To wonder how we ever did 5 days a week in an office?

[OptimismvsRealism]

I work hard and love my job (legal). Spent a day in the office today for the first time in months and honestly feel sick. The people flu! I couldn't go back. All those blokes in the City saying WFH was an "aberration" are deluded.

I get that some people love it and there's enough diversity in this world for everyone to find their niche but Oh My God am I glad I don't have to do the daily traipse any more.

We've got to go back to office full time from September after WFH for last 4 years. I am dreading it.

As with all the other similar examples people have given on this thread, do you really not get that the ones you're talking about here are a self selecting group of young people? By definition, they're the ones who want to work in an office environment and aren't excluded by it. You're not seeing a representative sample. You need to take some notice of the ones who aren't there too.

Young people aren't a monolith any more than any other age group. Some of them do very badly from the increase in remote work. Some of them were completely fucked over by office work as the norm and now have more opportunities because of the increase in remote working.

Some really disingenuous responses in this thread...

The OP never said that every jobs can be done from home.

The OP is talking about the many office roles that, as proven by the Covid lockdowns, can be done remotely without any issues.

I am really not sure why so many people seem bitter about it or want to desperately cling to old fashioned work practices.

I really don't understand the mentality of 'well, I can't work from home so you should not have that opportunity either'...it is just petty.

Homeworking is a life saver for people like me who have long term health conditions/disabilities and the only reason why I am still in a job!

My employer recruited me on the basis that I would only be in the office once a month at the most (commute is 4 hours for me in total) then tried to ask me to come in once a week and I reminded them of my disability and what was agreed when they hired me. I am now looking for something which is fully remote or more local. Our office is awful with no space, poor wi-fi, and too much noise. I never get anything done when I am there.

The point is many people like me know full well that some jobs can be done remotely and won't go back to horrendous commutes and noisy work environments just because dinosaur employers like people to be glued to their desks.

Homeworking helps people who are disabled/have long term health conditions, carers, single parents and some older people stay in employment. Employers always make a big song and dance about how they value equality and diversity, well this is one way to have and retain varied talents.

No one has said " I can't work from home so you shouldn't either" to the op.

We are pointing out to her that not everyone has the option to work from home.

She just said merrily to everyone:

"change jobs if you want to work from home!".

That annoyed people. Because she is divorced from reality.

I currently work in an office. I was just looking at jobs in my industry.

Every job that i see is advertised as office based.

I don't see any fully remote roles.

You can't just choose to do work from home if you feel like it.

It's available in some jobs.

It's not available in a lot of jobs.

What’s the justification for this, and I assume you will challenge this?

colleagues in my work have also been told to return. nhs. could be just our current manager throwing her weight around though

Homeworking is a life saver for people like me who have long term health conditions/disabilities and the only reason why I am still in a job!

Yep!

This is why the posts about how it's bad for young people, teamwork etc need to be challenged. They're disablist, even the ones who mean well. They completely ignore the existence of people who are now able to be in these jobs purely because of remote working.

How exactly is saying that:

Young people cant afford to own their own house, and often have to house share with a lot of people.

This means that it wuld be difficult for them to work from home, as they would barely have any space to work from home,

....Being disablist?

100% this is the reason. It has nothing to do with WFH and everything to do with massive understaffing.

I time my lunch break for afternoon pick up, it actually works better for my LA as I work within SEND children's services so it's incredibly rare for parents to contact us nor want us to call them then. We still have phone cover. I still have to have a lunch break at some point. Our staffing has decreased 34% whilst demand had risen 150% in the same period. We weren't exactly overflowing with staff in the first place

That isn't. It's a poor and over-generalised argument because it completely ignores all the young people who are geographically excluded from the best job markets, whose issue is location rather than space. But it's not disablist.

Claims that it's bad for young people per se because it doesn't suit the ones you know are, though. Which has happened more than once in this thread. The fact is that remote working has benefitted many disabled and ND people, and some of those are young.

Getting hold of people in government departments has always been painful. The public sector has always been full of untalented shirkers.

Why are you so sure your difficulties are due to people WFH and not a lack of staff?

If you can’t get hold of someone, it’s got nothing to do with WHERE people are working, and everything to do with HOW MANY people are working. I am public sector, and your method for contacting me is identical whether I’m in the office or WFH, but we are woefully short staffed.

You did it in the same way people who currently work (hard) 5 days in an office do it now. It's not like you were going down the mines OP fgs.

@Startingagainandagain

I am really not sure why so many people seem bitter about it or want to desperately cling to old fashioned work practices.

I don’t think people are “bitter” (that adjective is always wheeled out when there’s a paucity of a decent argument). No one disagrees with the sentiment it’s the tactless and entitled tone that wound people up.

Exactly.

I think the labour market will automatically adjust and settle down eventually, as it always does after major change.

I suspect that in the long term, "WFH" jobs will be remunerated less simply due to the convenience factor and that jobs where you have to commute and work in a proper workplace will ultimately end up better paid. So, basically, say a WFH solicitor may end up being paid less than someone who has to spend time and money commuting to an office base. Basically, just a matter of compensating for the time and costs of travel and lack of convenience. Maybe not overtly, maybe not immediately, but ultimately, someone wanting to work from home may end up deciding to accept lower paid jobs that offer it, and conversely, employers who want their workers in their offices may find they have to offer a more attractive pay package to attract staff.

Basically, how the London Weighting evolved as people needed to be paid more, initially, to attract them to work in London due to the increased costs they face.

Obviously, that won't happen with jobs under national pay bargaining agreements, typically public sector, but certainly I can see it happening with businesses who aren't bound by national pay bargaining and where there's more flexibility. If the employer want people in the office, then ultimately, there's going to have to be recompense and differential as opposed to employers happy for employees to WFH.

I work in a factory. Back in the good old days if we had an issue that required input from HR/production planners/IT etc, we could go up to them and get it sorted and everything would be tickity boo. Now they all WFH 3/5 and it's a fucking nightmare trying to sort things. So whilst it's all very well the OP and others saying "WFH is great", it's not for those of us who have to suffer the consequences.

No, I never likened myself to a miner, but I used to find it hard. I don’t mind admitting it.

It was an extremely distressing environment for me 🤷‍♀️ we're supposed to understand about barriers to access and the value of inclusive approaches to work but so many people just seem to act like we're in 1974.

Yep!

I do think everyone is entitled to a working environment that suits them. Is that entitled? Then I am.

I am yet to meet a Black woman who hasn't evangelised about the benefits of WFH. I've said it before and I'll say it again - WFH as a policy is as good if not better than every single workplace policy.

Again we are trying to break the news to you that not everyone can work from home.

It is not a choice for a lot of people.

My company doesn't offer work from home jobs.

I looked at all the similar jobs that I can apply for in my area, none of them offer work from home options.

Not everyone has a choice to do it.

You can't just change industry either.

Industries hire by experience

Great, what would suit me in my working environment would be having people on site to deal with issues as and when they arise, not having to wait for them to do whatever they are doing at home before they answer their bloody phones/emails. What used to take 5 minutes now takes well over an hour. But hey, you carry on believing WFH is more productive because for those of us who have to deal with WFHers it's really not.

You need to learn to use modern communications technology. It's just the way things are now. Just as you'll have to use an app instead of a bank branch.

If I couldnt work from home I would be dependent on benefits. We definitely need to support this as a way of working.

Not only does it stop me depending on benefits but it also means the public sector gets the benefit of my highly valued and niche expertise and I always meet all my targets. I am very good value for money (I could earn a lot more in the private sector)

I actually do feel that many jobs benefit from or are improved by a regular presence in the office. And I changed roles because I knew my body wasn't up to giving juniors the training and mentoring they deserved.

But many of us who work at home hugely value the fact we are able to and work phenomenally hard to ensure that we are always trusted to work at home