many cases colleagues feel like they know each other better as they are in their own homes and talk about the cats walking across the screen or the dog in the background etc its just created a different culture, and its a culture a lot of people prefer. I think companies should think about the happiness of their employees, the new culture created over the last almost 4 years and what benefits it brings not only to their company and workforce, but to wider society.

I have zero problem with this. I’ve started going in most days voluntarily. It has had a huge impact on my engagement, productivity and mood. I’m not just ‘getting my jobs done’ anymore. I’m engaging positively with my work and enjoying it more. I’m not distracted by getting a laundry in and I’m sitting in a room where we’re all interested in each other’s work so it’s sparking new ideas. When I’m in the office I go into ‘work mode’ and am absorbed in it. I’m also eating a lot less because I can’t go to the fridge every time I get bored, so that’s a bonus.

Some people are still pushing for fully remote work, mostly because they applied for jobs during lockdown even though they lived far away and assumed things would stay online, but our contracts have always stated that employees should be living within 50 miles of the workplace (there is a relocation scheme to support moving) and that never changed. We can see that hybrid meetings are nowhere near as good as fully online or fully face to face, and face to face is better than online unless it’s a short operational meeting. Yes, hybrid/fully at home jobs make it easier to perform domestic duties and errands, but that’s really not the employer’s concern.

Sorry for what? He literally does everything!

I was making the point that “popping a wash on” doesn’t have to be during the day when WFH.

Of course they're not basing it on any data, or not data that remotely supports it anyway. A claim as wide as that can't possibly have any evidence underpinning it, because it's such a massive generalisation. There is so much variety in jobs, people, organisations.

No doubt Boots will trumpet their DE&I credentials, but can't do something simple, like trust people to do their work, rather than trying to control where they do it.

I appreciate they have a large retail workforce which can't work from home.

But that doesn't mean that their office staff have to be treated in the same way, or that they all have to be treated the same. Not all office jobs are the same. In any event, I don't get told I can't work from home because the receptionists and cleaners in the office can't.

Allowing remote working allows those with caring responsibilities and disabilities and health conditions to access well paid work. It is time employers woke up to this and stopped their micromanaging nonsense. If an employee isn't pulling their weight you deal with that employee. If you need people in for collaboration, you get them in on the same day(s) each week to collaborate. If people are training others, and it's better face to face, you get them in. But you don't need the same one size fits all policy.

The students I speak to want face to face. One lad decided to change his aim as he found that lots of the jobs were wfh in that sector and he wanted to see people.

think there’s a place for both.

This is bonkers!!

I ummed and ahhed about taking my current role, as the company policy was 3 days office, 2 days home, compared to my 1 day office, 4 days home. BUT the industry was good for my CV and more money and it was only a 30min drive.

However, the company have had to give in and change the policy to 3 days home, 2 in office as recruitment was too difficult. Losing good candidates because other companies offered better flexible working. Our recruiters all said the first thing people ask is no longer salary, it's "what's the hybrid working situation?"

They will find they get a mass exit of employees at Boots HQ and it will likely be the good ones that go because they know their worth!

Good luck in your job search @custardcreamed x

Majority are!

How exactly do you think we're going to manage to get people into the office so as to avoid recruitment problems in totally different sectors? This isn't the USSR, the government doesn't just tell people where they're allowed to work. There's no mechanism for the HR sector to be told right, all in the office because otherwise we'll have an even worse shortage of teachers in 10 years time than we do now.

Remote working is likely to be something that young people need to consider as they go into the world of work. You did get that part right. But what that means is that jobs that need to be done in specific times and places will have to pay more or go unfilled, not that accountants are going to be sent back to the office en masse to try and inspire more people to study dentistry.

Agreed that Boots have been treating their staff like shit since the takeover (I'm close to their big offices and quite a lot of people around here seem to do a little career roundabout between 3-4 big employers of which Boots is one). So if I'm down the road from you - wave @custardcreamed

I'm very lucky that in my team no one really enforces any specific working office/home pattern and people do various different mist-mashes that work for them interspersed with visits to clients in the community. Some colleagues need that demarcation between home and work and go and work out of the office 9-5 (or whatever variation) every day, some people do more what I do which is to make an attempt to be around at least part of every week but work out of home mainly. I get more focused work done at home - in the office I work well with things that need sharing ideas and discussion, but if I'm writing a lengthy report I focus better at home, and I tend to tweak what I'm doing to suit where I'm working at that time.

It's actually DH in this house who uses WFH to do school runs in agreement with his manager - not me. Very rare I will do one and I work the time owed back and record it as such to cover my back fully.

My office used to have two floors. Now has 1. Mondays is one team in the office / Tuesday another one and so on. We are 300 people so having a space for 50 and 1 day a week is enough for everyone

Mmm, I can see that wanting to use unfilled office space might be a concern for some organisations. But it's been 4 years now, and lots of others won't have the space available that they did in Feb 2020. Rental contracts haven't been renewed, buildings sold, space subletted etc.

Thank god we can't do this as we majorly downsized the offices over COVID to save money so we physically can't have everyone back.

DH and I are in our 50s and do not have any caring responsibilities, but we like that we are allowed to WFH one or two days a week.

I disagree with you bringing equality into this. In fact it irks me, because your argument suggests that you think all caring and child responsibilities fall to women. I would be more supportive of a thread about men taking more responsibility at home.

Why is it better for women to work from home? So that they have more time to clean, cook, do life admin?? Why aren’t the men doing these?? I think what should be said is that it suits parents to work from home more.

FWIW I am a woman and hate wfh.

The problem is that we grafted remote working onto the already sexist society. We know that pre 2020, the UK had a problem with women being able to balance work and the disproportionate share of childcare responsibilities we shoulder, and that this drove women out of the workforce.

Its not wrong to say that we need a better balance of caring labour between the sexes. Meanwhile, we don't have it, and remote working is a useful tool for many women to function in a sexist society.