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?

Absolutely, I can't WFH - never have WFH but my husband does and he does chores and the school run.. now he is expected to return to the office more days which is potentially an issue for us.

Wow you’re nice aren’t you. I expect that attitude won’t help your career progression!

Women being SAHMs is in fact a very recent, culture- and time-specific notion. Most mothers, of most classes, in most places, have always worked.

Yep. I have an adjustment that means I can attend the office less often than other people, but I've just had a 6 month fight to keep it, which made me more ill. I'm not bothered about being at home to put my washing on, I want to be able to do my job! The union have had so many similar cases, and I have other colleagues still waiting for decisions.

wfh is crap for young people / trainees.

I can’t WFH but my partner does. He is able to get a wash on, prep dinner and take a walk during his break and lunch period. He does this each week. It’s very good for the whole family and his days at home are so much easier for all of us and he’s very productive at work.

@squirrelnutcartel
if your DS has a disability I’d advise he requests additional home working as a reasonable adjustment.

The economy in the UK is tanking right now due to Labour's economic policies and businesses are looking to cut people left right and centre. They don't need to offer pay rises to get people back in the office, most are entitled to ask people to come back under their existing employment contracts and if some employees don't like it and leave voluntarily it will save the company on redundancy costs. Not disagreeing with you about costs having increased significantly by the way, so it will have a financial impact on a lot of people, just that many employers probably won't care as it's ultimately not their problem and the job market is very different to a few years ago.

And this is where you need flexibility not necessarily a permanent wfh arrangement.

He is already in the post. But disabled people applying for a new post and saying they need to wfh a;; the time are very unlikely to get the job

I agree 100% WFH is terrible for young people starting out, people training and learning ‘on the job’ but there are definite benefits for many.

Perhaps hybrid working is the ideal for a lot of people?

I could easily do a fully remote role now as an experienced solicitor. However when I was training and newly qualified and pre children I enjoyed going to the office everyday, the social side and also that’s how I learnt, watching colleagues work, in court, how they dealt with colleagues, their body language etc. I think more junior staff need some office time and face to face.

surley its not down to the employees to prop up the local coffee shops, sandwich bars etc especially considering the prices

I work from home. But I do wonder how all these people saying they get x, y and z done coped before covid when people were in 5 days a week usually.

I think it's a bit rich to blame this all on the Labour government they've only just started governing... but I guess that's a debate for a different thread. Just because they are entitled to ask people to do this does not make it a good decision.

In fact some companies are being absolutely ridiculous with this, for example, my husbands employers have recently moved to a smaller office block with fewer desks - they all hot desk - and have to book desks before they go to work. They recently announced they want everyone in 4/5 days a week - yet they haven't got the desk space - so this can't happen. Makes them look silly and petty as clearly it's not essential they are all in otherwise they would have made sure they had the desk space!

As someone working full time from home and who used to work in the office, during the wfh period I've been diagnosed with adhd and autism. I don't think i could ever work full time in an office again, now i know what i know. I can't cope with the sensory overwhelm, the commute, the lack of free time (we didn't have a break room, so the only place to go to get away from your desk was standing in the corridor. Now i can go sit on my own sofa for 10 minutes). I don't have a clue how i coped before. I was permanently burnt out, i think. Plagued with anxiety and depression. Since working from home I've come off my anti depressants as i don't need them anymore. I'm a far more effective worker from home because i can sit down and my environment is exactly what i need it to be so i just start working instead of trying to cope with an environment that was antithetical to me in every way. I'm not lazy - quite the opposite.

I think the forced return to offices for no good reason is far more of a problem for disabled workers than it is for mothers, but both groups are significantly more negatively affected than able bodied men who probably make up the majority of management.

This is absolutely the patriarchy. There's evidence that when new mothers are allowed to wfh, they are multiple times more likely to stay in the workforce. It cuts the motherhood penalty almost in half.

The only reason I am in a senior work role is because my DH (in his own senior role) can wfh as much as he wants and does most of our childcare pickups.

It was mainly driven by two female senior managers in my office. One’s a dinosaur control freak and the other is angry at the world so makes every effort to ensure staff are miserable and demoralised at all times.

People are now leaving in droves, both men and women. Corporate really is a cesspit.

the situation with your colleague with a debilitating spinal condition is not comparable.

his employer would not be able to "force him back into the office 5 days a week". your colleague is protected under the Equality Act (2010) and would apply for a reasonable adjustment. If they denied him that, he would take them straight to Employment Tribunal, but it wouldn't even get that far.

Some truth to this for sure, but I think the bigger elephant in the room in these discussions is always commute times.

So many people have really substantial commutes, not because they have just decided they want to live far from employment, but because housing near their employment is often unavailable or financially out of reach.

This comes down to failures around housing development and community planning.

In a well planned communitiy, business and industry should be able to house their workers close to work. That will usually mean that appropriate housing at various price points will have to be found in neighbourhoods where people can walk, bike, or take a short ride of public transport.

This is much more commonly available in small cities and towns, but anyone who has had that kind of situation will realize what a burden it lifts. In large cities it's often impossible to get a situation like this. It's a shocking difference, years ago when my kids were young, we moved from a situation with a long commute, to my husband having a 10 minute bus ride, that dropped him almost door to door. He could walk in a pinch, for that matter. It added a huge amount of family time and core time to his day.

In the town I work in now, a lot of people in my workplace will go home for lunch!

This is something that would require a lot of thought and change to make happen, however. But it's much more of an issue than an employer saying they want the job the are paying for to be done in a particular place. In fact, more people using WFH is likely to make the problem worse.

This is essentially what we have, flexibility is the key for working parents - we can both wfh or in the office whenever we want. Neither employer keeps a record of what we’re doing. I choose the office (mostly) and dh chooses home (mostly). But we also communicate and work around one another to make life run smoothly. It works very well.

👏👏👏

The extra 10 hours a week my employer has given me back now that I do not have to commute has been a god send. That's 470 hours for me to use whether that be for housework, childcare, a bath - anything for me to choose as its now my time and not dead time!

I'm so grateful that they trust me and let me choose and I'm so glad I don't work for some of you on here.

This is a bit of a fudge. In the past most people worked "from home", including women. The household work, which is real work and at one time was a very substantial task requiring not only time but very good management skills, was primarily done by women.

Employers are only calling people back to the office because WFH means doing cleaning, childcare, shopping and other things on work time.

WFH is less productive and harmful for any job where an element of teamwork is needed. It's terrible for physical and mental health. It disadvantages women and people without big enough homes to provide a work space.