To ask if you (also) just ignore your "required" days in the office?

[Everythingisnumbersnow]

I am supposed to do two days. But the office is a minging hotdesk box full of coughing weirdos and the toilets are smeared with shit by 910am.

I can't do my job well in the office so I just don't go. I do manage people and they seem to appreciate the flexibility (half go into the office sometimes, half never do, we perform well).

Anyway it's been a real eye opener for the power of low key just defying silly rules.

Anyone else?

(If they cracked down I'd go elsewhere)

I think the resistance to a completely different way of working is just showing a huge generational gap. I'm really interested in the discussion started by @Everythingisnumbersnow , but cannot understand why people are making such rude comments (pink unicorns?). Maybe it's just general discomfort with change? My parents never could've imagined how far internet use would go and g/parents would not have understood the concept at all. Work practices in the near future will not look the same. WFH is a major part of that for cost-savings alone. The younger generation is mindful of the environment as well and everyone continuing to commute doesn't fit that mindset.

Same! We have two agreed days a week when my whole team is in. Coming in on other days would be pointless. The office is nice, good location, I like my team and although I'm an introvert I think I would feel lonely and isolated at home five days a week so I don't mind at all. My manager is fine if people need to WFH on an office day because of e.g. feeling a bit under the weather or having an appointment. But we are expected to do our specific two days in the majority of the time.

But very few offices jobs are 100% in the office now!

I am in my forties and wouldn’t work for an employer who insisted on 100% in the office with no flexibility.

And I prefer to be in the office! I do probably 80% either in the office or out about at meetings and conferences and trips.

Some roles suit 100% from home. Problems seem to arise when people try to insist they work 100% or close to 100% at home in either roles that don’t suit it or for employers who don’t want it.

Tech, admin and customer support are the jobs that you are most likely to get 100% remote. But law, accountancy, finance etc don’t tend to offer fully remote. It’s hybrid at best.

I don’t do my 60% in the office. I usually do 1 or 2 days (although I work 0.8 and most full timers do 2 days). I manage an international team so being in the office really makes no difference to my work, but makes a huge difference to my home life. I miss bedtime for my 3 under 5s once or twice a week and that’s enough.

All very well if employers are happy with it, but when productivity is down and staff are missing for hours when meant to be working. As with all things, the minority spoil things for the majority.

This is the second thread this week where someone claiming to work for the civil service claims they never go into the office/ they spend their time WFH not actually doing any work. I’m starting to side eye it and wonder whether it’s paid social media PRs trying to influence public opinion into demanding everyone go back in to the office 5 days a week.

For what it’s worth I’m not a civil servant but I deal with a few of them a lot and they are definitely in the office much of the time and are very hard working and dedicated. Many of them have a lot of responsibility despite being quite junior in some cases.

In my personal situation I’m a Director so it would be crazy not to follow the rules unless I want those below me to also not follow them.

If OP is genuine, she’s creating a rod for her own back because her team may decide to have their own little rebellions in different ways and good luck to her trying to discipline them seeing as she blatantly picks and chooses which rules she wishes to follow . Broken windows theory and all that.

Tech, admin and customer support are the jobs that you are most likely to get 100% remote.

Maybe customer support, but there are may tech roles that need someone on site to sort problems at least now and again e.g. we have a tech guy base in our office once a week and he is non stop all day checking things, testing & replacing ports, working out why someone has issues getting on line (which obviously can't be done on line!) etc.

And as for admin well post both in and out, printing, access to cupboards in an office with more than one team, ensuring there's enough stuff like stationery, taking delivery of post & packages, we run a food bank for clients out of our office so someone has to be in to deal with that, writing cheques (yes we do still use them where I am!)... We need to have at least one preferably 2 admins out of a team of 5 in the office every day.

I'm in a professionally regulated function so tend to manage high achievers who can manage their own stuff. I don't think they really have anything to rebel against. They can go in and there will be plenty of colleagues around to hang out with. I'm just not going to join them. We speak every day.

But OP please do something about their working environment! You are a failure of a manager if you let your team work in such grim conditions. You say you are senior - this isn’t hard.

‘professionally regulated function…high achievers…’ sounds like gobbledygook word salad to me. Which dept. of the civil service is ‘professionally regulated’? and regulation is regulation, why would it need to be ‘professional regulation?’ And why would being regulated equal being high achieving? There are many underperforming organisations that are ‘professionally regulated’ that’s one of the reasons regulation/supervision is required.

The rules are ridiculous, as is much if the bs that goes on in work. If the work is done who cares

The people you work for don’t care if you live or die.
.

Yep. They don't even give you a desk of your own any more.

That’s normal and a desk of your own is really not necessary. Why would you need one?

Just make sure you get their viewpoint of whether they would appreciate you being there

A lot of people.

I'm ND, and really struggled with this sort of thing. I forget to book the desk in advance. I don't like not knowing where I'm going to sit. I need everything set up a certain way, or it throws me off.

I think this is one of the reasons behind the increasing number of people getting diagnoses - this idea that we should be able to just slot people in like parts in a machine. Not all of us work like that.

More fool you 🤷‍♀️

I work for the CS and trust me, these people exist. Because there are line managers who don’t tackle it, because quite frankly they are afraid to deal with it, or don’t attend that often themselves. Most of the CS is meant to be 60% but it’s subject to capacity. We don’t have enough desks to do 40% even, so do one day a week and then a 2nd day every month. That’s because they have got rid of many buildings and compressed into one. I manage people across 5 sites in the UK and none have enough space for 5 days a week. I personally do usually go in 5 days a week as I prefer it, but the CS wouldn’t be doing a 5 day week anytime soon purely because of space.

Senior leaders in our dept can now run reports on attendance, I often do for my own teams and then ask my team leaders to have a word. But I know there’s a lot of teams where the seniors don’t want to go in much themselves so don’t. The seniors in my dept never come and sit on the office floor, I personally operate from a stance of do as I do, not what I say, so if i’m going to demand attendance then I need to be seen attending by everyone, hence why every day attendance works good for me. No-one can accuse me of not being visible.

That depends on the job you do! My role cannot be learned on your own, it is vital to co-work with colleagues in order to develop. If I lived closer I'd go in more than the minimum 2 days and a lot of my team do more by choice because they live close by. Not all offices are as crap as yours sounds!

I half agree with you here, certainly on the part about how professional regulation doesn't mean good or high achieving!

But there are many roles and functions within the CS (and local government) which need to abide by professional regulations e.g. accountants, lawyers, many NHS roles, pensions etc. There's even a professional regulation around being a Civil Servant, called "The Civil Service Code"!

To have a place in the office that demonstrates I belong there. But I don't belong there. Property investors just want their buildings filled with warm obedient bodies.

Works well.

Half of them aren't either.

Our teams have to agree by themselves what their office days are. My team consists of really young people and they love coming to the office, most of them come to the office every day. But they are fine with it if I , the “grandmother” of the team, take one or 2 days wfh. I must say I am proud of my team that they like being together and working together that much. It brings a lot of good energy.

Are your managers OK with what you are doing or have they just not noticed that you are never in the office?

If you (and some of your team) working entirely from home is working so well, why not suggest that all employees have the choice to work either completely from home, completely in the office or hybrid working to their personal requirements?

You are framing what you are doing as an act of rebellion, which is an odd stance from a senior manager.

I'm supposed to go in 2 days and I just do 1 unless it specifically suits me to do 2 or there is a defined reason eg F2F training. It may slightly affect my promo chances but tbh I'm pretty senior and would much much rather keep one day in the office than have a promotion 🤣