To think this is a surefire way to insist that everyone comes back into the office?

[Pleasebeafleabite]

Latest BBC News link today. If I was an employer and I was forced into giving staff compulsory four day weeks based on compressed hours, I’m be making sure they were doing them in the office.

Yet more unintended consequences

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gl5w83z7do

Well said.

Shirkers will shirk whether they're in the office or at home. Hard workers will typically get more done at home. Managers who just want to see their people at their desks are shit managers and probably don't trust others to work hard because they themselves are the type to try to get away with as little as possible.

You realise measuring productivity is linked to working hours, right? The UK has some of the longest standard working hours, showing that at a certain point working more hours doesn’t result in more productivity.
It’s exactly the reason there have been proposals for 4 day weeks in the first place.

What do you do? I'd love to aim for something where there's this degree of flexibility

As a manufacturer we trialled this but found that because our work is physical people were just getting less productive and more tired on the longer days so we went back to five days with an early finish on Friday.

Although it did upset some employees others preferred it, you just can't win with these things!

I’m sorry but if you’re unable to manage your team without having eyes on them at all times then you’re not a competent manager.

How about performance managing people who aren’t pulling their weight instead of thinking a bum on a visible seat will solve everything. Really not fair on the rest of the team and very poor management.

Exactly. Focus on output and performance manage as needed.

Gwenrally I am happy for people to work the hours they need, when they need to get the job done. However, I have had to insist some younger people and early careers staff come back to the office full time as it was obvious they were struggling with managing their workload.

We work in a very varied work environment. You have longish deadlines to produce self directed written pieces of work but indispersed with that you need to to be available for meetings, urgent requests and short notice writing. It is a tricky balance to get right.

If a business mandates a certain number of days in the office and sticks to it, the proportion of time spent in the office will increase with compressed hours - which I think is fair as long as compressing hours isn't mandatory. If the mandate is two days in the office, up to the employee whether they want to do a 4 day week with 50% office working, or 5 days with 40%.

Like many organisations, we have an agile working policy. Our work is output and performance driven, no-one is expected to be working a certain number of hours or be sitting in front of their laptops at prescribed times.

Until recently, I worked a compressed week Tues - Fri. I work from home most of the week, as do my team. I always support any of my team (except admin staff who need to cover office hours) that want to have flexibility and I certainly don’t monitor the hours they’re at work or expect to see them in the office unless I need them to be in. As long as they get their work done, we’re all happy.

The amount of hours of work doesn’t matter once you get your job done

i’m always surprised by these type of comments. In my team, if you get your immediate tasks done, great you’ve got some more time to help someone else. There’s always something that can be done to further the team’s goals

A lot. Businesses are there to serve their customers. Not being run for the convenience of employees.

What area do you work in?

I'm both looking to retrain and what to advise my kids well yet my knowledge is limited to very in-person jobs!

This. Also, children. Surely to goodness 12 hours a day, away from mum (or the main caregiver) 4 days a week is too much?

I am far less focussed in the office. Yesterday I was in the office and trying to focus but someone was yelling down the telephone all day in meetings (we have a room for making calls but she didn't choose to use it).
Then various people stopped by my desk for a chat, which was lovely but of course reduced my focus.
Then the office was first quite cold so I felt ill and then later in the day so warm I felt ill. But it is centrally climate controlled so I can't do anything about it unlike at home.

And then I finished earlier than I would at home because the traffic was looking bad.

I enjoy and value time in the office. But I am also grateful for managers that focus on work done not whether I am visibly working. I meet all my targets and all the clients are happy.

I used to work continental shifts, 12 hour days 4 on 4 off. 9 hour days are nothing in comparison.

WFH is a privilege, not a right.

I'm surprised you'd be surprised. Thought it was pretty common knowledge that a lot of roles are so niche and specialist that you wouldn't necessarily be any help to others. Also that there are jobs where people are paid to be available in case something comes up, so they'd need to be reactive accordingly rather than in the middle of someone else's work.

Why would you be making sure of that? Sounds like a weirdly spiteful or vindictive thing to do, based on your own issues with WFH rather than any logic or empathy for your team. I hope you aren't actually the one making those decisions.

Either WFH works well in your workplace based on productivity and staff happiness statistics, not just whether the boss personally likes the idea or not. Or it doesn't. And whichever is true, things like compressed hours are irrelevant.

Everyone in my work place already does these house and we all love it. We all get out work done, however I do a mix of half in half out of the office. I was in all day yesterday with the rest of the team and have to say we talked way more and achieved less that when I WFH, so I have to disagree with you there.

In MN world everyone’s a self motivated high performer. In real life a lot of workers are very average. Which is fine by the way as not everyone wants to give their all to work. We reward the high flyers appropriately at pay review and bonus time

Also an MN world, every issue can just be performance managed, which in real life is stressful for all and very time-consuming for a manager. So much so that individuals have to be seriously under performing before it’s a worthwhile endeavour.

In our workplace people work all manner of patterns, from 1 day a week to a 9 day fortnight (compressed hours) . Some do 4 days not compressed hours,.other do 4 days compressed hours. I do 5 normal days now but when the children were in nursery I did 4 days compressed but did normal days and did the extra hours when the children were in bed,.as a single mum this made a world of difference to my finances.

Honestly, giving people the freedom to choose is great when done well. Plenty of us still work a standard 9-5 type day every day, but for those who need flexibility it is there.

I'm so glad I work for a boss that cares more about outputs than hours worked. I used to work 4 days a week but when we reviewed the arrangement, they insisted I move to a 5 day a week contract because my work reflected 5 days worth of effort.

No job is a right, regardless of where it happens to be conducted. WFH is nothing different in that respect. People don't have an entitlement to work, we don't live in the Soviet Union.

OP you know that most retail shifts are 9 or 10 hours as standard, its only office that reduces hours down to 7/7.5hrs a day

Why do you hate compressed hours for office workers but not care shift workers?

RE yur reward and bonus strategy...you gonna pay civil service admin assistants those bonuses? Or are you of the view that every tax payer penny counts nd those staff are simply leeches because their salaries could be paying for hospital treatments?