Turn down job offer that requires 4 days a week.in office?

[Greenbootgrass]

Hi All

Offered a new role at a different company, salary increase and better pension however....

I currently wfh 2 days a week, new job only allows 1 day a week wfh

Am I mad to say no to this?

Really enjoy my 2 days a week at home, comfy clothes, no commute ( hour each way) and doing errands etc at lunchtime.

As someone who works out of the home FT, it does sound fairly ridiculous that just turning up to work is now deemed an unreasonable demand.

I also can't balance the "I can walk the dog/go to the gym/ cook / clean / do the school run" comments with "I work even harder from home".
How can both be true?! I understand gaining back commute time, but that's hours worth of activities everyone is talking about!

If you can do all that in a working day AND be more effective than you were in the office, you must have been fairly pissing about in the office before!

OP I'm glad you are happy with your decision, but honestly turning down a pension increase just because you'd only be getting one WfH/PJ day sounds very short sighted.

I’d hand in my notice straight away. I wouldn’t even consider it.

I wouldn't take any job wanting more than 3 days in office. For any money.

Herdinggoats

If my job mandated office working 5/5, I'd ask to go to 3 days/week.

If they were insistent that there was no solution except 4/5 days a week in person in the office, I'd resign. There are other jobs.

We usually get told we're jealous if we have this opinion! But I agree with you.

*I also can't balance the "I can walk the dog/go to the gym/ cook / clean / do the school run" comments with "I work even harder from home".
How can both be true?! I understand gaining back commute time, but that's hours worth of activities everyone is talking about!

If you can do all that in a working day AND be more effective than you were in the office, you must have been fairly pissing about in the office before!*

I combine part time & flexible hours with hybrid working to mean my contracted hours are 9-3 on days I work from home. It just doesn't work with a commute added in.

With a 1 hour 15 min commute i gain back 3 and a half hours a day that i control freely (2 x commute plus a lunch hour for chores or exercise at home). Its a massive massive chunk of time. Its also £35 a day travel & parking cost saved, plus £28 a day of 2 hours extra childcare for two children. £63. Every single day. My colleagues are all over the world. I don't need to be in the office to discuss a contract via teams with someone in Frankfurt.

So 2 wfh days a week, 46 weeks a year, saves £5,796 a year in travel costs and extra childcare for the commute time.

And thats from my post tax income. I need to earn about £9,200 more per annum pre tax to cover that if i go to the office.

And that's before counting the value of the time and how I can use it.

I took a 45% increase to change from a job I could cycle to, to one with an hour-ish commute by car. Four years later, I make a ton of money but still wonder if it was worth it. My current place have just told everyone to be in 3 days a week (it was 2) and I'm considering going back.

Edited to add: no way would a 10% increase get me to go in and extra day.

Have you ever WFH?

Translation:

"We have office space we're leased into and need to make pay, so we're going to offer one day wfh and call it hybrid to make us look agile, when we're anything but."

OP. Stay Put.

Collaboration and agile are red flags.

Then a lot of managers should do their jobs adequately and weed out this behaviour.

A slacker at home will slack in the office, fact.

It's lazy lazy lazy management to step away from wfh due to "blanket productivity concerns"

Yes, but not for long, and it was during the time the kids were off school,so not real/normal circumstances. I hated it, but a lot of that was kid related stress which you wouldn't normally have.
It did seem like pissing about being able to put a washing on between meetings...at work I'd have used the time between meetings getting something work related done!
My commute is short though, that was something I actively looked for in my current post. Used to be around 3hrs per day as per previous poster, so I don't disagree that gaining that back is great.

I just can't get on board with the general refusal to just go to work!

I don't get how anyone can be as productive in the office as when working from home?!
If I go in the office, it usually starts with a chat with the receptionist. Most of the time it's just a quick greeting but "Linda" has a badly broken foot and it's her first day back after being off and she tells me all about the operation, hospital and current challenges she is facing.
I get to my desk, switch on my computer and head to the kitchen for a cuppa. The dishwasher is on and a few people have left their breakfast bowls in the sink. I do a quick set of washing while the kettle boils. Not my job but I'm waiting anyway. Two other people are also waiting and just chatting. It takes me a bit longer to wash up than it took the kettle to boil. We get our coffees and start our day (at home I would have already been answering emails by now).
My colleague opposite is having relationship issues and is pouring their heart out. I'm not joining in conversations today but it's hard to block it out.
Getting my second coffee I see the dishwasher is done. I've never done a set of washing up or emptied the dishwasher at home during my office hours....I have in the office. It's not my job and I don't always do it but whoever is doing it is doing it on company time.
I have a training with a new starter who is 500miles away, so it's happening via Teams anyway. An urgent email comes in just as I'm about done for the day. At home, I would do it but in the office I need to leave within 7min of my finishing time or I'll miss my train home. I decide it has to wait until the morning.
I've decided to work from home tomorrow, so I can catch up on my emails and queries.
I have amalgamated occurrences but I am "wasting" a lot more time with the social aspects in the office that just don't apply at home.
I love being in the office but I also love working from home and I'm definitely more focused and getting more done at home.
If anything good came out of Corona it was WFH and I would look for a fully remote position over back in the office, if I was forced to do so.

I don't get how anyone can be as productive in the office as when working from home?!

This - there's a social element to office work that takes unavoidable time. Plus walking to/from meeting rooms on different floors, having to go down 3 floors for a coffee, going to the front desk in person to meet visitors, walking to the other side of the floor to print stuff.

About 25% of the time that social element has value to the business - the guy from procurement who mentions a funny contract offhand and you realise you need to check it, the adhoc question that kicks off a new project.

But 75% of it is people being human, chatting to friends. Its valuable for wellbeing & sense of team but having it on 2-3 days is enough, have 2 distraction free days for "concentration" work is great.

I just can't get on board with the general refusal to just go to work!

I never get the loyalty to the concept of work having to take place in a particular location, really. It's a fairly new thing, after all.

Humans have worked in our homes way longer than we've travelled to a location that we had to go to because we needed equipment we couldn't keep in our dwellings. Most people falling into the latter category is a pretty new development, in the grand scheme of things. It didn't happen because of any evidence that it was the best way of doing things, it happened because you can't keep a big factory in your kitchen. Now increasing numbers of us don't need things we can't fit in our homes in order to do our work, there's no reason to imagine we'd all want to stick to something that arise from a necessity that no longer applies.

It did seem like pissing about being able to put a washing on between meetings...at work I'd have used the time between meetings getting something work related done!

I feel the same in reverse about the office sometimes. Sandra from supply chain whinging about the lawyers for 10mins after the meeting, the queue for a coffee in the cafeteria, a bit of gossip by the printer about a c-suite leader headed for the door, often this sort of "noise" happens in gaps when at home I'd move swiftly on to the next task.

It didn't happen because of any evidence that it was the best way of doing things, it happened because you can't keep a big factory in your kitchen

Actually it happened because capitalistscould make more profit investing in 20 big looms in one purpose designed place, and by employing a lot of people on low wages, sell products for less, whereas the weaver in their cottage could just support a modest family.

Working in the office can be full of disruptions. A lot of that is useful for throwing ideas around and training people, but it makes it hard to get long stretches of deep concentration. So yes, a lot of office time is "wasted".

Things like putting the washing on can be incorporated as movement breaks. Does anyone really concentrate non stop all day in the office? If I'm in the office, I need to get up and walk around occasionally. If I'm at home, I do the same thing, but do manual tasks instead.

@FiftyNotNifty

My commute is about 45 mins so I gain back 1.5 hours

In addition, getting dressed in smart clothes takes a bit longer plus make up etc

That is quite a lot of extra time!

My school run is about 3 mins walk down the road so it's quite easy to do the morning one and WFH - I am able to drop the kids off at 8:45 and be at my desk for 9 which isn't doable on an office day

I usually can also do a half hour exercise video - also made easier by not having to shower immediately afterwards if that isn't convenient - obviously much harder to make this work in the office

Occasionally through the work day, I pop down for a few mins to pop the laundry on.

It's really not slacking!

Unless it was my dream job and significantly higher money, not worth it

I absolutely get why everyone would prefer it, although I'm surprised at how much time wasting apparently went on in offices! It's just alien to me; vast majority of family and friends are in health care, education, emergency services etc.

Totally this! The entitlement on this thread is breathtaking.

'I want this', 'I won't do that'.

It's a job. As an employee, you do what the employer wants. And if you don't 'want' to, you don't take that job. Simple. But don't then be surprised when your more willing peers progress quicker in their careers. 🤷‍♀️

*Totally this! The entitlement on this thread is breathtaking.

'I want this', 'I won't do that'.

It's a job. As an employee, you do what the employer wants.*

Well no. You owe your employer your labour, they owe you money. You do not owe them your soul!! Fundamentally, there's a shortage of highly skilled labour in this country and some people are in a position to make demands.

Employers need staff, its not a one way power situation.

I'm very senior & earn a lot. I don't need this job, and because everyone in my occupation seems to have collectively decided to refuse 5 day a week office working, I'm extremely difficult to replace if the employer demands that.

Oh and my working life is not easy! The fact that I do a couple of my days working from home doesn't change that I am negotiating agreements worth millions , often doing extra work in evenings and early mornings, managing a large team.

I and my team deliver a lot. On time. We add value, we solve problems. We don't need to sit in an office.

When i started my career 20 years ago, a lot of people doing 5/5 were remarkably unproductive. It was quite normal to turn up at 9.30, have a full hour lunchbreak eating a subsidized hot meal, and leave at about 4.30pm. You would see the older men reading a newspaper at their desk in their offices!

Technology has given us time back because we don't always need to be in the same location, and that's a good thing.

Exactly. As an employee, your time, expertise, and labour is valuable. Your time is also a very limited resource. Don't waste it on the whims of people who barely know you.