That ship has sailed

[Grooveisintheheartbaby]

My company want us back to the office 5 days a week. As far as I and colleagues are concerned that ship has sailed and we will not be coming back we will leave. AIBU to think that businesses need to accept that things changed in covid forever and they can't reverse it without massive disrest and unhappiness?

I agree with you about weak managers, or those who are hamstrung by an unsupportive HR department.

I also think the wish of a manager (or senior managers) to work from home has a bearing.

I completely agree. My DH worked from home over Covid as did most office based people, and this carried on even after lockdown, but on a more part-time ad-hoc basis. He will freely admit that as diligent as he is, and with the level of responsibility he had (a lot) he was nowhere near as productive. During Covid it was just sort of accepted that this would be the case, but after it, people seemed reluctant to work as hard as they previously had for the same substantial salary, even though they were saving a fortune by WFH.

He got the hump that when he'd need to speak to a colleague or a staff member urgently, they'd not answer the phone when they should have been at their laptops working. They'd always phone back an hour or so later with some flimsy excuse for why they were not able to speak at the time, but whatever they were doing, they were clearly not in a work meeting. These are all people on six figure salaries working to important deadlines. It's not the sort of 'rubber stamping' job where they have a set amount to do and as long as they get through it, it doesn't matter when in the day it's done. Other team members were in the office, and needed to be able to communicate with their colleagues in exactly the same way as if they were there in person, ie. spontaneously and immediately.

Or people would answer the phone but it was clear that they were not at home working, but in a shop/restaurant on the golf course or whatever. But they'd always volunteer some sort of 'sorry if it's noisy, I've just had to pop out to the chemist for some paracetamol for a headache' or some such nonsense. Or people would clearly be dealing with their children. Sorry but if you are supposed to be working you can't be doing your own full time childcare at the same time. It might work for some roles but it really doesn't for others.

He found it frustrating to no longer be able to just stick his head into someone's office or pigeonhole and get an immediate solution to a problem or answer to a question, instead constantly having to schedule calls ahead of time, and chasing people to get the answers to relatively small things which stopped him moving ahead with something important. It wasted do much time and really impacted negatively on productivity. It also really affected the ability of his staff to work as a team and think as a team.

We've had a few experiences, since running our own business, where it's clear we are dealing with WFH people and it's incredibly frustrating trying to get anything done because of it. They just aren't available or responsive 95% of the time. Trying to get anyone to pick up the phone AT ALL or even answer an email in a reasonable time frame seems too big of an ask these days. Particularly when dealing with the local council. And yet there the city hall is, huge, imposing, expensive to run, and mostly empty. Just baffling.

We went in in person once because we were tired of not being able to get anyone to answer the phone. We'd left email and phone messages for the required department several times but never got a response. There was a woman sitting at a reception desk whose sole purpose it was to tell people that they could not see or speak to anyone in person, they couldn't make an appointment to do so either, and they should use the phone or email. Like we hadn't already thought of that, tried it a hundred times and failed.

in fairness I would do the exact same in the office physically. I am in the middle of doing something that needs to be done and I don't want your phone call interrupting my train of thought. I would put my phone off the hook and ignore your ims ( before teams ) just because your ready to have a phonecall. pre covid I would.puposly book a meeting room on my own( if it was free ) to get peace to do things. now people message me on teams if am free will have a call if not they can wait we are not dealing with life and death situations here

My company is hybrid. I'm the boss.

I'm not planning on changing it anytime soon as I know it gives my team a better work life balance.

WFH also makes jobs much more accessible to people. We couldn't, for example, hire someone to work in the office full time that had severe mobility problems. We rent an office on the first floor of a building that doesn't have a lift, so the ability for someone to work from home instead can make a job much more achievable for someone with a disability.

We do, however, have one staff member that takes the piss. As a result we rescinded his right to work from home (full disciplinary process). We're starting allowing it again with expectations of performance and attendance, but it is an absolute pain for us to manage and monitor him. We will do so though and will go through capability/disciplinary procedures if we have to as, quite frankly, he's a liability anyway.

I can see, therefore, why some businesses are bringing people back in. As always, it's the actions of the minority that affect everyone else.

All I would say though to you OP is tread carefully. Use the rights available to you to request flexible working, but don't be insubordinate to the requests of management in the meantime (i.e. don't give them any reason to start a disciplinary procedure against you). If your contract states that you are to work in the office and the WFH arrangement was introduced due to covid, like ours was, they are entirely within their right to ask everyone back in.

What effect that has on their staff retention is, of course, another matter.

I am on annual leave today. shocking 😲
and for your further information I don't have a set one day a week in the office it depends on requirements and what my boss wants. I have 4 days a week work from home 😉

You’re coming off as childish, you’re saying you accepted a hybrid role (although your contract doesn’t reflect this agreement). Resign if you want to leave, no need to clog up mumsnet with this non-event. Essentially your employer is seeking to uphold the terms of the contract you signed, you could find yourself in breach of contract if you aren’t happy to uphold the terms. Lesson for you: don’t sign another contract that doesn’t reflect the terms you’re seeking, your new contract would need to reflect the hours you are happy to work in the office and should specify if you’re fully remote. There aren’t many contracts offered that do stipulate remote working, friends who’ve required/insisted on these terms have accepted roles with lower wages that reflect the flexibility. I’d have thought your time was better spent looking for a new more flexible employer, they are out there…as you’ve pointed out.

Word of warning for anyone thinking of jumping roles to get more flexibility. Get your wfh agreement written into your contract.

I think a lot of employers are trying to be vague about that at the minute but if it isn't in the contract, it's easy for them to roll back on promises made verbally.

Good advice.

Anecdotally, there seem to be quite a few people who started new remote/primarily home based roles during the restrictions period and just got the standard contract shoved at them because everyone was off sick, furloughed etc.

Or people would answer the phone but it was clear that they were not at home working, but in a shop/restaurant on the golf course or whatever. But they'd always volunteer some sort of 'sorry if it's noisy, I've just had to pop out to the chemist for some paracetamol for a headache' or some such nonsense.

This reminds me, a friend and I went for a walk a couple of weeks ago round a local reservoir/nature reserve. We sat on a bench for a bit to enjoy the sun, there was a woman at the end of the bench quite clearly involved in a work call. Obviously not at her desk!

Same. I spent so much time on a screen with a headache and then it was a migraine on the way home accompanied by nausea.
Now if I get a headache I’ve got easy access to anything I need and can lie down straight away after. I’ve not had one day off in a year of a new job. Same with colds etc

I jumped ship over a year ago. We were hybrid 2 days in the office and we had a signed agreement for this. Obviously on the company terms. They decided that we would have to go in 3 days and at the same time gave a minimal pay rise of 1.8% (it was the year minimum wage went up 10%, some companies did cost of living payments and inflation was crazy) that didn't cover the fuel for the extra day. They were also a bad company so that was the final straw.

The problem is, you can't vote with your feet if all workplaces are doing the same thing. It's more of a principle thing to me. That wasn't what was agreed. If I agree it with the next place and they value me as an employee then I'm fine.

I used to commute to the office, every day, because I had to. Conservatively, 2 hours commuting time per day.

That's 10 hours per week.

450 hours (18.75 days) in a typical year.

In a forty year career, that's 18,000 hours, or 750 days, over 2 years.

Fuck that if there is an alternative.

Also worth pointing out that the further away we get from February 2020, the less likely it is that the public transport options will be unchanged. There are going to be people who relied on a bus or train 5 years ago that doesn't run now.

It is indeed a performance issue, and we did tackle it. It was so many people that the best means of tackling it was to make everyone come back to the office. Unfortunately, it wasn't just one person performing poorly, it was more like one person performing efficiently.

I understand this, however there are times when the colleague needed to be interrupted as what I need is more important. If I can walk out and see you're on the phone, it's easy to wait until you are free.

Maybe she was on her lunch break taking a work call? Maybe it was her day off?

Maybe she doesn't have to be at her desk to take this work call?

but they could be off the phone and still not free ? the constant interruptions is one thing I don't miss from the office or tye people shoving past my desk to get to the person next to me to talk to them also interuppting me. even worse was a manger constantly interrupting me to ask what he deemed urgent questions where it was sent to him in an email or was on the system etc but too lazy to look

My point was that most people think of it in the same terms as you are, i.e. from your own perspective. I was the CTO, and often the CEO would present himself asking questions that needed answering rapidly. Under those circumstances, quite frankly, there is very little that the colleague could be doing that I couldn't justify interrupting.

I get what you mean about information being available with managers too lazy to look it up, that I definitely didn't do and would put it down to poor working practices. Fortunately, as CTO, I was able to ensure that all the relevant tools for knowledge sharing were available and used which minimised the need for such interruptions. Indeed we created dashboards for the CEO to use (which rarely happened), so I completely get where you are at. Bottom line though, sometimes it is necessary, and that's my decision to make.

Whether you agree or not, there is also a lot of value in the 'water cooler' conversation. You may have thought of it as an interruption, however someone else may have thought that speaking to you was very beneficial.

I would be looking to your organisational culture, recruiting practices and rewards structures, in that case, as it would seem that you are not attracting the right calibre employees, or there are issues with culture and management more widely within the organisation.

There will always be a small minority of piss-takers, but if you're finding this is the norm then it points to more wide-spread issues.

I've taken work calls on days off before. I don't think there's much to be concluded from one isolated incident

All of those issues were prevalent. It was a turn around company, so there were many issues in that particular case, however none of them manifested as much pre-covid.

My experience is not unusual though unfortunately. Many of my peers had the exact same, so it is more common than you might imagine. This is proved by the amount of companies getting people back into the office I suppose.

Ah, that makes sense.

I don't know, I do wonder if it varies a bit from industry to industry and at different levels of seniority. I work for myself now (thankfully!), but in previous organisations I didn't experience it as a widespread issue. One was a (well-run) charity, so most staff were motivated by the cause. The other was a commercial business where people were very well-paid dependent on performance, so also very well motivated!

I do wonder if people in jobs that are less intrinsically meaningful or well-paid might be more prone to slacking off if the opportunity arises.

I have noticed that a lot of companies are keen to get people back in, but not always convinced that this is because of a 'real' reason, rather than the management are suspicious and just wanting to see bums on seats. I notice that more where there is a more old-fashioned management culture, e.g. the City.

Why would they not care about their most important asset?

Someone doing their job from home, whilst walking dogs, getting kids to and from school, doing washing and cleaning, and having 2 hour lunches is NOT an 'important asset.'

This is what millions and millions of people have done since the dawn of time. Commute to and from work.

Give me strength! 😖