To feel that remote working should be a right, not a privilege?

[AlertBird]

With the advances in technology, it seems outdated that so many companies still require employees to come into the office for jobs that could easily be done remotely. AIBU to think that, for jobs where possible, remote working should be a right, not a privilege? It could help with work-life balance and reduce stress, but a lot of employers seem stuck in their old ways of thinking.

Of course they do, my 'colleagues' who work in hr, it, procurement all wfh now, it's so bloody hard to get hold of anyone now!

Not sure about a right, but I think that if you are required to travel into an office, then your working day should start when you leave the house, not when you arrive at the office.

Companies should be required allow a minimum of 1 hour a day for commuting time, which could make an office day 6.5 hours in the office for example, instead of 7.5.

The reason I don't go in very often is because it takes an extra 2 hours out of my day which I don't get paid for - and that is my personal time, not work time.

We have one or 2 people on my team who are fully remote due to distance. They both joined several months ago, but I still don't know them / built a rapport with them. They don't help me and I am much less willing to help them compared with my other colleagues whom I've built great relationships with. It's not a good way to work. Hybrid with 2-3 onsite days is a good compromise.

Most places that could work remotely did so during Covid , the only reason they’ve started asking people to go back in is because they think people are taking the piss - which many are . Basically some shirkers have ruined it for everyone else .

Obviously not everyone can work from home. But even if you take public-facing roles out of the equation, wfh tends to skew an awful lot in the favour of experienced staff who just want to be able to crack on with their jobs and be left in peace - leaving junior and younger staff to flounder.

What many tend to forget is that us older millennials came up through workplaces where colleagues and managers were on hand to ask questions and get a steer on things. Not things you would necessarily do a Teams call about, but "what's the background of X; remind me how I get an invoice paid; who is in charge of X team..." etc etc.
This is largely lost in wfh. Onboarding can cover much of it off but it's those ongoing queries and learning the soft skills that suffers. And experienced staff who would previously have been happy to be on hand to answer quick questions are, largely, less willing to take cold calls from new staff asking basic questions. At the same time, new staff are less likely to make those calls as they don't know who to ask. Politely asking the person next to you in an office for help is far less daunting than cold-calling a stranger.

The cop-out answer to this is "better onboarding."
In the teams I lead, we have put in an awful lot of new onboarding for new starters but it still isn't the same as having experienced staff, or peers, on hand.
And socially, the Gen Z-ers tell me they're struggling too. When I was in my early 20s my work colleagues became friends as we'd socialise at lunchtime and after work - now that isn't happening and, as younger staff are also often living in house shares or on their own, it's hardly surprising that mental health issues are on the rise.

Wfh is great... for some of us. But it leaves others to struggle. And I think that while we like the flexibility of being able to do the school run, shove a wash on and so on, there are others having very different and much more lonely experiences.

There are also lots of employers out there who are not dinosaurs.

My workplace is 95% remote and it's a choice if you wish to wfh or the office or hybrid.

Our staff wellbeing indicators are great and retention is awesome. The few vacancies we have attract huge nos of applications.

We are able to attract excellent candidates because we are not limited to those who live within a commute of an office but instead can recruit nationwide.

Lots of employers do have wfh and great flexible working policies.

It's just that these dont attract the Daily Mail headlines.

It will be interesting to see how far Labour's employment legislation will go in this regard.

This, along with robots and AI. Plus the extremely dangerous creation of a faceless, virtual society where nobody ever leaves home and the impact on the economy which is already obvious.

I don't think this is true. No one would expect an office worker to do night shifts on a regular basis just because nurses, police officers or pilots have to work nights sometimes.

And when you need a nurse or doctor, you'd be happy for them to dispense advice/ medication/ treatment from home.

Happy to vaccinate your children yourself are you? Take all your rubbish to the tip yourself?
CLEARLY you've never run a small business or you wouldn't be asking such a daft question...DOH!! READ the f....king room!

And civil servants GET BACK TO THE OFFICE so the public get the service we pay for and you actually earn your gold plated pensions!
9 months for an updated driving licence...it still hurts.

I think employers should be much more flexible and offer WFH to everyone - however I actually think employees should be mandated to do some time in the office, otherwise you run the risk of entire teams and functions being outsourced to countries where labour and skills are much cheaper. Fully remote doesn't help people in the UK in the long run imo

Absolutely this! Look at all the rage at gp tel appointments or the use of 111? Would everyone be happy to have all health workers be remote?

You can work from home but dont think you should get same salary as its far easier.

I work in a school. It sometimes takes 50 mins to get there. Very heavy traffic sometimes. I have to then pay petrol and toll. I should get extra pay and costs for the stress and time taken from my day that you have not endured.

Surely if it was wonderful for employers they would let everyone work from home and avoid those massive office costs?
Clearly if they want people in it’s because too many people are taking the piss.

I agree. People say let firms offer it but the problem in the U.K. is businesses all just copy each other, so there’s already some banks and investment firms making everyone go in 5 days then the rest start to copy because they realise they can get away with it. And that’s the sense you get, businesses always looking to do the bare minimum. People don’t like the idea of others having a benefit as you say, so the idea everyone has to suffer and go and sit in a office to be on video calls all day is ok, because then you’re suffering like everyone else. I also think it’s unfair on those with mobility issues or neurodivergent because wfh can really help those people get jobs.

Personally I think it could be tackled another way. Force firms to advertise all jobs with a salary, whether wfh is possible or not (and if not, why and if it is, full details of how much wfh for that role specifically), whether part time is possible (and if not, why not), full details of all policies such as maternity, sickness, etc and force all firms to publish their policy on what adjustments they are capable of making. This could be as simple as retail jobs where a seat can be offered to those on cashier desks, or a commitment to music being played under a certain sound level, ability to make breaks more regular etc.

the more sunlight on employer practices the more they will have to improve.

Shows weak managers or lack of a robust process to enable them to act. Also some people view if a company gets lots of employment tribunals to defend as a bad thing, which it may not necessarily be.

Ironically who are the people most likely to work from home or remotely much of the time- print journalists!

If WFH from ‘worked’, then companies wouldn't be requesting people back in the office post covid. As others have said, for whatever reason, this model of working is no longer feasible, for a myriad of reasons.

But @notprincehamlet the carbon emissions of huge numbers of individuals working from poorly insulated residential property offset savings in commuting emissions.

Yes

@askmenow

Did you miss the but where OP set you that this is about for jobs where possible

There is nothing in the OP to suggest she was advocating for the hyperbolic examples you given

My workplace and a great many others have done exactly this.

Got rid of the offices and are save many hundreds of thousands.

It does work. For lots of business. Not all. But lots.

Hmm. I used to have a job where I worked odd hours. I often worked Saturdays and was off work on Wednesday. I loved it because the roads were much quieter midweek and I could get my errands done easily.
After Covid the roads are relentless, all day every day, but especially weekday lunchtimes. I guess this is when the WFH people are getting in their cars to nip to the supermarket/ gym etc, whereas previously they would have been away at their workplace. Also I have rarely commuted to work by car- most people who work in the city centre take public transport as parking is very expensive, so i think the environmental argument for wfh is nonsense.

I’ve worked for nearly all the major IB companies in the UK. Indian staff, including trainees, are effectively managed out of the US or UK or Europe. That includes their training - which is always remote even when undertaken in India.

Indian IB staff do remote work out of offices, basically. It’s a shit way of doing things which is why so many staff are leaving to join Indian companies.

I hate wfh so it would be a hard no thanks!
But l agree with hybrid working if possible. Has to work for the business.