To think there are different 'types' of WFH?

[LittleRedRidingHoody]

Every thread we have on here about WFH has varying opinions on what you can/cannot do when you're working from home - and people get quite heated in their beliefs! But AIBU to think sometimes it's comparing apples and oranges?

Some people WFH and the expectation is they work their set hours - same as you might do in the office - and obviously work the whole time. Not do any childcare at the same time etc. These hours are often tracked in some way.

Other roles (like mine) are much more flexible, but demand more at different times. I end up doing 40 hours or more across days/evenings/the odd weekend, but flex this around household tasks/school runs. My boss is fully aware of this and it's accepted company practise across the board. I was aware of this when I started, and it suits me well.

Obviously some people abuse either system, but I feel on MN even a whiff of doing anything other than work during a day WFH is evil and you're pulling one over on your company, which in turn becomes a bun fight. Am I alone in thinking this?

My job sounds similar to yours OP - I have targets to deliver and I'm managed on my output not the hours I sit at my desk. As long as I'm delivering what's required no one much cares where or when I do it. I can WFH, a coffee shop, a friends house -; whatever I like.

I'm lucky to work for a super flexible company who offer hybrid or remote contracts, workations, volunteer days, team away days etc and we're very much trusted to deliver. I'm fully remote and have been to the office twice this year. My role involves overseas travel so I tend to stay home outside of that.

I'm generally at my desk early as I wake early - my boss likes a long dog walk in a morning and often starts late but works in an evening. We both hit our targets!

I think the point raised by a poster on time management skills is important. I deliver tight projects alongside research so have a balance, this allows the flex.

If a person isn't time management focused it could become very onerous on them.

Also I would caution people jumping to it unless they really are self disciplined.

I work from home, and am freelance. I often don't work in the day and work in the evening or weekend or sometimes stay up all night and work over the night. I get paid per report I produce. So basically it doesn't matter to anyone when I put the hours in, or even that I do put the hours in. My pay is based on the quality of report and that's it! If I do not put the work in, the report would be poor and I wouldn't get anymore work!

I don't feel guilty going for a swim or having a coffee out mid morning, because chances are I was working til 3am the night before!!

I have the job I have precisely because it means I can take my children to school and be home for them after school, take them to clubs etc.. I'd actually prefer a 9 to 5, in office job (I like having colleagues I see every day! And I like having boundaries around work!) but for now WFH is the best option for me while my children are the ages they are.

The division comes because its really highlights the divide between “professional”workers who can work flexibly and manage their own time, and those in “non-professional” roles where you are monitored and likely required to be tied to the phone/desk to answer calls, in which you have few of the perks of the professional home worker.

Certainly working in legal, you have to bill a certain number of hours a week so I couldn't do childcare or anything! It does allow me to stick a wash on or run the robot hoover round while I'm working.

Comparatively my hub watches YouTube all day alongside his wfh job, when he's not in 2hr teams meetings. Oddly enough it precludes him from doing housework 😅

Very similar here .

Everyone on here will say they put in more effort/hours when they wfh.
I’m not convinced.
I personally know people who whilst their laptop is switched on are not working. They are not even sat at their laptop so definitely not working.
I’ve spoken to people whilst I’ve been at work and heard they dcs screaming in the background and repeating back what the person wfh is saying, very unprofessional. The person has even commented on how the dcs are off school as they know I can obviously hear them.
Someone working in an office could not do this, they would have to be working.
I think there are huge benefits to wfh, less time spend commuting, able to do other things such as sit in the garden, prepare dinner, hang washing out etc.
I have on occasion had to contact people wfh only to find they don’t answer messages as they are not actually working. 20 minutes later and they haven’t responded would never be tolerated in the office. I’m talking about an urgent response needed straight away, from someone who was supposed to be managing and whos primary role that day was to support staff.

Defintely depends on job.

There was a post yesterday from a lady who was asking how to fill her hours in the office tomorrow because she has nothing to do. I can't compute having nothing to do (my workload is generally always 4 x what I am capable of doing at any one time so the work essentially never ends) but I can accept that those sorts of jobs must exist.

This is fine for you. Is this a documented policy or down to your manager's discretion? I think everyone should be treated the same, but that just doesn't happen in practice unless the entire business is very relaxed about things. You probably have colleagues with different managers who don't get the same flexibility. That is what builds resentment and uncertainty. Ultimately people leave if it's not working for them.

I religiously work my days in the office and have done more if situations have dictated it. I have colleagues who are in once a fortnight or less frequently and they're not travelling on business, they just have a manager who doesn't enforce the policy. One guy had his security pass cancelled because he hadn't been in for six weeks.

I do the same as you OP, if the kids have a Christmas play I block that time out and attend but then make up that time in the evening / weekend. I think it’s funny people can’t grasp this. You are contracted to 8 hours a day and providing it’s not messing up meetings or your work I can work those 8 hours how I want.

I find WFH really convenient but I usually work my hours 9-5. Sometimes it might be 8:30-6, sometimes 9:15-4:30, there is some flexibility around it as long as my work is done.

If I have a break I might throw some washing in the machine or run the hoover round while I'm making a cup of tea, a few minutes here and there that I would be taking in the office anyway.

At one point I was fitting some flooring when we redecorated. Ftting the flooring on a morning, then working until my lunch break, back to the flooring over my break, then working again, then more flooring afterwards. That didn't really work, I just took a day off in the end to get it done with.

Childcare wise we did have DS attend an after school childminder so I would be free until after 5pm. He's 11 now though, he gets himself back from school, I might take a few minutes to make him a snack but generally he chills out for an hour or two until I'm finished work.

This is kind of my point though.

For your workplace, that may be unprofessional, and if the culture is not one where that's acceptable - fair enough and management should deal with it.

For my company, all of that is completely the norm - not the screaming thank goodness, but it's normal for DS to be around when I'm doing a bit of work, and to mention and be transparent about it when it happens. Also very common in my role for people being away from their desks for extended period - I'll normally update my Slack to say I'm offline and when I'll be back, but honestly I wouldn't think twice (and neither would the people I work with) about disappearing offline for a couple of hours. But that's common for the culture at our company, and the hours are easily made up at other times - and even if not, if there's an issue with productivity it would always be about someone not hitting targets in their role - not about micromanaging time spent at a desk.

Yep, the post you're replying to is yet another example of people placing their own, necessarily limited experiences at the centre. The assumption is that anyone who says something different must be inaccurate, rather than just being in a workplace that isn't like ones the poster has been in. It's all very me me me.

@NigelHarmansNewWife it's definitely documented policy and widely accepted - the flexibility involved and way of working is included in job descriptions! There are caveats - if a meeting is added to your calendar during 'core working hours' and you're free, the expectation is you'll attend if you're not on annual leave/nothing else in your calendar. It's also clear that you cannot provide full time childcare during your working hours, but the flexibility is there for school runs, holidays, and sickness. We haven't needed to enforce this yet.

That being said, we do have a customer service team who obviously work on a shift basis and - although remote - must stay online for their hours and cannot have background noise. But those contracts are also clear from the outset.

On WFH threads it feels like you're banging your head against a brick wall sometimes because so many people can't seem to comprehend that it doesn't always make sense to measure output in terms of hours spent on it (let alone a set seven-hour block every day).

I'm paid partly to have creative ideas and to execute them well. When inspiration strikes, I do my best work in next to no time because I get in a groove where it all flows. Very often that happens because I carve out chunks of leisure time for myself in the day, like running or reading, not in spite of it. Forcing myself to sit at my desk for hours on end doesn't result in innovative ideas or compelling execution at all.

I also spearhead projects with an international team and sometimes you have to wait for someone in a different timezone in order to proceed. If I've done everything I need to by 10am but need a response from NYC, why on earth would I stay sat at my desk for the next three hours waiting for that? I'll do my own thing then come back later in the day to work with them when they're awake.

And on top of all that my industry has clearly defined ebbs and flows over the year. There are times when I'm travelling and working from 8am to 10pm, and other times when I barely have an hour's worth of work to do in a day. Our company realises that it's important for us to decompress in the slow periods, because the high-intensity periods would be unsustainable over a whole year.

Trust. This is why some employers are reluctant. They have to trust that the work is getting done to the right standard. They have to trust that should someone need to consult with you that you are available to take that call. What if they required your camera to be on during your set work hours? (I mean I'm sure they can't, but this would help with accountability).
Taking ten minutes 'break' a couple times a day is fine, and if that break is you doing laundry who cares?
Trusting someone who is 'flexi working' is next level. I suppose the work produced will have to stand as evidence. I have a friend who as long as she gets the work done (she works in Brussels for the EU) she can be as flexible as she likes. Three weeks off in summer? Just get the work done. Only work school hours? Just get the work done. Ideal. It's a stressful job but her work is exemplary.

There’s definitely an unwillingness from some posters to accept that in some workplaces there is genuine flexibility and freedom for people to choose their own hours, even sometimes in quite conventional office jobs. There is an edge of ‘you’re clearly taking the piss and just haven’t been reprimanded for it yet’, because that’s the way it is for them and they can’t quite accept it’s different elsewhere!

I’m definitely more productive at home than in the office, even factoring in the time I sometimes take to do nursery travel or household chores. In the office I’m distracted constantly by chats with colleagues, impromptu meetings and catch ups, the noise of other people etc. I have to record my time every day and on my office days I record noticeably less time. At home, I might not be chained to my desk every minute or the day but I get nice, hours-long stretches of unbroken hyperfocus where I can be immensely productive. I can also start earlier and finish later when I don’t have to factor in my long commute.

They have to trust that the work is getting done to the right standard

This isn't a question of trust because presumably they can see the work themselves once it's done.

Yup, I’m measured by output. So although my ‘office’ hours are 8.30am- 5.30pm it doesn’t matter when I do the work as long as I hit targets.
I often start at 7am, I’m in calls or meetings a few times a week 6/7pm. But in the day Inmight go to gym, run errands, take kids to something… it balances out and Inhave tons of flex and don’t work much more than my 36 hrs a week.

Definitely. Kind of the reason I started the thread because I'm a bit sick of seeing people call everyone lazy/taking the piss when juggling WFH with a sick child or errands. In some jobs it might be, in mine it's not!

Even just the freedom of putting in work when it's best for everyone. Am I going to sit staring at a screen trying to do a bit of admin in an afternoon slump, or go for a run and then do the work at 4x the speed that evening when I get a hit of energy? Because the second option is better for me and the company.

A lot of my coworkers, male and female, have this arrangement on WFH days. They all also sometimes send me emails at the weekend when they're catching up on work.

I’m always baffled by people who say they spend the whole day AT THEIR DESK WORKING. That is actually bad for health you are meant to get up and walk around during which time you can spend 5 minutes putting a load of washing on. Also don’t you ever have to think about anything? Sitting staring at a screen thinking something through is pretty pointless. Maybe these people just have data entry jobs or something I dunno

yeah you are right…i ‘just’ have a data entry type job where i am on the phones all day

i am someone who appreciates that everyones job is different though, dh can work much more flexibly than me though he does work much longer than me on many occasions…but thats why they pay him the big bucks and not me 😀

You can if you have eg teens who are doing their own homework or playing video games

I’ve worked, wfh for a lot of years now, predating covid by a while, and I’ve had a good mix of jobs where you have to register your breaks etc everything is monitored and ones where it’s really up to me, atm im in a one where I’m not monitored and very flexi, I tend to work 10-6 as I like the consistency but work really doesn’t care when I work as long as I have the core hours (4-6) and complete my work and don’t be a blocker

Yes my job isn’t really needed to be a 9-5 type job! I can do it any time of day and nobody is really counting amount of hours - more that once I’m getting everything done on time then it’s all fine ! I have weeks in the month that are quiet then I have certain weeks where I’d easily do 50 hours so it all balances out

On a Thursday we are on the wait list for a nursery place and been waiting ages to add the day and it’s not available yet

so I get up at 6 and work until 11

then my husband works 11-6

tag team childcare through the day and then I finish off my work that evening after bed time!

sometimes if we have a quiet weekend il do a few hours of work on a Saturday so I can pick my child up early from nursery and we can go out to the park or soft play in the afternoon on a random week day

I often go for a long lunch time swim

my job is very flexible
husbands job is more structured and mostly needs to be done during 9-5 hours but he has permission to do the current Thursday set up for the time being