To ask if you sneak off to the gym during work hours?

[inneedofaglowup]

I know there's a lot of "that's cheeky and taking the piss" bit how many of you actually do it when working from home and is it really that bad if you do do it??

During Covid wfh I always used to do this. However I did start earlier and finish later due to no commute so I was still committing the same amount of time to work, just slightly different hours.

I miss the flexibility too, even though I generally prefer working in the office.

I think a lot will depend on the nature of the job, whether you have regular meetings, need to be available to others, or whether it's more individual and based on outcome at the end of a day/week.
I wfh occassionally, like maybe once a fortnight. A client doesn't like it as he assumes I'm not doing anything at home when I do get just as much done at home than in the workplace but he gets the work first thing the next morning instead of at the end of the day. (Which makes no discernable difference as it would be moved to the next process the next day anyway)

However I do notice some posters seem to get so much done during their wfh days it feels questionable whether it's actually a ft role eg if you can simultaneously look after a toddler and work. One person said they did 3 FT jobs but 2 of them only required 1 hr a day!

I used to have a manager (pre covid) who, when WFH, would be unavailable for hours at a time. It was clear she was doing things like picking up the kids from school or going shopping. She would then respond to a few emails at 7pm. Which was fuck all use when I urgently needed documents reviewed or signed off by 3pm.

Eventually we worked out how to go round her for the urgent stuff and last I heard she is on "long term secondment" - ie the solution to lazy but hard to shift staff.

I wouldn't have to "sneak off" to go during my lunch break and do sometimes go for a walk or run, just as i do when in the office.

The only difference in my work at the office vs at home is:

• I can put washing on before work and hang it at lunch
• i tend to wear more relaxed clothing, especially bottom half
• if the school ring and i need to collect a poorly child i can get there faster
• i dont waste 2.5 hours a day getting the train/tube.

My company has clear policies on wfh, you are required to have childcare in place for primary aged children for all your working hours and i do (the childminder picks up the children from school on the days i don't finish til 5.30.

I disagree with people using it as a way to dodge wraparound care for children under about age 9/10, unless they are open about their position and get agreement from their employer to work flexibly.

I don’t have enough time to go to the gym on my WFH days. It would take up to 45 mins for the actual class, 30 minutes to get to the gym and back + time to change and shower, and then time actually getting lunch. I couldn’t justify it when we only get a 30 minute break for lunch.

My sports club has just started a lunch time session on Thursdays. It's prob about 45 min but factoring in time to get there, park and get home plus showering and actually eating something, it would prob take 2 hrs from the day although if I started early and finished a bit later it could work if I wfh on a Thursday

I often do 12 hour days at home when busy too, in a reactive job that means when ‘something’ is happening it’s absolutely crazy long hours - and I get 6 weeks leave. I appreciate teaching is hard but I’m not sitting doing nothing wfh.

Yes, but you have a machine at home I suppose. I'd have to go to the launderette so I haven't done it so far. I could take my laptop there I suppose.

Yes, some jobs do have a lot of downtime in them. Would you rather the people be laid off so you'd have to subsidise their benefits?

Yes. I also do my grocery shop, schedule any appointments etc.
Im lucky that we don’t have to have an online presence the whole time, aslong as you answer your phone or get back to them fairly quickly, they have no way of knowing what you are doing.
All my work gets done to a high standard. My work/life balance is just much much better now.

Excellent. I'm a 'boomer' and am not 'brainwashed' into anything. We had different jobs and expectations for sure, but me, and I would imagine, most of my generation don't actually care who does what hours as long as the work is done and everyone is as happy as they can be.
I am lucky that I've worked in jobs (public sector and charity, very people facing) which mean I can be flexible.
My mental and physical health is much better than those who sit and moan about people taking advantage of good employers who care about such things.

Oh come on, doing multiple FT jobs at the same time is taking the piss! I'd imagine such grifters will find other ways to make money, no benefits needed.

Nevertheless, I think people are confusing 'WFH' with jobs that don't have much going on. The latter have always existed. It's just that now, instead of spending all that time in an office playing internet games/ 'looking' busy, people are faffing about at home.

I accept that a lot (not all ) jobs have downtime, my own does at times but even if a job was only say, 50% "actively working" to allow for chatting, loo breaks, making drinks etc that would surely equate to more than hour a day? If there was literally only an hour a day of actual work to do surely that is a pt job?

I’m in a job where some days I’m absolutely flat out busy and barely get a tea break and other days where I answer a few emails but that’s it. Now I wfh 3 days a week and if not being busy falls on a wfh day then great - I go to the gym, run errands, do housework. Pre-covid I’d be in the office 5 days a week no matter what, and the not so busy days were absolutely miserable as I’d just be wasting my life behind my desk with nothing to do.

I work on a ward, therefore no I can't use gym during work hours. I know lots of friends who do WFH, but they either have to stick to their set hours, or they have flexitime, so can do their work at any point of day as long as it all done and they work their set number of hours. I don't know anyone who logs in but then buggers off out to shops/gym/wherever when they should be working. The people I know who do WFH use their lunch hour break to either go for a run or catch up on house work/do school run.

I sometimes wish that I did choose a job that enabled me to WFH, but then I'd probably become more of a hermit than I really am!!

Lots of healthcare workers have the option to wfh on their admin days. I do, all of my consultant colleagues do, our registrars do, our clinical nurse specialists do, our psychologists do a huge amount of their telephone appointments from home.

Ward nurses probably don’t, but equally you do have the option of doing 3 long days per week and that being all your hours done. So two days per week completely off. You could do that, and go to the gym and put your laundry on then.

This could be me. I think nothing of going to the gym / out for lunch / shopping on a "work day" as long as the work is done and I have no meetings.

same here. If I go to the gym during day time I log out and then make up the time by working later or whatever. Nobody cares, if anything it's encouraged. I also tend to do the 'big shop' during the day when it's quieter, usually by taking a longer lunch break one day.

If the question was a more general "do you do non work stuff when you're supposed to be working then yes, if I'm honest I do sometimes go on my phone for 10 mins or put the washing out on the line or whatever without clocking out. A gym session would be nearly 2 hours by the time I drove there, had a shower etc so I'd never do that without clocking out.

But tbh it's not like I worked flat out for 8 hours when I was in the office either so I don't see it as a huge issue. I think generally if you're trusted to WFH your work should be measurable by output, and if that drops in quality or quantity that's when managers should intervene, rather than caring exactly how many hours someone is at their desk.

@KarmenPQZ At one job we used to have walking meetings and it was amazing for our productivity. We were near a footpath so sometimes 2/3 of us would go for a walk and untangle a knotty problem we were facing. It was by far the most productive office I've ever worked in.

After having a NHS manager who expected flexibility from me when they needed me to work but were not prepared to give me any, I moved to the private sector to a fully flexible role where I am expected to do my hours and attend core meetings. My time is otherwise mine to manage. I do get to the gym during working hours and make up for it by starting early/working late. Judging by the demographic of others in the gym, many have similar agreements.

I wouldn't go back to the NHS if they offered me double the pay - having your entire day dictated to you and no autonomy to be able to take a call let alone anything else together with awful working conditions, morale and facilities. It is about time society wakes up to the fact that fewer want to go into professions that do not have flexibility and they need to start paying more to attract people to come and stay.