To think the call back into the office is an example of the patriarchy very much alive and well?

[Yestttlo]

And anyone who thinks otherwise is either brainwashed by the patriarchy or isn’t a mother with a huge proportion of child related responsibility on her shoulders? (Or someone who is in a job where they can’t work from home so don’t want to support other women having the right to).

I have worked from home since covid. Been in the office eight times where it was necessary, for instance a company away day or face to face client meeting. I have a young dc and the call back to the office will damage my career progression due to time spent travelling which means I can’t be online longer and because I will be stretched to get household stuff done .. no I don’t mean I clean the toilets during work hours but that I can put a wash on first thing and know I can unload it at lunch, or get cooking done for the evening during my lunch break which means my evening is not chaotic and I can actually rest a little before starting in full force again the next day.

I will be fighting it to the very end. I will make my views clear. I strongly believe that forcing people into offices hugely disproportionately affects women. My work can be done anywhere. Forcing back into offices is a neon sign that the patriarchy is alive and well. Thoughts?

OP I notice your post says I have a child why did it not say we have a child?
How did the childcare discussions between you and your husband go before you had the child? How did the career progression discussions go? How did the division of household chores discussion go?
Or did you both just assume that this wouldn't affect him and only your job would be impacted? Did you look at the options for his job? Why do your employers need to make allowances but not his?

It was not intended to be a clincher, but to show up the poster’s glib and evidence-free assertion.

Some archaic people on this thread. Boomers.

Experts on radio 4 believe that the call to return is to prevent a fall in demand for office space, as many of these companies are headed up by investors in property. Really makes a lot of patriarchal sense.

Any those property companies are likely forming a good part of your pension investments portfolio, so be careful what you wish for.

I'm too young to be a boomer - I'm a millennial. I've also career changed recently and I'm now entry level in a totally different industry. We have hybrid working, most people in my work in office because a) they are young and they don't have the luxury of a dedicated work space at home, b) they enjoy the social aspect of the office, c) it is much, much easier the ask for help and to support others when they need help if you can just ask the person next to you to have a quick look at your screen. They and I are also aware that it is much easier to be on the lookout for opportunities and at the forefront of people's minds when special projects etc come up if you are actually there.

@CaptainCarrotsBigSword you do know you can share your screen over zoom?

A lot of the more recent studies have found that people that solely wfh are a fair bit less productive and that hybrid is about the same as being in the office. They also seem to repeatedly find that the vast majority of people think they're more productive when wfh (73% in last one I read).

Make of that what you will.

I work in a job where WFH is not possible. But having seen a few of these threads, the reasons the OP gives for wanting to WFH make it sound like she wants to do housework or childcare during her work hours. She’s then being given a hard time.

However if she’d said that her mental health is improved by working from home it would be perceived differently. In this case it might be she is able to go to the gym in the morning instead of commuting, has a healthy homemade lunch and finishes early enough to go for a run.

It somehow sounds more positive and worthy than saying ‘I’m less stressed WFH because I can use my breaks to get ahead with other tasks’ which is pretty sad.

Just reposting my previous post from yesterday for those that may have missed it - not had one solitary comment about these studies and I think they're interesting.

They're not in any way intended as a gotcha as most state that the findings aren't conclusive but they certainly bring into question the commonly stated dogma that people are more productive when wfh.

I’ve read this whole thread with interest.
There’s a lot of women blaming other women for circumstances and situations that have been created by the patriarchy, in my view. And - as always - it’s not our job to fix this (like we haven’t got enough to do??)
There are also a wide range of valid perspectives presented.
It’s a complex issue experienced differently by us all.

Yes basically this. But mentioning MH is a bit of a piss take. Of course anyone is going to have a better quality of life if they arent sitting in traffic twice a day and have more time for gyms and homemade food or whatever.

But its work not a holiday camp!

It shouldn't be our job to fix it but realistically who else will?

Well, I am more productive from home. So 🤷‍♀️

Others won't be (I'm guessing most in jobs where it's demonstrable are, in the main).

It seems we have a nation of piss poor managers who can't cope with dealing with people who aren't pulling their weight WFH. Some serious training is needed for those people!

really? My first job was sitting beside a woman who told me the square root of fuck all, and a manager who did not speak to me about a single thing I did wrong (because I wasn’t bloody trained), instead he just wrote “error noted”.

ive also implemented several software systems and migrated clients from one platform to another successfully while working from home

Well, studies seem to suggest that the majority of people believe that they're more productive working from home (73% in last one I read) but that management disagree. The reality is not yet clear but certainly a lot of data suggests that 100% wfh is the least productive and hybrid is sometimes on a par with working in the office but may not be.

There also seems to be a possible link between people who prefer wfh being significantly less productive at home when compared to those who prefer working in the office. I wonder if this reflects the fact that some people want to wfh for less ethical reasons (like longer lunches and being able to hide from management etc).

But who really knows at this stage.

"if an employee was highly productive in-office, they’ll be productive at home; if an employee slacked off at the office, they’ll do the same a home."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2022/02/04/3-new-studies-end-debate-over-effectiveness-of-hybrid-and-remote-work/

I think office working is just an excuse for crap managers not to train people properly. Oh just ask your colleagues.
I do not want to train people in using IT systems who are new to the role when it is not my job, and the manager has not organised proper training.

Mental health is hugely important. If employers don’t pay attention to it, they are shooting themselves in the foot as around 63% of UK companies admit that Mental Health issues are one of the most common reasons for long term sick leave

It's not a patriarchy problem it's a capitalist problem.

@MattBerningerstrophywife so bosses are trying to make workers lives as shit as possible?

BS. MH is just an excuse for anything now

Of course people are happier avoiding the rush hour but work is work. People cant just work from home cos its easier. Whatever next? A shorter week cos its good for MH.

Give your head a wobble.

100% it was definitely the employees who had the upper hand for once when covid hit and it was good, wages rising, flexibility etc. Labour utterly fuckinf up the economy has halted thatband now it's very much back with employers having the upper hand. Hold onto your jobs cos it is not going to be pretty over the next 12 months.

Of course anyone is going to have a better quality of life if they arent sitting in traffic twice a day and have more time for gyms and homemade food or whatever.

True, but isolation is possibly an even bigger factor in MH than the daily commute. I suffered from major depressive disorder as a youth and I love getting home from work and hate the lines being blurred - e.g. having my free time in the same room I've been in all day.

Most people that only work eight hours a day should be able to make time for the gym unless they have a lot of other responsibilities (which I appreciate some do). It's about the least hours you can do in a FT job notwithstanding special cases.

But others may of course feel differently.

Lockdown showed it worked on a temporary basis. It did not show that such a plan would work for all or most sectors permanently.

One of the really notable things in the responses to me is that those claiming that WFH is just fine seem almost always just to be thinking of their own specific job duties. They don't seem to be considering the wider, and less measurable, elements - things like mentoring new workers, or the creative synergies involved in developing new products or programming, or developing relationships with clients. Things like this are important, and in many sectors actually vital to the ongoing viability of the business.

With disability, employers have two obligations. The first is to consider whether a position contains really unnecessary elements or could be arranged in such a way that an employee can totally fill the role, just like someone without the disability. Maybe this might mean investing in some software that allows the employee to listen rather than read text, just as an example.This is really an ideal kind of situation - the employer has no real downsides and someone gets a job.

The other is asking for accommodation, for the job to be modified to make it suitable for whatever the limitation is. Working from home is like this - it might be that the core elements of the job can be done perfectly well at home by a diligent employee. But there also will be sacrifices from the employer - that person might not be able to meet clients at the office for example, so that part of the job will need to be done by someone else. And training new employees, helping them settle in, and mentoring, probably won't be possible.

That may be fine, and I think employers should try and accommodate this kinds of things if they can. But it only works if there are in fact other people in the workplace who can take on those roles. Just as an example - one of the tech teams in my workplace has an employee with an accommodation - he can't do listing or carrying and has significant mobility issues. Recently, another member of the team asked for a similar accommodation - but the fact is, that would leave the team short of people to do what is a significant part of the job.

Should the limited ability of workplaces to accommodate people with significant disability be spent on people who just don't like to have to see other people, or even families who don't have good childcare arrangements? I don't actually think that's a great idea.

This is really about commuting though, isn't it?

I totally understand how people end up working in another city as you are, and in many cases it's just the best of bad options. But that is the real problems IMO - it's not that people need the right to wfh, it's that they need affordable housing, that isn't a complete dump near where they work.

Of course some may choose to live further away because they like the country or some such, when they could live closer to work, but I think that's one of those trade offs you need to weigh up carefully and not the employers responsibility.

Well yes, that's a pretty reasonable management decision from the people that pay the wage.