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 don’t really understand all the hand-wringing. If my employer introduced a working practice or arrangement that I didn’t like, and I couldn’t persuade them to give me more flexible working, I’d look for another job that had preferable working arrangements. They don’t run their business for my convenience.

I wasn't offering any view on whether the OP's employers are "poor" or "power tripping" though.

It's not my decision to try to make the OP go back to the office. I am not, in fact, defending any such decision - it sounds like you think I am... I am just saying, this is a battle that the OP is likely to lose, so she should look for another job that does suit her.

I accept that in your experience, the Jeff Bezos / Mark Zuckerberg / Rupert Murdochs of this world hold a deep and unwavering devotion to ensuring their employees get to live their best lives, and in return their workforces put in 110 per cent; it has not been my experience, but we're all different aren't we...

Well that sounds good in theory, but the truth is that more people say they are unable to go back to work due to long term sickness than ever before.

I suspect this is largely among a cohort of low paid, low skilled workers whose jobs cannot be done from home, finding they are only marginally less well off (but much happier) claiming long term sickness or disability benefits compared to slogging it out in a low reward job several days a week.

If their jobs were cushier, better paid, or of the WFH variety, they may be rather more willing to keep doing them, but some people are never going to have those sorts of jobs because they don't have the ability or the qualifications.

It's interesting that you say you save a lot of money on fuel. People who now manage to WFH in a job where that was never an explicit part of the contract are raking it in financially. They realised this during Covid and it's no wonder they are reluctant to stop. They've moved further out of big cities to cheaper areas, they've cut down on paid childcare, they don't have commuting costs, maybe they can now run one family car instead of two. It stands to reason they are reluctant to give that up.

But unless your contract was negotiated on the basis of a typical week being WFH with the occasional in-person meeting to attend, then you are wanting to have your cake and eat it. I am not against WFH per se, but I do think people have become rather entitled and resistant to putting themselves out, and expect the world of business to bend to them while still taking the same salary. If companies genuinely didn't feel any negative effects from that then they'd not be making a fuss about getting you all back in, would they? They'd be ending their tenancies on their office buildings and saving a ton of money and going completely WFH for everyone, with business suites/conference rooms hired for the occasional in person meeting as necessary.

I think companies should re-negotiate people's contracts. Give them the choice of either coming into the office for however many days a week they deem necessary, or saying you can WFH except for 2 days a month or whatever, but you need to take a 20% pay cut. (or whatever amount they deem reasonable in the circumstances.)

People saying they will just leave if their companies push are forgetting that even if their company capitulates to keep you in the short term, you may well be looked over for promotion or a decent pay rise if you are seen as uncooperative and inflexible in ways that you never would have felt entitled to be pre-COVID.

Perhaps they will save quite a bit of money by calling your bluff and allowing you to leave, then re-hiring for much less on a contract where a clear WFH is specified from the beginning.

Perhaps they will save quite a bit of money by calling your bluff and allowing you to leave, then re-hiring for much less on a contract where a clear WFH is specified from the beginning.

The most in demand employers could pull it off. Those who pay enough, are the biggest names, are in sectors where there's a surplus of good recruits. Also those who recruit people who don't have many options. Rather harder for those not falling into any of these categories, which is of course part of the reason some people continue to be able to enforce full/partial remote work now.

Completely clueless and naive people - will just leave in their droves.
Completely savvy and screwed - the chances of leaving and also finding a remote in the current job market is pretty slim. The old normal will just replace the new normal.
All I can say is good luck

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten the gig economy. You're right. In those cases I think wfh is a cop-out by the employer. It gets round a shedload of employment regulations.

I think companies should re-negotiate people's contracts. Give them the choice of either coming into the office for however many days a week they deem necessary, or saying you can WFH except for 2 days a month or whatever, but you need to take a 20% pay cut. (or whatever amount they deem reasonable in the circumstances.)

Good luck with getting that past the trade unions! Or the lawyers. Two people doing the same job should be paid the same money, irrespective of whether this work is taking place in the office or remotely

I hadn't considered gig economy work but yes, true. Worth including them too. Was thinking of the bog standard PAYE call centre roles.

There's ways round it, they could give a travel allowance presumably.

The complex part would be getting enough good staff who accept it. It's not like all employers who'd ideally prefer more office presence are suddenly going to work in concert, particularly as lots of them don't actually have enough desks for everyone in the relevant locations now. People are going to start breaking cover, noticing that they can nab talent they wouldn't otherwise have access to if they beat their competitor on remote working. Suggestions that involve people forgetting we live in a free market capitalist society are seldom very helpful.

Yes!

Gosh, there are some pretty bitter & jealous responses here. I think what a lot of people fail to realise is that some employers actually ALLOW flexi working from home to facilitate school pick ups etc. And if people choose to do a load of washing on their lunch break that is their choice. It's not like people are twiddling their thumbs doing nothing all day!

Yes, travel, clothing and food allowances. Perhaps the removal of the company car scheme as a benefit, unless you need to commute to the office. It would be pretty easy to justify that, for a start.

It's a long time since I worked in an office in London but when I did, there was London Weighting. Is that still a thing? It was a way of levelling up to address the added expenditure, hassle and time of commuting into London versus working locally in the provinces. And we had luncheon vouchers too.

Why would you need a salary with a benefits package like that if you work from home? And yet hundreds of thousands of people are taking packages that were designed to make working in London with all its added expenses and inconveniences possible, while working from their sofa in some sweat pants and eating sandwiches from their own kitchens.

I think it all depends on what's in your contract and what was discussed/agreed from the beginning, then put in writing. As I said before, I am not against flexible working or WFH at all. But I think it's high time clearer boundaries and expectations where put in place, especially for people who do not have WFH mentioned in their contract at all. Unless you have a contract that states you WFM 95% of the time (or whatever) then you should assume you are expected in the office 100% of the time, unless you have sought express permission not to be, on a week by week basis. Your employer has the right to insist that you appear in person as often as they like. If you don't like that then you need to either ask to renegotiate your contract or leave.

It does piss me off that so many people seem to have unilaterally decided that they will move the goal posts and take advantage of unwritten loopholes in contracts made before WFH more or less full time was a thing. On the back of being cut some slack since COVID they now think they can call the shots 100% of the time. They've gone ahead and made lifestyle decisions that mean going back into the office for anything more than the very occasional meeting is now unwelcome, expensive and impractical, but what the hell did they expect, and why should their company pay the price for that?

The answer to a lot of these questions is, because they can. Because we live in a capitalist society and they have sufficient leverage. In the same way that employers don't generally offer better pay or benefits than they think they need in order to get the best staff available to them.

Good point, a lot are happy to still be on London Weighting salaries.

It goes both ways, if OP is so unhappy with her company and has so much leverage, why come and moan on here.

If you're so well sought after, surely you'd just change jobs to suit.

The London weighting issue is causing workplace tensions. We have offices in various locations in the UK and those at the London office get quite a significant weighting. However, as we only have to do two days per week in the office, a decent sized minority of “London based” employees get the weighting but live elsewhere - some even live in the Midlands and stay over one night a week at a cheap hotel.

This inevitably means those in the regions to query why they’re doing the same job for less money, when the London weighting is applied to people who don’t live in London.

Exactly.

TBF that is exactly what OP has said she and other staff are going to do. I think she's BU to assume this is the same across the entire spectrum of employment, but she's been very clear about her own plans.

She's also naive if she thinks she can leave a well paid job which was never intended to be an exclusively WFH position and find an exclusively WFH position on a similar or greater salary.

I would be looking for another job.

You're naive if you think you can generalise like that based on the very limited information OP has given. Which doesn't include the rate of pay, incidentally. There's at least one sector that isn't well paid and has trouble recruiting hence sometimes has to offer fully remote work to get staff.

This is the problem with remote working discussions. Far too many people, and tbf the OP is one of them, insist on generalising. There's massive variation.

Yes fair point. But the fact that so many companies (and the civil service) are pushing to get people back in the office on at least a part time basis tells us that they know productivity is suffering. If it was working as well as some employees insist that it is, then that just wouldn't be the case.

Equally, there are lots of organisations that aren't. For obvious reasons, that gets less attention.

Though I don't actually think we can assume all employers have correctly assessed how they can best balance optimum working environment and having optimum staff. Bear in mind productivity is only one part of this. Just because an organisation has found that they're more productive with, say, 60% in person attendance rather than 30% doesn't mean they're going to be able to get the staff they need for what they're willing to pay.

We know some of them get it wrong. Which, for the sake of balance, isn't necessarily limited to the ones who want people in the office.

I assume your contractual place of work didn't change and still states that you're office based?

Most people have bills and mortgages that come before making a point. Lots will make noises and threats, very few will see them through.